Stewart Brown

Proudly wearing the rosette of my skin

I strut into Sabina

England boycotting excitement bravely

something badly amiss.

Cricket. Not the game they play at Lords,

The crowd- whoever saw a crowd

At a cricket match? – are caged

vociferous partisans, quick to take offence.

England sixty eight for none at lunch.

‘What sort o battin dat man?

Dem kaaan play cricket again,

praps dem should-a-borrow Lawrence Rowe!’

And on it goes, the wicket slow

as the batting and the crowd restless.

‘Eh white bwoy, how you brudders dem

does sen we sleep so? Me pay me monies

fe watch dis foolishness? Cho!’

So I try to explain in my Hampshire drawl

about conditions in Kent,

about sticky wickets and muggy days

and the monsoon season in Manchester

but fail to convince even myself.

The crowd’s loud ‘busin drives me out

skulking behind a tarnished rosette

somewhat frayed now but unable, quite,

to conceal a blushing nationality.

Summary

The persona is an Englishman who in in Jamaica. He is at Sabina Park because he is watching the cricket match between Jamaica and his home team. The persona is proud. But he is uneasy. He realizes that his team is abstaining from any exciting gameplay, and that the pace of the match is slow. He notices that the cricket at Lords and Sabina Park are different. In Jamaica, the crowd is rowdy and huge, this is unlike Lords. Lords is in England and because cricket is considered a ‘gentleman’s game” in that country, the crowd is less rowdy. But the huge crowd in Jamaica is restless and unimpressed with the slow pace of the English team. Aside from the team on the field, the persona appears to be the only white man in the stadium. He becomes the target of the restless crowd of spectators who expected to see an exciting game but instead they must contend with the poor performance of the English team.

Mood

The mood here is tense and frustrated.

Tone

The tone is one of frustration (from the West Indian attendees) and embarrassment (the British man).

Analysis

“Proudly wearing the rosette of my skin/ I strut into Sabina”

The pride of the Englishman becomes clear as he walks in. The poet uses “strut” which shows the arrogance and sense of self-importance in his walk.

“England boycotting excitement bravely, something badly amiss.”

These lines show sarcasm as the English team is ‘boycotting excitement bravely’ as though they are valiant warriors of some sort, but really, they are performing very poorly and producing an unexciting game. ‘Something badly amiss’ suggests that this is very different from what happens in England. These lines are also a pun. The poet includes the play on words to mock the poor performance of the two English cricketers: Geoff Boycott and Dennis Amiss.

“Cricket. Not the game they play at Lords, the crowd- whoever saw a crowd at a cricket match? – are caged vociferous partisans, quick to take offence.”

The persona notices a very big difference between the cricket here and the cricket at Lords. He uses a rhetorical question, to show that the crowd at Sabina is huge and rowdy, and not like the crowd at a cricket match at Lords in England. He notes that the people ‘are caged vociferous partisans.’ This suggests that the crowd is kept behind some form of metal bars as they watch the match. The Englishman sees this as different from the unrestrained, free park at Lords. This line also shows that the crowd is boisterous and shameless in support of the West Indies team. It is also suggested that the crowd becomes offended when anything is said against their team.

“England sixty-eight for none at lunch. ‘What sort o’ battin dat man? Dem kaaan play cricket again, praps dem should-a-borrow Lawrence Rowe!’ “

At lunch, the score is very low, and the crowd shows their dissatisfaction with this unimpressive show. One Jamaican speaker notes: “praps dem should-a-borrow Lawrence Rowe.” This statement alludes to the well-known prolific Caribbean batsman at the time. The dialect of the Jamaican speaker directly contrasts with the persona’s standard English. His utterance shows the dialect which shortens words and omits letters. One could say that the speaker somewhat dismisses and ridicules the Queen’s English, much like he ridicules the British team.

“And on it goes, the wicket slow as the batting and the crowd restless. ‘Eh white bwoy, how you brudders dem does sen we sleep so? Me pay me monies fe watch dis foolishness? Cho!’ “

The game continues, and so does the ridicule from the crowd. The slow-paced gameplay continues to drive the crowd to restlessness, so much so that one man speaks directly to the persona, saying that he feels his money was wasted on a match that is so boring. He refers to the persona as ‘white bwoy’ showing that the rosette of his skin commands no respect here.

“So I try to explain in my Hampshire drawl about conditions in Kent, about sticky wickets and muggy days and the monsoon season in Manchester but fail to convince even myself. “

The persona now attempts to explain why the English team is performing so poorly. He blames the weather conditions in Jamaica and notes that it is different in England. The humor in the reference to the ‘monsoon season in Manchester’ is interesting as there is monsoon season in Manchester, England. He is grasping at straws to create some form of explanation. But this is pointless since the West Indian spectators are not convinced, and neither is he. He is, like the cricketers, facing a ‘sticky wicket’ or difficult situation.

“The crowd’s loud ‘busin drives me out skulking behind a tarnished rosette somewhat frayed now but unable, quite, to conceal a blushing nationality.”

This final stanza represents a large contrast from the start of the poem. Instead of being proud and arrogant, he leaves ‘skulking,’ and “unable, quite, to conceal a blushing nationality.” His use of “‘busin” suggests that he has conceded. Like the West Indian cricketers, the dialect has proven stronger than the English. His high and mighty attitude has vanished. The British cricketers’ colossal flop is a national and racial embarrassment for the speaker. His white skin, his rosette, once his badge of honour and source of pride has lost its glow and is now red with disgrace.

Literary Devices

Rhetorical Question

Lines 6-7 –

“The crowd- whoever saw a crowd

At a cricket match? – are caged

The rhetorical question here suggests that while the sport is popular in England, the grounds for the matches were not crowded. This suggests that Sabina Park was very crowded.

Line 10: ‘What sort o battin dat man?”

The question of the general frustration of the West Indians in the crowd leads one to visualize the annoyance of the crowd with the slow progression of the match.

Lines 16-18:

‘Eh white bwoy, how you brudders dem

does sen we sleep so? Me pay me monies

fe watch dis foolishness? Cho!’

The questions suggests that the frustration of the West Indian crowd has increased.

Allusion

The historical allusion to Lawrence Rowe and his successful career as a West Indian cricketer stresses the point that the match lacks excitement as it is slow and boring.

Sarcasm

To ‘boycott’ is to stop doing something. The speaker in the poem is sarcastic as excitement is a good thing yet, boycott is negative. As such the speaker once more highlights the slow and boring pace of the cricket match.

Themes

Discrimination,

Places,

Culture and sports