Jamaica’s newest laureate to focus on eco-poetics

Olive Senior

Birdshooting Season                         

 

Birdshooting season the men

make marriages with their guns

My father’s house turns macho

as from far the hunters gather

 

All night long contentless women

stir their brews: hot coffee

chocolata, cerassie

wrap pone and tie-leaf

for tomorrow’s sport. Tonight

the men drink white rum neat.

 

In darkness shouldering their packs,

Their guns, they leave.

 

We stand quietly on the

doorstep shivering. Little boys

longing to grow up birdhunters too.

Little girls whispering:

Fly birds Fly.

 

– Olive Senior

In classical times there was a custom in ancient Greece and Rome in which a wreath made of the green leaves of the laurel plant was ceremonially placed on the head of honourees, victors, champions, prize winning poets or playwrights. That ritual practice has survived and although we no longer crown heroes with laurel wreaths, we use the term “laureate” to describe those we honour, reward and celebrate.