Conventional Poetic Structures: Tradition in Gardening in the Tropics Anonymous 12th Grade

In the poetry collection Gardening in the Tropics, Olive Senior instructs readers in the traditions of the Caribbean, like the traditional uses of Annatto and Guinep in her poem ‘Annatto and Guinep’ and the traditions of immigrants in her poem ‘Stowaway’, while abandoning the conventional poetic structures of meter and rhyme in most of her poems. She emphasises the importance of Caribbean traditions in order to teach readers and to highlight the effect a lack of tradition poses on the region today. However, in some of her poems in which she stresses the theme of tradition, there is evidence of these poetic structures, as seen in ‘Marassa: Divine Twins’ and ‘Meditation on Yellow’.

In the poem ‘Annatto and Guinep’, found in the section ‘Nature Studies’, Olive Senior teaches readers about the traditional uses of the plants, without the use of meter and rhyme. Senior starts the poem by saying that in today’s society, no one appreciates Annatto and Guinep like those before did. She lists the various ways they were used before in an attempt to teach readers the customary uses, ‘Country people one time used annatto/ to colour their food […] As for Guinep: that’s worse./ Only children confess they love it.’ She explains how those...