Louise bennett coverley biography

Jamaican writer, folklorist and educator (1919–2006)

"Louise Bennett" redirects here. For the Irish suffragette and trade unionist, see Louie Bennett.

Louise Simone Bennett-Coverley or Miss LouOM, OJ, MBE (7 September 1919 – 26 July 2006), was a Jamaican poet, folklorist, writer, and educator.

Louise bennett coverley biography

Writing and performing her poems in Jamaican Patois or Creole, Bennett worked to preserve the practice of presenting poetry, folk songs and stories in patois ("nation language"),^[2] establishing the validity of local languages for literary expression.^[3]

Early life

Bennett was born on 7 September 1919 on North Street in Kingston, Jamaica.^[4] She was the only child of Augustus Cornelius Bennett, the owner of a bakery in Spanish Town, and Kerene Robinson, a dressmaker.

After the death of her father in 1926, Bennett was raised primarily by her mother. Bennett attended elementary school at Ebenezer and Calabar, continuing to St. Si