By: Malachi Smith
As we celebrate the centenary of her birth, September 7, 1919, we acknowledge and celebrate the great legacy Louise Bennett-Coverley left us through her poems – our poetry. The story of a people narrated in their voices. It is a story written with verbal wit, deliberacy, passion, skill, competence, satire, laughter and drama. It captures us in all spheres of life; in tramcars, on the pulpits, in markets, in our towns, in our villages, in times of need and despair, sorrow and grief, in our celebrations and deliberations, in our ambiguous moments when we ridicule ourselves as being lesser than our colonial masters and in our times of triumph when we raise our fist collectively in jubilation as “Out of Many One.”
Miss Lou expertly married the African oral tradition with the European written tradition and in the process created a new self – one of pride, as the late Professor Rex Nettleford put it ‘smuddy ness.’ Louise Bennett through her sharp lenses captured her people’s speech and behavior in real time. To reproduce its beauty in organic form, she delved deeply into the past through cultural anthropology to find words and expressions to articulate our collective experiences.
Of course, there were those critical of Miss Lou’s celebration of Jamaican language. She suffered ridicule in the local press and certain sectors of the society. She was not invited to join the Jamaican Poetry League and for a while the Daily Gleaner refused to publish her poems. Her response to her critics at home and abroad was simple, “My main thing is to get people to respect the language.” In her poem 'Bans O’ Killing', Miss Lou address those who wanted to ‘kill dialect’ in favor of standard English. She makes the point that English developed through the years by including several dialects.
Dah language weh you proud o’,
Weh yuh honour and respeck,
Po’ Mass Charlie! You noh know sey
Dat it spring from dialect!
Dat dem start fe try tun language
From de fourteen century,
Five hundred years gwan an dem got
More dialect dan we!
Miss Lou was about sharing our collective story through her poems with the joy and drama of our tongue. She didn’t subscribe to the fenke-fenke way of doing things. The Wordsworth’s ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’, the Shakespeare sonnets of the literary world didn’t cut it for her. She appreciated them but believed firmly in creating a new narrative through her poems that could be understood and enjoyed, that captured the totality and tonality of the Jamaican persona. She wanted us to laugh until wi buss unapologetically. In so doing our heroine, folk poet and performer gave voice to the cultural identity of Jamaicans.
Louise Bennett made poetry accessible to everyone. She made it fun. It was loud, magical, drama, in-your-face poetry that was organic and hypnotic like reggae. It was new. It was the capturing of one big rich folk heritage that was ours to explore and enjoy.
To accomplish her mission, Miss Lou, the cultural anthropologist, embarked on a journey throughout the length and breadth of Jamaica, observing, listening and studying the lifestyle, speech, songs and daily habits and practices of the Jamaican peasantry. She was in love with her people and even more so the beautiful tongue we possessed with its flavors of Africa, Europe and Asia. She celebrated her African heritage more than anything else and was acutely aware that the call and response African griot storytelling style was the foundation of her story – our story. She is rightly credited as being Jamaica’s first dub poet. She gave birth to the Linton Kwesi Johnsons, the Mikey Smith’s, the Jean ‘Binta’ Breezes, the Oku Oonuras, the Paul Keens Douglas and yes, the Malachi Smiths of this world. The use of antithesis and short, sharp rhythm is very distinct in her famous poem:
'DuttyTough'.
Sun a shine but tings no bright;
Doah pot a bwile, bickle no nuff;
River flood but water scarce yaw;
Rain a fall but dutty tough.
Then there is the folk-song rhythm and syncopated fast word play in a poem like 'Pedestrian Crosses'.
If a cross yuh dah-cross,
Beg yuh cross meck me pass.
Dem yah crossin’ is crosses yuh know!
Koo de line! Yuh no se
Car an truck backa me?
Hear dah hoganeer one deh dah-blow!
Louise Bennett – Miss Lou - was a masterful poet and performer with her rhythms, her tricky little cadences, her repetitions, and her clever playing with the language. Her earthliness was infectious. Laughter was the food she fed us, the legacy she gave us, the tool she used to liberate us and make our journey a little lighter. Celebrate her we must. We owe her a debt of gratitude for the pure unadulterated joy she brought us. Thanks for giving us voice Mama.
……………………………………………………………………
Malachi Smith is a celebrated Jamaican dub-poet. His CD’s and books are available at:
Comentarios