Hi everyone,
Arthur Lemière Hendriks produced this poem as part of one of his anthologies, To Speak Simply.
I think. Finding out that much took me around half an hour.
The truth is, if you go looking for information about the man's career, it's not really going to yield much in terms of usefulness towards making sense out of this poem. Mr. Sir noticed something incredibly simple, and that was Hendrik's actual global movements and the migration waves Jamaica has experienced in the last 50-100 years.
Considering the title of the poem, that suddenly seemed like an obvious research avenue. Duh.
SO. Here's a link I found that does a pretty good job of staying focused on summing up the migratory patterns and influences of Jamaica throughout its history from pre-to-post-colonial status, right through to more modern statistics in the 1990's and early 2000's.
And since Wiki is the globally acknowledged source of all reliable truth (not), it is with mixed feelings that I suggest this link. It gave fantastic background information on the history of political factors that contributed to much of the main metaphor we discussed in class.
It is also interesting to note that the main character described is a female; the first link I gave you in this post has a section titled "The Feminization of Jamaican Migration" which you may or may not find adds further insight into your awareness of the meanings being expressed. (My first thoughts: Do the females represent a majority or minority? Whichever it is, what other social groups may we infer might be represented as part of the people waiting in line to migrate?)
Hope this helps.
- T. Marcus
P.S. Once again, Mr. Sir is your friend.
SO. Here's a link I found that does a pretty good job of staying focused on summing up the migratory patterns and influences of Jamaica throughout its history from pre-to-post-colonial status, right through to more modern statistics in the 1990's and early 2000's.
And since Wiki is the globally acknowledged source of all reliable truth (not), it is with mixed feelings that I suggest this link. It gave fantastic background information on the history of political factors that contributed to much of the main metaphor we discussed in class.
It is also interesting to note that the main character described is a female; the first link I gave you in this post has a section titled "The Feminization of Jamaican Migration" which you may or may not find adds further insight into your awareness of the meanings being expressed. (My first thoughts: Do the females represent a majority or minority? Whichever it is, what other social groups may we infer might be represented as part of the people waiting in line to migrate?)
Hope this helps.
- T. Marcus
P.S. Once again, Mr. Sir is your friend.
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