#miss lou

[the-sweet-life-ja]

Google's doodle for our Miss Lou's 103rd Birthday today (7 Sept 2022)

[tobacconist]

Dutty Tuff - Miss Lou Bennett, none other

[blackchildrensbooksandauthors]

New Picture Book Biography

A Likkle Miss Lou: How Jamaican Poet Louise Bennett Coverley Found Her Voice

Nadia Hohn

Eugenie Fernandes

Owlkids

Available at👉🏿 Amazon | IndieBound

Jamaican poet and entertainer Louise Bennett Coverley, better known as “Miss Lou,” played an instrumental role in popularizing Jamaican patois internationally. Through her art, Miss Lou helped pave the way for other poets and singers, like Bob Marley, to use patois in their work. 

This picture book biography tells the story of Miss Lou’s early years, when she was a young girl who loved poetry but felt caught between writing “lines of words like tight cornrows” or words that beat “in time with her heart.” Despite criticism from one teacher, Louise finds a way to weave the influence of the music, voices, and rhythms of her surroundings into her poems. 

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[black-whole]

[hrafnsvaengr]

Bans a Killin — Rt. Hon. Dr. Louise Bennett Coverley, or “Miss Lou”

So yuh a de man me hear bout! Ah yuh dem seh dah teck Whole heap a English oat seh dat Yup gwine kill dialec! Meck me get it straight, mas Charlie, For me no quite understand – Yuh gwine kill all English dialec Or jus Jamaica one? Ef yuh dah equal up wid English Language, den wha meck Yuh gwine go feel inferior when It come to dialec?

Ef yuh cyaan sing ‘Linstead Market’ An ‘Water come a me yeye’ Yuh wi haffi tap sing ‘Auld lang syne’ An ‘Comin through the rye’.

Dah language weh yuh proud a, Weh yuh honour an respec – Po Mas Charlie, yuh no know se Dat it spring from dialec!

Dat dem start fi try tun language From de fourteen century – Five hundred years gawn an dem got More dialec dan we!

Yuh wi haffi kill de Lancashire, De Yorkshire, de Cockney, De broad Scotch and de Irish brogue Before yuh start kill me!

Yuh wi haffi get de Oxford Book A English Verse, an tear Out Chaucer, Burns, Lady Grizelle An plenty a Shakespeare!

When yuh done kill ‘wit’ an ‘humour’, When yuh kill ‘variety’, Yuh wi haffi fine a way fi kill Originality!

An mine how yuh dah read dem English Book deh pon yuh shelf, For ef yuh drop a ‘h’ yuh mighta Haffi kill yuhself!

[the-sweet-life-ja]

[the-sweet-life-ja]

The Hon Louise Bennett-Coverley, OM, OJ, MBE

Location: Gordon Town, Saint Andrew, Jamaica, W.I. | Artist: Basil Watson 

[the-sweet-life-ja]

BANDANA - Jamaica’s National Fabric and Folk Costume

Bandana cloth originated in far off Chennai, in Eastern India. However this light, inexpensive and cool cloth became a symbol of Jamaican national culture after the 1940’s. Bandana’s plaid patterns and colours along with several other symbols became associated with the traditions and heritage of the ordinary Jamaican people.

Prior to that, Bandana has long been associated with Jamaican working women. When India fell under almost complete British control in the 19th Century, the Madras cloth trade proved a cheap fabric for enslaved and Black working class women in the Caribbean. The cloth, however, was worn as a mark of pride and distinction, particularly among market vendors. 

#RespectDUE!!!