My Perfect Future Husband

Hugh Doston (“Dossie”) Carberry was born July 12, 1921, the son of sir John Carberry, a former Chief Justice of Jamaica, and Lady Georgina Carberry, in Montreal, Canada. He came to Jamaica in infancy and spent most of his life there. He had his primary education at Decarteret school in Mandeville, Jamaica and then attended Jamaica College. After working with the Civil Service, to which he qualified as second out of over 100 applicants, Carberry went to St. Catherrine College, Oxford University, where he obtained his B. A. and B. C. L.. He read Law at Middle Temple and was called to the Bar in 1951, then returning to Jamaica to engage in private practice. In 1954, Carberry married Dorothea, and they had two sons, Martin and John, and a daughter, Christine. In addition to his career in law, Carberry was a poet and gave outstanding service in the cultural field, being a member of the Managing Committee of the Little Theatre since 1951. A devout Christian, he was also a pillar of the Providence Methodist church as Class Co-leader. Carberry was Clerk to the Houses of Parliament from 1969-1978 and a member of the commonwealth Parliamentary Association. He was appointed Judge of the Jamaican court of appeal in 1978 and served for a decade. H. D. Carberry died on June 28, 1989. SYNOPSIS

The poem tells of the weather conditions in Jamaica although it does not have the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter. The weather conditions of golden sunny days and wet rainy days are just as good and are almost equivalent to the four seasons. VOCABULARY

WORD| MEANING|
Lush| Healthy growth|
Magnificently| Wonderfully, grandly, beautifully|
Swish| The sound made by moving water|
Gullies| Channels cut out in the earth by persistent rainfall| Struggling| Fighting to survive; moving with great physical effort| Fade| Lose their colour|
Fallow| Left bare (in order to recover natural fertility)| paved| Covered|

UNDERSTANDING THE POEM
Lines 1 to 10
The poet tells about his homeland , Jamaica and rejoices the beauty of this island. Jamaica has no seasonal changes. It has a tropical climate which is hot and wet throughout the year. The days of golden sunshine are glorious and magnificent. The are many canefields in Jamaica as sugar is one of the main exports in this country. Lines 11 to 15

In the ending of the poem, the poet tells us his favourite time – days when the flowers of mango trees and logwood blossom. He uses imagery of sound and smell to illustrate abundant life and activity in the bushes when the ‘sound of bees and the scent of honey’ add to the charm and beauty if Jamaica. He describes the fields filled with lovely yellow buttercups. All this happens when the rains have stopped and the beauty if nature emerges once again. THEMES

* Beauty of nature
* Appreciation of one own country
* Appreciate nature

MORAL VALUES
* We should appreciate what we have in our own country
* We should not long for what we do not have.
* We should appreciate our homeland.
* We should appreciate the beauty of nature.

TONE,MOOD, ATMOSPHERE
* Appreciative and happy
* Carefree and light-hearted
* Sense of beauty
POINT OF VIEW
* Third person point of view

LANGUAGE AND STYLE
* Simple and easy to understand the language
* Clear and descriptive
* Simple style with no rhyming scheme

POETIC DEVICES
* Imagery – e.g. ‘gold sun’, ‘lush green fields’, ‘trees struggling’ * Alliteration – e.g. ‘sways and shivers to the slightest breath of air’ * Symbols – e.g. ‘gold sun’ – symbol of summer, ‘rains’ – symbol of winter * Contrast – e.g. ‘beauty’ or summer is compared with ‘rains’ or winter * Figurative Language – Simile – ‘rain beats like bullets’ * Metaphor – e.g. ‘the buttercups paved the earth with yellow stars’ * Personafication – ‘buttercups have paved the earth’ … buttercups have been personified as having laid tiles * Onomatopeia – e’g ‘swish’