PATOIS THURSDAYS.....Jamaican poems, stories and phrases

Mout-amassi - Louise Bennett

Mout-amassi Liza, yuh no
Hear yuh mumma dah call yuh?
Meck yuh mout so galang plang?
Hear yuh mumma duh call yuh!
Yuh mout so fly, yuh mils tell lie.
So member seh me dah warn yuh:
Liza, kibba yuh mout!

De way people wash dem mout pon yuh
Yuh naw go strive, missis;
Far everywhe yuh tun yuh hear
Seh Liza do dat an dis.
Yuh hear dat Liza chat to much,
Yuh hear dat Liza seh,
Yuh hear seh dat is Liza meck
Mass Tom black puss run weh.
Liza, kibba yuh mout!

Yuh meck Miss hlattie husban put
Har sinting outa door,
Yuh meck Sam do fi purpose
An hat up Jem sore toe.
Yuh can gwan chat, but doan figat
Yuh gwine reap what yuh sow.
Liza, kibba yuh mout!

Counta yuh, Dan set him grampa
Duppy pon Sta Rose,
An counta yuh Jane teck grudgeful
An pwile up Fan new clothes;
De way yuh chat yuh meck Jinat
Go obeah Laura nose.
Liza, kibba yuh mout!

Yuh meck dem lock up Tayma fi
So sen her bwoy a school;
Yuh meck dem lock up Geral,
an It tun him mumma fool!
Yuh meck dem bring up Dora,
seh She overwork her mule.
Liza, kibba yuh mout!

Dem mussa put yuh so, missis-
Is weh yuh dah go do?
From me bawn me never see
Nobody chat lacka yuh.
Me hear Miss Della she dah swear
Fi tun yuh mout backa yuh.
Liza Kiba yuh mout!


Interpretation of the poem:

"Mout -amassi" is basically about a girl name Liza who cannot seem to keep her mouth shut. Chatter is the order of her day and anything that happens she informs. She is disgustingly rude and pushes her nose in things that really does not concern her at all.

About Louise Bennett

Louise Bennett was a Jamaican poet and cultural icon. She was born on September 7, 1919, and has been described by many as Jamaica's leading comedienne and the "only poet who has really hit the truth about her society through its own language".

Through her poems in Jamaican patois, she not only raised the dialect of the Jamaican folk to an art level but also captured all the spontaneity of the expression of Jamaicans' joys and sorrows, their ready, poignant and even wicked wit, their religion and their philosophy of life.

Her first dialect poem was written when she was fourteen years old. A British Council Scholarship took her to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where she studied in the late 1940s. After graduation, she worked with repertory companies in Coventry, Huddersfield and Amersham as well as in intimate revues all over England

In 1974, she was awarded the Order of Jamaica. She also received the Norman Manley Award for Excellence in the arts and a honorary Doctor of Letters degree from the University of West Indies. In 2001, she was made a Member of the Order of Merit for her contribution to the development of Jamaican Arts and Culture. She died on July 26, 2006, in Toronto, Canada.



http://www.loiusebennett.com/