The emphasis on voice and oral traditions discussed in the previous chapter relates not only to language but also to the form and structure of literary works. We have seen how Chinua Achebe contrasts oral history and narrative with the written history planned by the British District Commissioner, not only in terms of content but also in terms of a form which is attentive to its immediate audience and which develops organically rather than according to a rigidly conceived structure. However, a comparison between Louise Bennett's and Mikey Smith's performed poetry also shows that works which rely on oral performance can vary from the conventional ballad form used by Bennett to the more ‘natural’ and flexible verse stanzas employed by Smith, even though both poets rely on formulas and conventions which will be recognized by their audiences. And like Achebe, Kamau Brathwaite, Les Murray and Raja Rao, both poets create hybrid forms, which draw on literary as well as oral traditions.

Just as postcolonial writers and critics have argued passionately about whether or not their worlds and experiences can be articulated adequately in the language of the colonizer, and the extent to which a hybrid or Creole language has the resources to express a full and nuanced range of feeling and thought, so, too, they have disputed, though perhaps less passionately, whether forms created within the English literary tradition are appropriate to postcolonial societies.