Jamaican Market by Agnes Maxwell-Hall
Today, our Year 5 reading buddies came to visit us in Year 1. They taught us a poem as part of our learning about fruits from the Caribbean. This poem was about a market in Jamaica. They taught us the poem with actions and a beat and we got to perform it in the playground at the end of the session.
The poem went like this:
Honey, pepper, leaf-green limes,
Pagan fruit whose names are rhymes,
Mangoes, breadfruit, ginger-roots,
Granadillas, bamboo-shoots,
Cho-cho, ackees, tangerines,
Lemons, purple Congo-beans,
Sugar, akras, kola-nuts,
Citrons, hairy coconuts,
Fish, tobacco, native hats,
Gold bananas, woven mats,
Plantains, wild-thyme, pallid leeks,
Pigeons with their scarlet beaks,
Oranges and saffron yams,
Baskets, ruby guava jams,
Turtles, goat-skins, cinnamon,
Allspice, conch-shells, golden rum.
Black skins, babel – and the sun
That burns all colours into one.
