ABSTRACT
When I interviewed the author of the above poem she summarized her opinions of Solomon Taiyo by laughing ‘Noro is a jewel, but hem stink!’ She neatly captured the ambivalence with which most Solomon Islanders viewed Solomon Taiyo as an agent of development. Solomon Taiyo provided some of the things Solomon Islanders wanted from modernity, such as cash employment, and also some of the things they did not want, such as pollution.
