Li'l Bit A Guinea Corn Porridge
From the Anguilla Local News - Site Map.

Daisy "Wong" Richardson was born on Junks Hole Estate in 1921. She is well known around Anguilla for reciting her poems at public events and gatherings. Now a collection of them has published, with topics ranging from the Anguilla Revolution, to politics, religion, sports, and social life. Here is an excerpt from the title poem, the only one in Anguilla dialect:

Boy get up in di morning early
Trash da li'l bit a guinea corn
You know ti hard times now
So ya got ti get the grinding stone.
...
A li'l bit a guinea corn porridge
Wid a li'l bit a goat milk
Is the sweetest thing you ever taste
Believe me ya stomach da feel like silk

Since Daisy "Wong" was active in Anguilla's bloodless revolution, they timed the book launch for the 30th anniversary of that event. Quoting from the introduction by Ijahnya Christian, "She was one of 'two brave Anguillian women' who, in the final throes of the Anguilla Revolution, journeyed secretly to St. Kitts to nominate an Anguillian for the Anguilla seat in the St. Kitts/Nevis/Anguilla state elections. This account is documented in Ronald Webster's Scrapbook of Anguilla's Revolution. The other woman was Mena Bryan, a cousin of Daisy's, to whom she dedicates one of the poems in this collection." Here is an extract from one of her poems on the Revolution:

Britain made a big mistake
So everybody say
To link Anguilla with St. Kitts and Nevis
So many miles away.
...
Thanks to the hero Ronald Webster
and Atlin Harrigan
Who put their thoughts together
And so the fight began.
...
And at last after waiting
So many hard long years
Britain granted us secession from St. Kitts and Nevis
And it filed many eyes with tears.

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