Abstract
Olive Senior informs us in 'The Poem as Gardening, the Story as Su-Su: Finding a Literary Voice' that Jamaican elders believe the ground is the place where ancestral wisdom is located and they will explain and validate their warning or advice by saying, 'Grung tell me wud' (36). Jamaican linguist/literary critic/poet/and novelist Velma Pollard has put her ear to the ground of Jamaica and shared many important words of ancestral wisdom with us. This was a natural development for the talented girlchild born into an artistic family in Woodside, Jamaica, a rural community rich in folk traditions: her father was a member of a rural drama group; both parents were avid readers; Velma won a First Prize for a poem she wrote at Woodside Elementary School when she was seven; and through the years she and her sister, novelist/sociologist/ and historian Erna Brodber, have read and commented on each other's writings.
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2008
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2008 Mango Publishing. This chapter first appeared in Karl: Monologue...in the Mind of...a Man!!!.
Please note that downloads of the book chapter are for private/personal use only.
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Recommended Citation
Dance, Daryl Cumber. "'Grung Tell Me Wud': An Introduction to Karl." In Karl: Monologue...in the Mind Of...a Man!!!, edited by Velma Pollard, 9-20. London: Mango Publishing, 2008.
Included in
Caribbean Languages and Societies Commons, Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons