This poem Is about a Jamaican granny who is shopping in a marketplace. She speaks in patois, which is like English but spoken differently. She is going around the stalls, looking for bargains from reluctant stallholders. She criticizes call themselves stallholders. She is a world wary person and knows what’s what.
            The poet presents granny as a strong, confident character with an eye for quality. It gives her a strong part in the poem. The stall holders make you think of people whose job is very important, but lack any confidence and don’t try to retaliate when granny is harassing them, which shows that the area is very matriarchal as the women take control and make decisions.

            The mood of the poem is like a busy marketplace, it is noisy with the stallholders shouting prices and offers at the top of their voices, and customers trying to haggle prices down. You may smell some fresh fruit or a scent of fertilizer or leather, depending on what stalls are nearby.

            At one stall, granny gets angry with the stallholders. She says that the oranges where limes in disguise. She said ‘Yuh sure it ehn lime ur wrappin in orange peel?’.She said this because when she tried the orange, it was so sweet it made her swell. It makes you think granny is very angry about the lack of quality and thought. She is angry about lack of thought because the stall holder knows that no-one wants really sweet oranges. She might be feeling sympathetic to them as they are losing business.

            Granny’s dentures drop out after she tried the orange. She says ‘Me dentures drop out and meh two gums start to swell’. She is emphasizing how sour it is. You would first think it was funny and then you feel sorry for her. It gives you the image of someone with a very swollen mouth who cant talk.

            Granny gets annoyed at another stallholder who’s trying to cheat her. She says ‘wat u sayin have a sorta ring’. She means that whenever she comes to that stall, the holder tells the same lies to her. It makes you think granny is tired of the same lies over and over and over again. She may be getting annoyed by retaliating to the same thing over and over again. She will start to criticize that too. It makes me see an image of granny looking bored and angry.

            Granny encounters another bad product, a large brown dasheen leaf. She says ’it seem tuh me like dey does like to lie out in de sun’. She means that they are all crusty and brown. It makes you think of something horrible but she may be over exaggerating. They may be very brown on the edge and fine on the inside or just slightly brown all round.

            I thought that granny in the marketplace was a very different poem. Partly because it’s written in patois and the way it was written. Also as granny is an old lady, you feel sorry for her because it is really horrible to stand there complaining and haggling prices down