Colonization in Reverse

I thought long and hard about the dialect spelling the poet uses in her poem, and finally decided to shorten the poem to its most important story line and leave the dialect spelling.  There are notes at the end for difficult constructions.


Wat a joyful news, Miss Mattie,
I feel like me heart gwine burs'  (1)
Jamaica people colonizin'
Englan' in reverse

By de hundred, by de tousan'(2)
From country and from town
By de ship-load, by de plane load
Jamaica is Englan' boun' (3)

What an islan'! What a people!
Man an woman, old and young
Just a pack dem bag an baggage (4)
And turn history upside doun'

oonoo see how life is funny
oonoo see da turnabout?
..............
What a devilment a Englan'
Dem face de war and brave de worse
But me wonderin' how dem gwine stan' (5)
Colonizin' in reverse.

by Dame Louse Bennett

Louise Bennett is a Jamaican Poet who has been knighted and the title "Dame" is
the feminine equivalent of "sir"

(1) I feel like my heart is going to burst
(2) by the thousand
(3) England bound
(4) pack their bag and baggage
(5) how they're going to stand

photo by your mom while working in Tumaco Colombia

Love Poem

In Southern France live two old horses,
High in the foothills, not even French,
But English, retired steeplechasers
brought across to accept an old age
Of ambling together in the Pyrenees.
At times they whinny and kick
At one another with impatience,
But they have grown to love each other.

In time the gelding grows ill
And is taken away for treatment.
The mare pines, pokes at her food,
Dallies on her rides until the other
Comes home
                    She is in her stall
When the trailer rumbles
Through the gate into the field,
And she sings with impatience
Until her door is opened.
                   Then full
Of sound and speed, in need of
each other, they entwine their necks,
Rub muzzles, bumping flanks
To embrace in their own way.
Together they prance to
The choicest pasture,
Standing together and apart,
To be glad until
They can no longer be glad.

By Paul Zimmer, from Crossing to Sunlight Revisited
University of Georgia Press.
Quoted in "Writers Almanac' PBS, Read by Garrison Keillor

Category :  "The Good Earth"

Thanks to Amy for the beautiful picture

Simply There

Tonight, I'm going to 
my father's birthday party.


My mother will prepare 
his favourite meal
and best-loved cake.
And each of us
will bring a gift 
to help him celebrate.


But I know my father well.
We could come empty-handed,
and he would never care.


Surrounded by his children
and their children too,
his face will show
the gift he really 
treasures most
is simply that we
are there.


Rae Turnbull


classification:  Home and Family

Extracts from "English con Salsa"

Welcome to ESL 100, English Surely Latinized,
inglés con chile y cilantro,
English as American as Benito Juarez.
Welcome muchachos from Xochicalco,
learn the language of dólares and dolores
of kings and queens,
of Donald Duck and Batman,
Holy Toluca!
In four months you'll be speaking like George Washington,
In four weeks, you can ask, "More coffee?"
In two months you can say, "Can I take your order?"
In one year you can ask for a raise, cool as the Tuxpan River

Welcome, muchachas from Teocaltiche,
in this class we speak English refrito,
English con sal y limon.....

When a teacher from La Jolla or a cowboy from Santee
asks you "Do you speak English?"
you'll answer  "Sí
yes, simón, of course.  I love English!"
...
excerpts from "English Con Salsa"
by Gina Valdez "Cool Salsa:  bilingual poems about growing up Latino in the US"  Lori Carlson Editor, 1995

I love this poem, I live it every day I teach Spanish or English!

picture from latino foxnews

Extract from "The Cattle Country" by E. Pauline Johnson

Foothills to the Rockies lifting
Brown, and blue, and green
Warm Alberta sunlight drifting
Over leagues between.

That's the country of the ranges,
Plain and prairie land,
And the God who never changes
Holds it in His hand.

by E. Pauline Johnson
One of Canada's most popular and successful writers at the turn of the 19th century.
Born to a Mohawk Native-Canadian father and an English mother, she used the Mohawk name Tekahionwake.
photo of the Qu'appelle Valley, Saskatchewan

poem category : The Good Earth

Welcome to Your Mom's Poetry

In grade 4,
I collected the first poem I intended to save forever.
And since then, the file just gets thicker and thicker.
I intend them to get them in an electronic form to give to everyone someday,
but I keep adding notes,
and background to some of the obscure ones,
and searching for author's names,
and verifying
and I haven't closed my collection yet.

Here are a few of my favourites
Just for you