‘Birdshooting Season’
BIRDSHOOTING SEASON
Birdshooting season the men make marriages with their guns My father’s house turns macho as from far the hunters gather
All night long contentless women stir their brews: hot coffee chocolata, cerassie wrap pone and tie-leaf for tomorrow’s sport. Tonight the men drink white rum neat. In darkness shouldering their packs, their guns, they leave We stand quietly on the doorstep shivering. Little boys longing to grow up birdhunters too Little girls whispering:
Fly Birds Fly.
From Talking of Trees (Calabash, 1985), copyright© Olive Senior 1985, used by permission of the author.
YES! CLASS, we are here again this week to continue with exam preparation. We are going to spend time enjoying a poem written by a Jamaican country (from a rural, not a city area) woman who has done herself and her nation proud. The topic of this poem is one that is familiar to many of us because each year, from August to October, we who live in rural Jamaica see and hear the men who come to take advantage of the opportunity to legally hunt birds. In this poem, we get an almost behindthe-scenes look at what used to happen and, perhaps, still does in some places before the men set out on the hunt.
Please read Birdshooting Season by Olive Senior now, once. If there are words in it whose meanings you do not know, make use of your dictionary and your parents and grandparents’ knowledge. Read the poem again, and again, if you need to do so. If you are already familiar with this poem, it won’t hurt to read it again even once.
What do you think of the opening lines? They seem rather bold and bald to me, even somewhat humourous. We are told that the men who are involved in the sport of bird shooting marry their guns. Marry their what? Marriage is or should be considered a serious matter. So, the use of the word must have a specific purpose. It speaks of the attitude that the men adopt towards their weapons. They must have taken very good care of them; cleaning and polishing, loading and unloading, oiling and sighting to make sure that their guns are in perfect working order. These men would bond with their guns during the season. They do what is necessary to prepare the guns so that they will work smoothly together for good results. Something else happens in the house of the speaker’s father. Please note that ‘house’, and not home, is the word used, as if the family life which makes a house a home takes second place at this time. We can see why, for it is then that the men who come from different places far away are all asserting their masculinity. You can imagine how they swagger and strut around as they try to outdo each other in telling stories about their successes as bird hunters.
The second stanza informs us of the supporting role played by the women. We hear that ‘contentless’ women are at the house, too. They cook, preparing hot beverages and ‘pones’ while ‘the men drank white rum neat.’ What does this mean to you? Can you picture this scene? The night before the hunt is a special one. The fact that the women are at their tasks all night tells us that this is serious business, wellorganised as well.
Neither the men nor the women sleep. Take a look at the word ‘contentless’ and try to figure out why it is included or used to describe the women. What does it say about the men who drink the white rum ‘neat’? Of course, doing so fits right into the ‘macho’ image that they want to portray, for you do know it means that they did not take the ‘bite’ out of the rum by adding water, or Coke or Pepsi, or any other liquid to soften or weaken the effect of the rum.
In the next verse, which is but two lines, we are told simply that they set out with their packs and guns while it is still dark.
Finally, in stanza four, the narrator, who seems to be a child, enters the action when he/ she stands on the doorstep in the cold to watch the men leave. We get the ambiguity of the children to this development. It is based on their gender. The boys are itching for their time to join in the sport, while the girls are hoping that the men will return empty-handed.
I have a few questions for you, but you will get them in our following lesson. See, you have more time to explore this poem before we continue in ‘class’. Walk good and God bless!