Tradition in Lorna Goodison's Work
Tradition in Lorna Goodison's Work
Tradition in Lorna Goodison's Work
Goodison’s Work
Presented by Ananda Squire & Ojea Sheckleford
Our rich and varied cultural heritage,
has a profound power to build our
nation.
—SOMEONE FAMOUS
Overview
Hugh Hodges opens his “Start-Over: Possession Rites and Healing Rituals
in the Poetry of Lorna Goodison” with a reference to an interview in which
Frank Birbalsingh reminds the Jamaican poet that her poetry does not function as
solution to the population’s suffering (Hodges 20). Through analyses of a large
number of poems Hodges goes on to demonstrate how Goodison’s poems
nevertheless “became or sought out rituals to restore hope,” and how this was
done by drawing on Jamaican oral tradition as well as out of the conviction in the
power of language. Storytelling and folktales are typical ways in the Afro-
Caribbean context that traditions are passed on and upheld.
Oral Tradition/Folktale
This poem pays tribute to the Jamaican National Hero, Nanny of the Maroon, of
whom not much is known. Many of what we know about her today has been
passed down through oral traditions. Folklore has it that she could catch bullets
and deflect them back at the enemy soldiers.
Peasant Traditions
These can be defined as traditions upheld by the lower class of a society often
related to their lack of wealth and resourcefulness which it calls for.
“Garden of the Woman Once Fallen”
“ O weed powerless
The symbolic use of the broom-weed is particularly apt. Not only is it rooted in
Jamaican folk and peasant tradition; its use suggests at one and the same time
material deprivation - those who can’t afford store-bought brooms have to use the
broom weed for sweeping- and the value and significance of the despised and
apparently insignificant- the lowly broom-weed is called upon to perform an
important function.
Religious Traditions / Rituals
According to Hugh Hodges, Lorna Goodison’s poetry has been concerned with
finding or performing [religious] ceremonies that will both commemorate the past
and engender the new possibilities for the future. Drawing on language and
symbolism of Pocomania, revivalism, Pentecostalism and Rastafarianism. This
was necessary to her as she came to poetic maturity during a period when political
violence threatened to destroy Jamaica.
“Heartease II”
In this extract, the speaker tells readers to repent “catch a mercy rain” and to
confess their sins “ tell a rosary of your ancestor’s name”.