the Alps Still keeps a purple-blue flower On the top of its straight and slender stem. 30 Bog-asphodel, deep-gold, and comely in form, Th e queer, almost diabolical, sundew, An d when you leave the bog for the stag moors and the rocks Th e parsley fern?a lovelier plant Tha n even the proud Osmund a Regalis3 ? 3 5 Flourishes in abundance Showing off oddly contrasted fronds From the cracks of the lichened stones. It is pleasant to find the books Describing it as 'very local.' 40 Here is a change indeed! Th e universal i s the particular. 1955
Another Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries1
It is a God-damned lie to say that these Saved, or knew, anything worth any man's pride. They were professional murderers and they took Their blood money and impious risks and died.
2. The butterwort, a genus of small herbs whose fronds. leaves secrete a sticky substance in which small 1. Cf. A. E. Housman's 'Epitaph on an Army of insects are caught. Mercenaries' (p. 1953), to which this is a 3. The flowering, or royal, fern; a plant with large response.
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BENNETT: JAMAICA LANGUAGE / 246 9
5
In spite of all their kind some elements of worth
With difficulty persist here and there on earth.
1935
LOUISE BENNETT 1919-2006
Louise Bennett, the preeminent West Indian poet of Creole verse, was born and grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, in the British West Indies, her mother a dressmaker, her father a baker. After she had published her first book of poetry, Dialect Verses (1942), she attended London's Boyal Academy of Dramatic Art. As 'Miss Lou' she won a mass following in the Caribbean through her vibrant stage performances of her poetry and of folk song; her weekly 'dialect' poems published from 1943 in Jamaica's national newspaper, the Gleaner; her radio show, 'Miss Lou's Views' (1966?82); and her children's-television program, 'Ring Ding' (1970?82).
Bennett helped dismantle the view that Jamaican English is a corruption of Standard English, a prejudice she lambastes in radio monologues such as 'Jamaica Language' and in poems such as 'Dry-Foot Bwoy,' which humorously juxtaposes a metaphor-rich Creole with a hollowly imitative British English. From a young age she felt the humor, wit, and vigor of Creole were largely untapped possibilities for writing and performing poetry, even though this commitment to Jamaican English prevented her from being recognized as a poet until after the black cultural revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s. In her poetry she often assumed the perspective of a West Indian trickster, such as the woman who cunningly subverts gender and geographic hierarchies in 'Jamaica Oman [Woman].' Bennett made wily and ebullient use of received forms, employing the ironic possibilities of dramatic monologue, the contrasts and inversions afforded by the ballad stanza, and the time-tested wisdom and pith of Jamaican proverbs. Both on the page and in her recorded performances, Bennett's vital characters and robust imagination help win over readers unfamiliar with Jamaican English, who can join in the laughing seriousness of poems such as 'Col
onization in Reverse,' which ironically inverts Britain's xenophobic apprehension at the postwar influx of Jamaican immigrants, while also casting a suspicious eye on some Jamaicans' reverse exploitation of their exploiters. No one is safe from the multiple ironies and carnivalesque irreverence of Bennett's verse.
Jamaica Language1
Listen, na!
My Aunty Roachy seh dat it bwile2 her temper an really bex' her fi true
anytime she hear anybody a style we Jamaican dialec as 'corruption of the
English language.' For if dat be de case, den dem shoulda call English Lan
guage corruption of Norman French an Latin an all dem tarra4 language what
dem seh dat English is derived from.
Oonoo s hear de wud? 'Derived.' English is a derivation but Jamaica Dialec
is corruption! Wha t a unfairity!
1. Originally broadcast sometime between 1979 3. Vexes, and 1981, this radio monologue has been reprinted 4. Other. from Aunty Roachy Seh (1993), ed. Mervyn Morris. 5. You (plural). 2. Boils.
.
247 0 / NATION AND LANGUAGE
Aunty Roachy seh dat if Jamaican Dialec is corruption of de English Language, den it is also a corruption of de African Tw i Language to, a oh!
For Jamaican Dialec did start when we English forefahders did start musan- boun'' we African ancestors fi stop talk fi-dem African Language altogedder an learn fi talk so-so7 English, because we English forefahders couldn understan what we African ancestors-dem wasa seh to dem one anodder when dem wasa talk eena dem African Language to dem one annodder!
But we African ancestors-dem pop8 we English forefahders-dem. Yes! Pop dem an disguise up de English Language fi projec fi-dem African Language in such a way dat we English forefahders-dem still couldn understan what we African ancestors-dem wasa talk bout when dem wasa talk to dem one annodder!
Yes, bwoy!
So till now, aldoah plenty a we Jamaica Dialec wuds-dem come from English wuds, yet, still an for all, de talkin is so-so Jamaican, an when we ready we can meek it soun like it no got no English at all eena it! An no so-so Englishtalkin smaddy cyaan9 understan weh we a seh if we doan want dem to understan weh we a seh, a oh!
An we fix up we dialec wud fi soun like whatsoever we a talk bout, look like! For instance, when we seh sinting 'kooroo-kooroo'1 up, yuh know seh dat it mark-up mark-up. An if we seh one house 'rookoo-rookoo'2 up, it is plain to see dat it ole an shaky-shaky. An when we seh smaddy 'boogoo-yagga', everybody know seh dat him outa-
