Antigua and Barbuda / All works
Poetry
Pineapple Rhymes
Veronica Evanson Bernard · 1989
Synopsis
Poems in Antiguan Creole, several of which refer to the Antigua of the thirties and forties, the one in which the author grew up. They tell of the sorrows and joys of ordinary people without embellishing them: the women of Antigua, a mother's lament, the man from the Congo, the woman who practises obeah. The rhythm of the spoken language is their strength, and an Antiguan reader sees in them a sort of time capsule of the island.
Context
The collection appeared in 1989 in Atlanta from Blackwood Press, with illustrations by Eddie Granderson, published off the island like many Antiguan books. The bibliography of Antiguan poetry kept by Wadadli Pen places it between Roy Dublin's collections of the thirties and those of the end of the century. The author later produced a second book of poems. One critic sees in it an Antiguan poem par excellence, for the way it makes the island's language heard.
Who it is for
Verse written in the speech of the island, to be read aloud; the collection is rare and is found mostly second-hand.
Prizes and reception
An Antiguan reader judges it valuable for grasping features of the island's identity that have become elusive.