Meditation on Yellow

Glossary

TRAVELLERS TALES MEDITATION ON YELLOW El Dorado: Spanish for the golden man; the name given to a mythical city of gold linked to the early history of Guyana. The term is used figuratively to signify the futile search for quick riches. fever-grass: Andropogon citratus; oil grass also known as Tea Grass, or Lemon Grass from its scent; used in cooking and medicine. One of the forty species of the genus Cymbopogon (of the Poaceae family). Yucahuna: The supreme spirit (zemi) of the Tano, the aboriginal people of the Caribbean who were the first native Americans encountered by Columbus. Attabeira: Tano chief female deity; spirit of fertility. guann: Tano metal; a breastplate of guann was the symbol of the cacique or chief. not the Indies/nor Cathay: Refers to the fact that Columbus on his first voyage mistook the West Indies for the Orient. Yellow Peril: A derogatory term used by Europeans from the late 19th century in reference to a perceived threat posed by Chinese and Japanese people flooding into the West. macca: Jamaican word for prickle or thorn, possibly of Arawak origin. cane rows: Sugar cane that is planted in rows; also, a hair style modelled after sugar cane rows. sensimilla: A high grade of ganja (marijuana). golden crystals: A grade of refined sugar. streggeh: Jamaican word for a vulgar woman or street-walker. The trees listed below are often used in street plantings.

Allamanda (Allamanda cathartica), Cassia (Cassia fistula), Poui (Tabebuia spp.), Golden Shower (species of Cassia). All are tropical plants with beautiful golden blossoms. anacondas, boas: Snakes that have mythical qualities. Often likened to the Rainbow Serpent. Punctuation Full stop In conventional punctuation, this device is used to indicate the end of a unit of thought (sentence) and to suggest closure or completion. It is a visual signal to the reader to make a heavy pause. Another significant function of the full stop is to indicate ellipsis or the omission of words from a line sentence or quotation. When this device is used, the omitted part of the line or sentence may be inferred from the general context. poets may use the ellipsis in their work to make the line shorter so it fits the meter, for emphasis so that certain words fall into stress positions and (in the case of modern poets) to create ambiguity. If the ellipsis is positioned at the end of a stanza or poem it could create a sense of incompletion and lack of resolution to the tension in the poem. If it is located within the speech it could suggest omission in thought, that the speaker has been interrupted or that the speaker has trailed off into silence. Round brackets or Lunulae Also called parentheses, this device creates the effect of an aside that can be ironic or sarcastic but very often contains additional information which is intended to modify or clarify ideas that have either gone before or to follow. Sometimes, for easy comprehension of a stanza or paragraph it is useful to temporarily omit the information in parentheses. This does not make such information irrelevant. Rather,

parentheses place emphasis on the information they contain since omitting them can lead to a misreading of the line or paragraph. Gardening Metaphor Gardening entails not only nurturing, tending and propagation of desired plants but also the weeding out of undesirable flora and fauna, whether indigenous or imported, that are perceived to be inappropriate for the garden this poem suggests the limitation of the colonizers control over socio-cultural processes by reference to plants t hat symbolize this defiance of restrictions. Persona A composite of a Taino inhabitant at the arrival of the Europeans and five hundred years after, a chamber-maid cum waiter in a modern hotel Themes: In Mediatation on Yellow, Senior reflects on imperial contact and cultural exchange between Europe and the Caribbean and how this asymmetric relationship persists today in tourism Meditation on Yellow may be considered a protest poem that is narrated from a trans-historical perspective in which the speaker(s) and the historical periods of Spanish and English colonial domination and later the American and European neocolonial domination after independence are conflated and fused to suggest historical continuity of attitudes and behaviours during the colonial and post colonial periods. Section one deals with history during the colonial period five hundred years of servitude and is recounted from the perspective of a Taino Indian present at the point of European contact. This persona is wise in retrospect and suggests that the course of history might have been different had the indigenous peoples been less

docile had I known I would have /brewed you up some yellow fever grass and arsenic Despite this protest, the speakers attitude towards history is not one of bitterness or uncritical condemnation . The speaker accepts that there were specific aspects to the Columbian exchange that were beneficial to indigenous peoples. Section two of the poem, narrated by a service worker in the tourist industry, deals with the perpetuation of attitudes and behaviours of exploitation and cultural hegemony in the post-colonial era and in the personas own experience. An attitude of protest and resistance to these new and more subtle forms of exploitation is conveyed in the speakers often caustic sotto voice comments that suggest historical consciousness.