Olive Senior's work mainly focusses on life and strive in the Caribbean. Gardening in the Caribbean is a collection of poems that deal with political strive, personal dilemmas and general life situations for common people. When asked why she focusses so strongly on her heritage in her work, she answered that she does not want to exclude any races from her work, but that she can only work with what she is, which is Jamaican. The book "Gardening in the Caribbean" is especially interesting in the fact that it takes the initial phrase "Gardening in the Caribbean" and builds the narrative with the concept of horticulture. The following paragraphs will summarize three of the prominent poems within the book "Gardening in the Caribbean".
Brief Lives
Brief Lives deals with how political conflict is solved. The poem is told in the viewpoint of an unknown character, who tells us about what you find when tending to your garden. The story starts with the foreshadowing sentence "You'll never know what you'll turn up". Following this, the mentioning of bones sets the scene for the poem. Going forward the situation is described as piles of bones of those that have been forgotten are turned up. They are found in such big amounts that some people say that volcanoes spew them out, pile on pile. After this gruesome start the character goes back talking about his or her own small garden, where only a few skeletons are ever found.
The narrator explains about the last one that has been found, a young boy who did not know where to go and ended up on the wrong persons property. This reference to lethal politics is enhanced with the mentioning of growing graveyards. The poem ends with the description of the latest big incident. A drug lord was killed and put to rest with a big funeral. Guns were shot and women and girls attended in their best dress.
The Tree of Life
The tree of life poem deals with mythical creation and sustainable farming practices. The poem starts, told from a similar unknown source, by explaining the myth of creation of all food crops. It is explained that in the beginning all that there was was one tree. This tree however burned and nothing was left to sustain humans. The creator took pity and planted another tree that had all the crops on it, which was found by a pig. However, the pig was selfish and did not want to share the bountiful crops with others. The people realized something was amiss and sent other animals to find out about the pigs secret. After the woodpecker and other animals failed by being too obvious, the rat succeeded. However, the rat was as selfish as pig and only threats of death made it reveal the tree. All was good, till the creator told the people to cut the tree down and plant the individual branches, creating the crops.
The poem then makes a jump to the modern times, when the narrator explains that he or she was always for mixed planting. The poem explains that agricultural officers try to change peoples minds to only plant one crop to make it easier for export. However, the narrator thinks that only young people would be fooled by that trick. He or she considers the times when disaster struck in form of a draught or a pest. What would those people with just one crop eat then? The poem ends with the narrator referring to the creators plan. He or she is sure that it is the right thing to do to plant everything one needs together.
Tropic Love
Tropic Love, unlike other poems of the book, does not start with "Gardening in the Tropics". It also differs in being told by a character that is identified as a woman by the pronouns she uses. It tells the story of a relationship that is connected to a livelihood. The short poem is a plea of a female character to her lover.
The poem starts out with the discovery that the relationship between her and her lover has changed, as no flowers or present for the children are brought anymore. She continues by asserting that the lack of affection has turned her heart to stone. After this the main argument of the poem starts with the words "but I can't put that into a pot". The narrator goes on in telling her lover/former lover that if he wants to love her he has to love her family too, or leave to fight for their own survival. She goes on that she has heavy duties that need tending, like washing clothes and helping her lady, which means she is in servitude. All this leaves her little time for idle play. The poem ends with her challenging her lover that words of love are only worth anything if they come with material goods.
