In Bermuda, young men with attitude often affect a Jamaican accent when they're posing, or trying to chop each other up, or something of the sort. So we've come to associate Jamaican patois with criminality. It is, we think, a tell-tale sign of up-to-no-goodness.

That's a mistake. Jamaican Creole is an extraordinary little lingo - the only one I know of in which 16th Century English words and African grammar and sentence constructions mingle happily together like children too young to realise they're different. Jamaicans, who take as much delight in talking as musicians do in making music, can charm their words as the Welch can.

Here's an example - part of a love letter-poem, couched in the loving terms Jamaicans call boonoonoonos, designed to melt the stoniest heart:

Me darlin Love, me lickle Dove,

Me Dumplin, me gizada

Me Sweety Sue, I goes for you

Like how flies goes for sugar.

It's not hard to understand when you get used to it. Some of the words need to be learned… in that verse, lickle, or little, might be new to you. And a gizada is a very tasty pastry with a coconut and almond-flavoured filling.

The lines are part of a longer poem written by one of Jamaica's national treasures, Louise Bennett. To some, she's Mrs Louise Bennett-Coverley, MBE, holder of both Silver and Gold Musgrave Medals from the Institute of Jamaica, the Norman Manley Award for Excellence, the Order of Jamaica and an Honorary Doctorate of Literature from the University of the West Indies. To a very much larger group of people, though, she's Miss Lou, a poet whose mouth is to words as Lester Young's saxophone was to jazz, and a passionate defender of Jamaican Creole.

When she was asked to write something for CARIBANA, the Toronto equivalent of CARIFESTA down south, she wrote:

"Wen de Asian culture and de European culture buck pon African culture in de Caribbean people, we stir dem up an blend dem to we flavour; we shake dem up an move dem to we beat; we wheel an tun dem and we rock dem an we soun' dem an we temper dem and… lawks, de riddim sweet!"

Miss Lou moved to Toronto in the 1980s for the sake of her husband's health. Eric Coverley was a well-known Jamaican actor, radio personality, comic and impresario. He and Sir Florizel Glasspole, who was Jamaica's Governor General for 18 years, until 1993, were a comedy team years ago, known as Eric and Flo. When Coverley died in 1992, Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson said he and Miss Lou were "the Royal family of Jamaican theatre".

After nearly 25 years there, she is almost as beloved for her abilities by the population of Toronto as she is by the population of Jamaica.

If you want to understand Miss Lou's poetry, though, you should take this quick tour of patois and how it is spoken, mostly taken (and heavily paraphrased) from an essay written by Joan McLaughlin of the University of the West Indies.

There is no I and no us. There's me, you and im, she and it and we and dem. If you want to say 'I asked him', in patois you would say me axe im. If you wanted to say 'they jostled us', you would say dem jam we. The reflexives are sheself and demself, not herself and themselves. Mine or theirs are fe me, and fe dem.

In patois, for the most part, you can forget all verb tenses except the present. Me win me case, then, might be I won my case or I will win my case. Tense is inferred from context most of the time, and when it cannot be, then you can add phrases like de odda day, orusen fe (used to).

Plurals, most of the time, aren't used. Two boys is two bway. So many ladies becomes so much lady. Sometimes, when the meaning isn't clear, in patois, you add dem, as in de ooman dem for the women.

There are a bunch of little words that are used a lot - fe, so and sey, for example. They arepronounced fi, as if you left the t off fit, so as if you left the b off sob, and sey, as if it were the first half of sexy.

Fe does a lot of work in patois. You can use it as for, as in as fe dat, instead of as for that. You can use it to make the possessive, as I did a couple of paragraphs ago. And you can use it as to, as in wuss fe come, which is worse is to come.

So means the same as it does in English, some of the time, but it also is used as a kind of connector between different ideas in the same sentence, as in de people get out so lef, as in the people got out and left.

Sey operates like the word that, as in facting, me hear sey storm ah come, which means In fact, I hear that a storm is coming.

Ah, as I used in that last sentence, is another multi-use word. You can use it as I did, to mean is or are. You can use it to introduce an idea, as in ah dat me lub, which means It is that that I love. You can use it to give a sense of progression, as in im ah begin fe talk, something you might say of your baby as he grows. You can use it as a kind of all-purpose preposition. In in ah de midst of, it's in; in de conducta tap ah Arbour Treet, it means at (that's Harbour Street, if you were puzzled); in she go ah Linstead, it means to; and in out ah school, it means of.

There are a bunch of other rules - always use a b for a v, as in dat ooman bex me, which is to say That woman vexes me. The sound suggested by th doesn't exist, and becomes a d - them is therefore dem, and either is eider. Thing becomes ting, and mouth becomes mout. Often (but not always), the s in a word that begins with s is dropped, to turn start into tart. And the t and the d in words that end in t or d are also dropped, making fact become fac and child become chile. Nasal endings like the wn in down, or in town, become ng, making dung or tung.

There are a lot of rules like that, but as Jamaicans say, betta fe gib one shillin dan ten poun, so you ought to be able to use the shilling's worth I've given you to figure the rest out.

Back to Miss Lou. She has written, probably, thousands of poems, starting way back in the 1940s. Many of them were published in the Gleaner, but they've also been published in newspapers and magazines around the world. She has published a dozen books and recorded half a dozen LPs. They're a little hard to find, but if you persevere, you'll eventually pull them out of the woodwork.

I'm taking these samples from Jamaica Labrish (means gossip), which was published by Sangster's Bookshops in 1966.

The first is called Mass Wedding, and it was actually written to help with a campaign in the 1940s, during the Second World War, to stop unmarried women having children. I guess this part of the poem was meant to show how strong the temptation is.

Me kean tap now, Kizzi chile,

Me kean tap now at all.

For de bizniz wey me gat a foot

Dah-meck de war look small.

Me meet one boonoonoonos man

At Matchis Stick last night,

As me clap me y'eye upon de chile,

Me head begin go light

De ongle time him look pon me

Me heart dis go buff-bim

Him nice an tall soh tell ah hooda

Go into jail fe him…

Just in case you didn't catch it, Matchis Stick, the way I figure it, is the Majestic Theatre, which I think is still there, in the eastern part of Kingston.

That terrific film, The Harder They Come, was based on some of the exploits of a real Kingston gunman called Rhygin, who was the object of a police hunt for days and days. Miss Lou wrote about him in a poem called Dead Man, which ends this way:

From de beginning o' Rhygin

Narvasness an terror spread,

An look pon de en o' Rhygin

Bullet-hole up, harmless, dead

Koo dem fus picture him pose fah.

Gun dem ready, blazin lead!

Koo de las picture him pose fah

Eena dead house, lidung dead!

But ah wanda wat would happen

To de picture-man, Miss Sue?

Ef wen him dah-teck de picture

Rhygin duppy did sey "boo"!

Two translations - koo is look and duppy is ghost.

Finally, for obvious reasons, these are some of Miss Lou's verses on the subject of Independence, an idea she didn't seem to like at first, but which has since grown on her, I think.

Independence wid a vengeance!

Independence raisin cain!

Jamaica start grow beard, ah hope

We chin can stan de strain!...

She hope dem caution worl-map

Fe stop draw Jamaica small

For de lickle speck can't show

We Independantniss at all!

Moresomever, we mus tell map dat

We don't like we position

Please kindly tek we out ah sea

An draw we in de Ocean.

No easy-come-by freeniss tings,

Nuff labour, some privation.

Not much of dis an less of dat

An plenty studiration…

Next week, something on a new wave of poetry inspired by Miss Lou!

www.pondblog.com