Jamaica: R.I.P. Louise Bennett · Global Voices
Nicholas Laughlin

Poet and actress Louise Bennett, popularly known as Miss Lou, perhaps the most beloved public figure in contemporary Jamaica, has died at the age of 86. At the Caribbean Beat blog, Jeremy Taylor offers a tribute. “She wrote unforgettable poems in the Jamaican ‘patois’ or ‘dialect’ which we now learn to call a language … and her wit, her laughter and her satire did as much as anything to make Jamaicans feel at home with themselves.”