Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer

Joan Andrea Hutchinson at the launch of her book 'Meck Mi Tell Yuh' at the Undercroft, UWI, Mona, in December 2004. - Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer

As the memories of Louise Bennett-Coverley flowed at the Jamaica Association of Dramatic Artists (JADA) organised tribute on Sunday at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, two persons asked that her poetry be taken seriously.

Joan Andrea Hutchinson asked that Miss Lou be recognised as a social commentator, saying that "she documented, she chronicled," ahead of doing her own poetic tribute, Tenky Miss Lou.

Wartime poems

"I love her series of wartime poems," Hutchinson said.

And she recalled that "de fus' time me was on stage with Miss Lou up at the university me was nervous. She pat me pon me back an sey 'gwaan chile'."

Mutabaruka said "when we hear Miss Lou we neva tek har serious ... we read har only when we no waan stan' up stiff.

"Miss Lou wasn't just a comic. Miss Lou was a social commentator," he said. And he read a poem to Miss Lou, with the refrain "Miss Lou, we love yu fi true".

Published books

With her work a long-time feature of the annual Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) speech competitions, Miss Lou has several published books. Among them are Humorous Verses in Jamaican Dialect (1942), Jamaican Verses and Folk Stories, Laugh With Louise (1962), Jamaica Labrish (1966) and Anancy and Miss Lou (1979).

Mutabaruka also noted that it is important to have a biography of the poet when the poem is being studied. Referring to his days at the Kingston Technical High School and doing Claude McKay's If We Must Die, he said "I study de poem deh a school an neva know sey is a Jamaican write de poem. I neva even know de man was black."

If We Must Die was used by Winston Churchill as a World War II rallying cry for the British.