Caliban, enslaved by Prospero in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, is a ubiquitous character in Caribbean literature. Described as non-human and dangerous by Shakespeare, Brathwaite uses him to illustrate colonialism’s inhumanity and violence. In the poem, Caliban is reinscribed. Even in the face of the ultraviolence of slavery, Caliban finds room for humanity, for newness, for music.