Senior, Olive

About Olive Senior

Biography (Poetry International Archives)

Reviews

Carlson, Rachel. "The Pain Tree." Herizons, vol. 31, no. 1, 2017

Wynner, J. "'Silver Workers' on the Panama Canal." Caribbean Compass, no. 243, Dec. 2015

Lowery, Ruth Mckoy. "Anna Carries Water Olive Senior." Bookbird, vol. 53, no. 4, 2015

Clarke, George Elliott. "Over the Roofs of the World." Malahat Review, no. 156, 2006

Interviews

Montout, Marie-Annick. "Translating a Culture in Stories from the Caribbean: A Conversation with Olive Senior." Journal of the Short Story in English, vol. 52, 2009

Savory, Elaine. "Interview with Olive Senior." Wadabagei, vol. 8, no. 3, 2005

Binder, Wolfgang. "An Interview with Olive Senior." Commonwealth Essays and Studies, vol. 18, no. 1, 1995

Rowell, Charles H. "Interview with Olive Senior." Callaloo, vol. 11, no. 3, 1988

Criticism

Collett, Anne. "'Why Don't You Write about Canada?' Olive Senior's Poetry, Everybody's History, and the 'Condition of Resonance'." Beyond "Understanding Canada": Transnational Perspectives on Canadian Literature, Tanti et al. (eds.), 2017

Hoving, Isabel Lanham. Writing the Earth, Darkly: Globalization, Ecocriticism, and Desire.  2017

Kruk, Laurie. Double-Voicing the Canadian Short Story, 2016

Chew, Shirley. "'The Story Is Now about Us': Olive Senior to 'England's Wealthiest Son'." Citizens of the World: Adapting in the Eighteenth Century, Cope and Cahill (eds.), 2015

Plasa, Carl. "Ekphrastic Poetry and the Middle Passage: Recent Encounters in the Black Atlantic." Connotations, vol. 24, no. 2, 2014-2015

Lalla, Barbara, et al. (eds.). Caribbean Literary Discourse: Voice and Cultural Identity in the Anglophone Caribbean, 2014

Pollard, Velma. “To Us, All Flowers are Roses. Writing Ourselves into the Literature of the Caribbean.” Caribbean Literary Discourse: Voice and Cultural Identity in the Anglophone Caribbean, Lalla et al. (eds.), 2014

Morgan, Paula E. "Meet Me in the Islands: Sun Sand and Transactional Sex in Caribbean Discourse." Anthurium, vol. 10, no. 1, 2013

Narain, Denise deCaires. "Gender, the Pastoral, and the Postcolonial Caribbean." Teaching Anglophone Caribbean Literature, Nair (ed.), 2012

Bucknor, Michael A. "Olive Senior: 'Grung'/Ground(ed) Poetics: 'The Voice from the Bottom of the Well'." The Routledge Companion to Anglophone Caribbean Literature, Donnell and Bucknor (eds.), 2011

Narain, Denise deCaires. "Wordy, Worldly Women Poets: Louise Bennett, Lorna Goodison, and Olive Senior." The Routledge Companion to Anglophone Caribbean Literature, Donnell and Bucknor (eds.), 2011

Dwyer, Dania. "History: Re-Membering History: The Aesthetics of Ruins in West Indian Postcolonial Poetry." The Routledge Companion to Anglophone Caribbean Literature, Donnell and Bucknor (eds.), 2011

Shamma, Yasmine. “Drenched: Wet Poetries of Lorna Goodison and Olive Senior.” Caribbean Without Borders: Literature, Language and Culture, Smith et al. (eds.), 2009

Bucknor, Michael A. "Sounding Off: Performing Ritual Revolt in Olive Senior's 'Meditation on Yellow'." Mosaic, vol. 42, no. 2, 2009

Japtok, Martin. "Whiteness and the 'Magic of Money' in Olive Senior's 'Ascot'." Journal of Caribbean Literatures, vol. 6, no. 1, 2009

Papke, Renate Akron. Poems at the Edge of Difference: Mothering in New English Poetry by Women, 2008

Batcos, Stephanie. "Lessons from the Writer: Olive Seniors 'Over the Roofs of the World' and the Interface of the Caribbean-Canadian Reader." Beyond the Canebrakes: Caribbean Women Writers in Canada, Williams (ed.), 2008

Emily Allen Williams. "Summer Lightning: Olive Senior's Jamaican Redemption." Beyond the Canebrakes: Caribbean Women Writers in Canada, Williams (ed.), 2008

Pollard, Velma. "The Americas in Anglophone Caribbean Women Writers: Bridges of Sound." Black Renaissance, vol. 6-7, no. 3-1, 2006

Collett, Anne. "Blue Be-longing: A Discussion of Olive Senior's Latest Collection of Poetry/Over the Roofs of the World." ARIEL, vol. 37, no. 2-3, 2006

Stouck, Jordan. "Gardening in the Diaspora: Place and Identity in Olive Senior's Poetry." Mosaic, vol. 38, no. 4, 2005

Robinson, Kim Dismont. "'I Too Am Not a Bit Tamed': Flora, Fauna, and Folk Culture in Olive Senior's Over the Roofs of the World." Journal of West Indian Literature, vol. 14, no. 1-2, 2005

Stouck, Jordan. "Towards a Caribbean-Canadian Post-National: Olive Senior and Gardening in the Tropics." Journal of West Indian Literature, vol. 14, no. 1-2, 2005

Deloughrey, Elizabeth. "Island Ecologies and Caribbean Literatures." Journal of Economic & Social Geography, vol. 95, no. 3, 2004

Simpson, Hyacinth M. "Voicing the Text: The Making of an Oral Poetics in Olive Senior's Short Fiction." Callaloo, vol. 27, no. 3, 2004

Gilbert, Helen. "'Let Them Know You Have Broughtuptcy': Childhood and Child-Subjects in Olive Senior's Short Stories." Kunapipi, vol. 26, no. 1, 2004

James, Louis. "The Other Side of the Mirror: The Short Stories of Jean Rhys and Olive Senior." Journal of Caribbean Literatures, vol. 3, no. 3, 2003

Phillips, Gyllian. "Personal and Textual Geographies in Olive Senior's Literary Relationship with Jean Rhys." Journal of Caribbean Literatures, vol. 3, no. 3, 2003

Thieme, John. Postcolonial Con-Texts: Writing Back to the Canon, 2001

Pollard, Velma. "'To Us All Flowers Are Roses': Writing Ourselves into the Literature of the Caribbean." Sargasso, vol. 65-73, 2001

Maisonnat, Claude. "The Poetics of Death: Olive Senior's 'Tears of the Sea'." Telling Stories: Postcolonial Short Fiction in English, Bardolph (ed.), 2001

Donnell, Alison. "The Short Fiction of Olive Senior." Caribbean Women Writers: Fiction in English, Condé and Lonsdale (eds.), 1999

Winer, Lise. "Comprehension and Resonance: English Readers and English Creole Texts." Creole Genesis, Attitudes and Discourse: Studies Celebrating Charlene J. Sato, Rickford and Romaine (eds.), 1999

Lalla, Barbara. "Registering Woman: Senior's Zig-Zag Discourse and Code-Switching in Jamaican Narrative." ARIEL, vol. 29, no. 4, 1998

Flockemann, Miki. "Asian Diasporas, Contending Identities and New Configurations: Stories by Agnes Sam and Olive Senior." English in Africa, vol. 25, no. 1, 1998

Collier, Gordon. "'At the Gate of Cultures': Religion, Mythology, and Folk-Belief in West Indian Poetry." And the Birds Began to Sing: Religion and Literature in Post-Colonial Cultures, Scott (ed.), 1996

Gafoor, Ameena. "The Image of the Indo-Caribbean Woman in Olive Senior's 'The Arrival of the Snake Woman'." Callaloo, vol. 16, no. 1, 1993

Louvel, Liliane. "'Summer Lightning': A Reading of Olive Senior's Short Story." Commonwealth Essays and Studies, vol. 13, no. 2, 1991

O'Callaghan, Evelyn. "Feminist Consciousness: European/American Theory, Jamaican Stories." Journal of Caribbean Studies, vol. 6, no. 2, 1988

Works

Novels

Dancing Lessons (2011)

Children’s and Young Adults’ Books

Anna Carries Water (2013)

Birthday Suit (2012)

Short Story Collections

The Pain Tree (2015)

Discerner of Hearts and Other Stories (1995)

Arrival of the Snake-Woman and Other Stories (1989)

Summer Lightning and Other Stories (1986)

Poetry Collections

Un pipiri m'a dit/A little bird told me (2014)

Shell (2007)

Over the Roofs of the World (2005)

Gardening in the Tropics (1994)

Talking of Trees (1985)

Essays/Articles/Non-Fiction/Short Stories

Dying to Better Themselves (2014)

"'Whirlwinds Coiled at My Heart': Voice and Vision in a Writer's Practice." Crosstalk: Canadian and Global Imaginaries in Dialogue, Brydon and Dvořák (eds.), 2012

"The Poem as Gardening, the Story as Su-Su: Finding a Literary Voice." Journal of West Indian Literature, vol. 14, no. 1-2, 2005

Encyclopedia of Jamaican Heritage (2003)

"Mad Fish." Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root: Caribbean Fabulist Fiction, Hopkinson (ed.), 2000

Working Miracles (1991)

A-Z of Jamaican Heritage (1983)

Audio and Audiovisual Material

Olive Senior Performs at Words Aloud 9. YouTube, 16. Jan. 2013