JOSEPH T. FARQUHARSON


inappropriate to say that Bennett wrote in linguistic and cultural exile;
for despite her writing in a country whose population for the large
part shared her African ancestry, she was estranged because she
promoted a hybrid language and culture which were viewed as corrupt,
and the promulgators of such corruptions were worthy of punishment.
She frequently recalls the fact that she was never invited to a Jamaican
Poetry League meeting, and she was not included in the Edna Manley
edited anthology, Focus, nor McFarlane's critical work, A Literature in
the Making (1956). Delia Jarrett-Macauley states that "The case of Louise
Bennett, the marvellous oral poet, is the most striking. Although she
had published Dialect Verse in 1942, it was not until 1967, when the
Oxford-trained critic Mervyn Morris2 wrote his persuasive essay, 'On
Reading Louise Bennett, Seriously', that attitudes towards the
vernacular started to change." This uncovers the lagging colonial
mentality of not accepting anything unless it is approved by
foreignerss. Bennett herself comments on her literary exile:

 I have been set apart by other creative writers a long time ago because
 of the language I speak and work in. From the beginning nobody ever
 recognized me as a writer. "Well, she is 'doing' dialect;" it wasn't even
 writing you know. Up to now a lot of people don't even think I write.
 They say, "Oh, you just stand up and say these things!" (Scott 98)

 Nonetheless, we will soon see how she skilfully used the same thing
for which she was ostracised (i.e. language) to make an ingrained
impression on the national consciousness.


The Poetics of Bennett

 It is worth noting that the form Bennett uses lends itself to a
contagious musicality, a quality which is shared by the Creole, and put

 2 Morris is indubitably the pioneer in criticism on Bennettian poetry and we
cannot downplay the significant role he has played in changing public opinion of
her work. Nettleford's appraisal of Bennett's poetry takes the form of regular
references to her in his writings, and his introduction to Jamaica Labrish, which
are insightful, but tend to be too general to reveal the true value of the poetry. By
far, Cooper's three articles: 'That Cunny Jamma Oman': The Female Sensibility in
the Poetry of Louise Bennett", "'Noh Lickle Twang': An Introduction to the Poetry
of Louise Bennett", and "Proverb as Metaphor in the Poetry of Louise Bennett,"
have skilfully revealed the potential that exists for serious study of Bennett's poetry.