Wednesday, February 10, 2010

                                   Hon. Louise  Bennett-Coverley (Miss Lou)

                                    late Excelsior and Jamaica Cultural icon.

Excelsorians and other Jamaicans in the Diaspora continue to celebrate the life and work of the Hon. Louise Bennett-Coverley (Miss Lou), as tributes were paid to the cultural icon at the third annual Louise Bennett-Coverley Reading Festival on Saturday (January 30) in Florida.

The event, held at the Broward County South Regional Library in Pembroke Pines, was used to launch this year's Black History Month celebrations.

Following the death of Miss Lou, in July 2006, in Toronto, Canada, the annual Reading Festival, along with the Annual Community Tribute and Scholarship Fundraiser, were started by Director Emeritus of the Jamaica Folk Revue, a South Florida based cultural group, Norma Darby, to honor her contributions to Jamaica's cultural development.

The various ways in which Miss Lou's body of work was influenced by the traditional art forms of Jamaica's culture and heritage, were aptly put into perspective by a distinguished line of panelists, including the Rev Easton Lee, writer, poet and composer, Dr. Susan Davis, actress, poet and educator, L'Antoinette Stines, choreographer and educator and Lilieth Nelson, poet and composer, and former Chairman of the Traditional Folk Forms Committee of the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC).

Dr. Davis spoke of how Miss Lou was able to transcend the ridicule of patois dialect into the language of the day.

The Excelsior-educated Miss Lou, was born on North Street in Kingston on Sept. 7, 1919, the only child of Cornelius Bennett, a baker, and Kerene Robinson, a dressmaker. Her father died when she was young, and she was reared mostly by her mother. Miss Lou was educated in Jamaican schools, and though she was fond of literature, she once described herself as “an average student.”

A social commentator who liberally used Jamaican patois and made famous the Jamaican catchphrase “Walk good,” she brought an overwhelming talent to the stage, radio, television and movies. She also was a presenter on the BBC’s Caribbean Service.

In 1936 she made her first public appearance, on Christmas Day at a concert, reciting a poem in Jamaican dialect. She was presented a prize of two guineas by the impresario Eric Winston Coverly, better known as Chalk Talk, who became her husband in 1954. She used the money to buy a pair of shoes. She continued to write in dialect, following in the footsteps of the well-known Jamaican poet Claude McKay, although he only flirted with the style. Not surprisingly, Ms. Bennett was ostracized by educated Jamaicans who saw the local patois as inferior to the Oxford English they tried to speak.

The Jamaica  Gleaner refused at first to publish her poems, but later paid her for a regular Sunday column, which became popular. Her published verse originated mostly as print or radio journalism, and her monologues often referred to the news, with shrewd social and political commentary. She invented the character of Aunty Roachy on the radio to ridicule the authorities with wit, sometimes ending her monologues with local proverbs.

Speaking on the "Elements of Drama/ the Spoken Word", Dr. Davis said that Miss Lou was an innovator who gave status to the Jamaican language using the colourful, mastery of the dialect to address the thoughts and feelings of the Jamaican people.

Arguing that her music revealed a tapestry between her poetry and the Jamaican music, Ms. Nelson illustrated the balance, the rhythm, melody, harmony and syncopation that Ms. Lou carefully used, through music, to reflect on the social life of the Jamaican people.

Speaking on the "Elements of Ancestral Teachings", Mr.Lee, one of Jamaica's foremost voices on its cultural development, also spoke of his memorable learning experiences with Miss Lou and described her as part of the national landscape.

Lauding the organizers of the annual Reading Festival, Ms. Stines appealed to the audience that they also had a responsibility to help keep alive the legacy of Miss Lou, so her work can live on with generations to come.

The evening's entertainment included a medley of Jamaican folk songs performed by the Jamaica Folk Revue and the Tallawah Mento Band, both locally based cultural groups.

Consul General, Sandra Grant Griffiths, expressed gratitude to the Library for setting the stage for a series of events celebrating Black History Month.

She noted that the Library continues to play an increasingly significant role as a repository and expositor of the community's diverse cultural offerings, including that of the Jamaican and wider Caribbean Diaspora.

Jamaica Information Service