Writing Feedback / CAPE poetry essay, experiences of trauma in the Caribbean [3]

Prompt: "In Gardening in the tropics, Olive Senior uses the resources of poetry to explore experiences of trauma in the Caribbean"

With reference to at least THREE poems, discuss the extent to which you agree with this statement.

Poetry is often viewed as an outlet for emotional anxiety, that elicits an emotional response, which often is closely linked to the poet's ability communicate issues that are sometimes connected to one's culture. These issues are often fragments of the oppression and hardships that a culture has suffered. This is especially true of Jamaican poet Olive Senior, who 'explore experiences of trauma,' in many of her poems, such as "Meditation of Yellow," "Meditation on Red" and "Hurricane Story, 1951," through her skilful use of structure, tone and literary tropes.

In "Mediation on Yellow," Senior details an anticolonial attitude towards the "five hundred years of servitude" that the persona has suffered from. But also, highlights the neo-colonial ambitions associated with the tourism industry, similar to the "sun-stoned Frederiksted the first Freeport to die for tourism, strolling at funeral pace," as in Walcott's "The Virgins." Clearly, Senior evinces feelings of uneasiness associated with the inability to cope with this "fair exchange," and further stresses the mental distraught experienced by this appropriation.

These feelings are effectively portrayed through her use of structure within the poem. Her anaphoral repetition of 'want' and 'give' create a tense and abrupt mood within the poem, that shed light on the level of frustration that the persona feels, what Jordan Stouck calls a "tautological experience." These feelings are further cemented by ...

However, Senior highlights ways of coping with this trauma, that is, through hybridization/creoloization... Even the conceit of yellow she develops becomes a sort of 'hybrid' for dealing with past experiences- racial segregation ("No Yellow Peril here"), biological differences ("our piss was exactly the same shade of yellow"), ethnic cleansing ("the only survivors/on yellow-streaked soil"). When coupled with her extensive use of feminine endings (notice her use of "Cathay" rather than China), which add a feeling of tranquility to the poem. It shows a sense of resignation to the previous ordeals experienced, and means of moving on from these perturbed feelings. The couplet, which contains a feminine rhyme, serves as a refrain to all the anxiety previously expounded on by repetition, further compounded by the use of alliteration. The sonorant 'l' sounds in "lump it/or leave it," and 's' sounds in "something soothing" cement this sense of resignation.

However, Senior also describes other types of trauma experienced in the Caribbean, particularly those associated with the Caribbean woman, especially when displaced from one's homeland.

Senior's use of intertextuality within "Mediation on Red," effectively depicts many concerns associated with the female postcolonial writer. ... the sympathetic portayal of Rhys allows Senior to establish a rapport between the reader and Rhys. By doing so she allows a level of emotional involvement to permeate, and allows one to understand "[the] blue murder in my[Rhys] wicked heart" as well as the overall feeling of being 'a doormat in a world of boots' (Rhys). As Senior, herself notes:

The myth of the black matriarch projects an image of the
Caribbean woman as strong and powerful. But the myth disguises the fact of her powerlessness in the wider
society... the 'powerful' Caribbean woman is still socialized according to traditional lines. (Shades of Empire in
colonial and postcolonial Literature)

But, intertextuality is also used as an appropriate structural device. It helps to create a theme of recursion, or rather a sort of mise en abyme effect within the poem. Rhys, who created (creolized) works, and even used intertextuality in some of her works, is referenced to in Senior's work. Which not builds on motifs of hybridization and continuation - "for that craft/ you launched/is so seaworthy/tighter/than you'd ever been/dark voyagers like me can fell free." But, like the bracketed asides, which expound on suppressing Senior's "univocal" control. The use of intertextuality, serves to empower Rhys, who unlike the persona's mother "who hardly ever spoke" in "Hurricane Story, 1944," gains a voice.

In the same vein, humour within her poems also serve as a coping mechanism for feelings of inadequacy and torment, this is obvious in her poem "Hurricane Story, 1988."

I wasn't finished, i sort of gave up, please tell me what you guys think. here's a link to one of the poems international.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index. php?obj_id=603&x=1