Between The Pages
Louise Bennett - Jamaica Labrish
By RT
Mar 3, 2005, 5:21pm

Jamaican Labrish  is the unique production of the Jamaican Folk Icon Louise Bennett Coverley. Louise Bennett has been described variously as Jamaica’s leading comedienne, as the “only poet who has really hit the truth about her society through it’s own  language”, and as an important contributor to her country of “valid social documents reflecting  the way Jamaicans think, feel and live.”

Louise is all these things and more, for her understanding and feeling for the language which most Jamaicans speak has already carved for her a well earned place in the infant  nation’s cultural history. Through her poems in the vernacular, she has raised the picturesque  dialect  of the Jamaican folk to an art level which is acceptable to and appreciated  by all in Jamaica.

In her poems she has been able to capture all the spontaneity  of the expression of the Jamaican’s joys and sorrows, his ready, poignant and even wicked wit, his religion and his philosophy of life.

A British  Council Scholarship took her to the royal academy of dramatic art where she studied in the late forties. After graduation  she worked with repertory companies  in Coventry, Huddersfield and Amersham  as well as in intimate  revues all over  England.

On her return to Jamaica she taught drama to youth  and adult groups both social welfare agencies and for the University of the West Indies Extra Mural Department. She has lectured extensively  in the United Kingdom on Jamaican Folklore  and music. She has represented Jamaica many times abroad – most recently at the royal common wealth Arts Festival held in Britain (1965).