Comparison Of Sugar Cane, From I Is A Long Memoried Woman

The painting, Cane Cutting Scene, and the poem “Sugar Cane”, from I is a Long Memoried Woman by Grace Nichols, were two completely separate works about the same thing. One, the poem talks about the life and death of the cane while the other, the painting, shows the labor and torture of the workers, both telling the story of sugar. The painting shows the grueling work put into raising sugar cane, as back then humans did not have machines to do dirty work. Slaves had to complete back breaking work of ripping up stalks in the hot sun, wheeling them away, and, as the painting describes, continuously repeat the tasks until the field was empty. The poem does not talk about the hard work of the laborers, it is about the hard work of the cane itself.