Happy New Year from Poets of the Caribbean! Wishing you peace, health, wealth, and happiness for 2012. Thanks for your interest in the blog, your suggestions and feedback throughout 2011. I hope to highlight more poets and share with you inspiring Caribbean poetry in the new year. Enjoy Louise Bennett's Bed-Time Story.
Bed-Time Story
Ah long fi see yuh tell ah short!
Whe yuh deh all dis time?
Dah pickinni yah woan go sleep,
She waan me tell her rhyme.
Mary had a little lamb
- Miss Mattie li bwoy Joe
Go kick May slap pon har doorway -
His feet was white as snow.
An everywhere dat Mary went
- Him modder never know,
An when she ear she ongle seh -
De lamb was sure to go.
She ongle seh de bwoy too bad
An tell May nuffi bawl
- Jack and Jill went up de hill -
An dat was all an all.
May mighta go to hospital
- To catch a pail of water;
Jack fell down and bruck him crown -
Jus like Miss Mattie daughter.
Yuh never know de baby bawn?
Him pa gi him name Marta.
Teng God him drop eento a doze
- An Jull come tumblin after.
Copyright Louise Bennett 1987
From Our Yard. Jamaican Poetry Since Independence. Jamaica 21 Anthology Series. Edited by Pamela Mordecai. Institute of Jamaica Publications Limited, 1987.
Reprinted with permission from the Louise Bennett-Coverley Estate.
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