TALKING CARIBBEAN

The following pages are a supplement to the information in the book. This is an interactive site so do please contact us if you have any queries.

‘It’s a real, beautiful, expressive way of talking’

Louise Bennett (Miss Lou) discussing the Creole language

There is a good balance of poems for younger listeners and the variety of content and presentation that makes them relevant across the curriculum. The joy of listening to the rhythm of the language also ensures that Caribbean poems suitable for the top end of KS 2 and KS 3 have plenty to contribute to the younger age groups.

‘The CD will enhance our cross-curricular poetry teaching and enable us to discuss different accents and turns of phrases. We can develop a better understanding of where in the world Caribbean people live and show how far they have come to live in England. We are delighted with some of the poems and can already see how they could be used to make up dances or games for the playground. Thank you producing something that is going to be so useful in class.’

Cassandra Williams, The Albert Pye School, Beccles, Suffolk

Each Caribbean country has local language characteristics due to their varied histories. The Bahamians speak very fast and have their own unique pronunciation as demonstrated in Charlie and Miss Morley’s Goat and Morning Break. The meanings of Creole words and phrases are made clear in the CD readings and the poets use various spellings to make the written language more accessible.

Words with the same meaning

‘th’ is often substituted with ‘d’ as in wid, dey and rader

Plurals can be made by adding dem to a noun – De tree branch dem all start swingin

Dumplins

This poem epitomises Caribbean humour. Try performing it, with or without the music, and sucking your teeth (kissing your teeth as Valerie Bloom describes it) instead of pausing for the commas.

Granny in de Market Place

Bartering and verbal exchanges are all part of the shopping experience.

Yuh fish fresh?

Woman, why yuh holdin’meh fish up tuh yuh nose?
De fish fresh. Ah say it fresh. Ah ehn go say it any mo’

Hmmm, if dis fish fresh den is I who dead an’ gone

For Forest

I have visited the Guyanese rainforest and flew in a small plane from Georgetown to the waterfalls of Kaiteur and Orinduik, on the border with Brazil. From 10,000 feet, the forest looks like an endless carpet of broccoli or curly leaved parsley. As we flew over the rainforest in bright sunshine, several showers of rain brought out a stunning display of rainbows.

The Howler Monkey mentioned in the poem, is known locally as Baboon. They can produce more noise than any other animal, including an elephant or lion.

Charlie and Miss Morley’s Goat

These days jitneys have been replaced by privately owned minibuses that stop when hailed anywhere along the road. Passengers climb in and out to accommodate others entering or leaving the bus. Factors common to all vehicles are the driver, the fare collector and a music system blaring out reggae at all times. See picture gallery

Love Letta (Letter)

The poem recalls English love poetry with ‘dove’, followed by Caribbean images of the girl as a dumplin and gizada. The boy’s thumping heart goes Boogoo, boogoo and the vibrant imagery continues to the end.

Banyan Tree

There is a long tradition of people coming together for formal dances based on European dance forms. The quadrille was a popular dance in St Lucia.

Come mek we    come let us

Anancy

An English nursery rhyme is introduced into this poem about an African folktale character with humorous effect.

Old Men of Magic

Silk cotton trees – the Caribs and Arawaks hollowed out the trunks with fire to make canoes

Morning Break

Miss Della is a skipping rhyme

Tables

This poem was chosen especially for teachers

Song of the Banana Man

This influential song/ poem was written in the 1950s. It is important not only for the content but because the poet makes the Creole text totally accessible for non Caribbean readers. John Crow (Jan cro) is the Jamaican name of a mountain and a local buzzard

Fisherman Chant

Most Caribbean men were fishermen. It is still a leisure activity for young boys before college and education.

Roots

African culture was rooted in traditions passed from generation to generation: thus the ancestors played an especially important part in everyday life.

Lament of a Taino Child

The Taino are a subgroup of the Arawak Indians from South America. The poem movingly describes the fate of so many of the people, but their legacy is enduring. Words we use today are derived from the Taino language:

maracas      iguana      hammock      hurricane

Europeans adopted and adapted many Taino superstitions and legends and copied their implements and techniques, such as bread making, hammock construction and hut building. The wooden framed huts topped with straw, were strong enough to resist hurricanes.

It is a mistake to talk of the Tainos in the past tense. Today they are spread over South America, mostly north of the Amazon, in SW Brazil, Columbia and Venezuela, and on islands such as Jamaica.

See History and Picture Gallery

Jussa Pack dem Bag And Baggage (Colonization in Reverse)

Jamaicans had been migrating since the late 19th century to countries such as Panama, Central America and the U.S.A. In the late 1950s when Britain was suffering from a post war labour shortage, citizens of the previous British Empire, now Commonwealth, were invited to live and work here. Thus people colonized and exploited in previous centuries, were given the opportunity to visit the ‘motherlan’; a term Louise Bennett uses ironically.