Louise Bennett Poetry Presentation

Louise "Miss Lou" Bennett Poetry Presentation

By Carine Fobbs, Donna Weeks and Hanh Nguyen

Background

• Ebenezer and Calabar Elementary Schools

Themes and Features

• Jamaican dialect (Patois) or "nation language" (Kamau Brathewaite term)
• Power of women
• Themes of race, color, class and gender divisions in Jamaican society
• Socio-economic pressures
• Issues of gossip and laziness
• Images of the working class
• Uses humour

Louise Bennett is described as the "only poet who has really hit the truth about her society through its own language."

And a major contributor of "valid social documents reflecting the way Jamaicans think and feel and live.”

Miss Lou's View on Jamaican Language

Analysis of "Dutty Tough" page 61-62

Analysis of "Jamaica Oman" pages 62-63

"No Lickle Twang"-- An example of the performative quality in her work

"Colonization in Reverse"

Bibliography

• http://louisebennett.com/
• http://literaturealive.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZjPeMGiOpk&feature=related
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW9GeQF-1bU&feature=relmfu
• http://www.my-island-jamaica.com/louise_bennett.html
• http://www.jamaicans.com/speakja/dictionaryword/index.shtml

Education

• St. Simon's College

• Excelsior College

• Born in Kingston, Jamaica on September 7, 1919
• A Jamaican folklorist, writer, and educator

• Childhood spent in rural St. Mary's, Jamaica=presence of African traditions and folklore

• Friends College (Highgate)

• Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in England

• Honored with the M.B.E., the Norman Manley Award for Excellence (in the field of Arts)

• Received the Order of Jamaica (1974) the Institute of Jamaica's Musgrave Silver and Gold Medals for distinguished eminence in the field of Arts and Culture

• In 1983 the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of the West Indies

• Themes-Poverty, Jamaican economy

• Theme-strength of Jamaican women, power over men

• Images of the working class lifestyle

• Image of women hiding liberation and power

Patoi Vocab

• Free Form is rhyming poetry without a set meter or syllable scheme. Rhythm and word-flow decide where to place the rhymes, although they always end the lines.

• What does the descriptions and juxtaposition in the poem reveal?

Louise "Miss Lou" Bennett Poetry Presentation

• Also in free form poetry format

• Lickle-little
• Tallawah-impressive
• Bickle-food
• Pickney-child/children
• Dutty-dirty

• What opinion does the speaker have toward men?

Oonoo see how life is funny,

Oonoo see da turnabout?

jamaica live fe box bread

Out a English people mout'.

For wen dem ketch a Englan,

An start play dem different role,

Some will settle down to work

An some will settle fe de dole.

Jane says de dole is not too bad

Because dey payin she

Two pounds a week fe seek a job

dat suit her dignity.

me say Jane will never fine work

At de rate how she dah look,

For all day she stay popn Aunt Fan couch

An read love-story book.

Wat a devilment a Englan!

Dem face war an brave de worse,

But me wonderin how dem gwine stan

Colonizin in reverse.

Wat a joyful news, miss Mattie,

I feel like me heart gwine burs

Jamaica people colonizin

Englan in Reverse

By de hundred, by de tousan

From country and from town,

By de ship-load, by de plane load

Jamica is Englan boun.

Dem a pour out a Jamaica,

Everybody future plan

Is fe get a big-time job

An settle in de mother lan.

What an islan! What a people!

Man an woman, old an young

Jus a pack dem bag an baggage

An turn history upside dung!

Some people doan like travel,

But fe show dem loyalty

Dem all a open up cheap-fare-

To-England agency.

An week by week dem shippin off

Dem countryman like fire,

Fe immigrate an populate

De seat a de Empire.