sign in sign up
<<
Home , Hurricane Hits England, Love After Love (poem), Not My Business, Vultures (poem)

KS4 Wider Reading

Contents Sleeping Out- (Grace Nichols) To my Coral Bones- (Grace Nichols) Still Man is True – (Sayeed Abubakar) Like a Beacon – (Grace Nichols) Refugee Mother and Child – - (Grace Nichols) (Chinua Achebe) Praise Song for my Mother – (Grace – (Chinua Achebe) Checking Out Me History - (John Agard) Nichols) Flag - (John Agard) - (Niyi Osudare) Listen Mr Oxford Don – (John Agard) This Dog - (Rabindranath Tagore) Real- (Akala) Coconut Hair – (Caleb Femi) Sari - (Moniza Alivi) For Mos Def –(Theresa Lola) Caged Bird – (Maya Angelou) Does my bum look big enough in this?- Still I Rise – (Maya Angelou) (Aisha Sanyang-Meek) Phenomenal Woman – (Maya Angelou) On Kindness- (Inua Ellams) Equality – (Maya Angelou) - () The Black Family Pledge- Midsummer, Tobago- (Derek Walcott) (Maya Angelou) The Fist- (Derek Walcott) Dear Hearing World- (Raymond Antrobus) Torture – (Alice Walker) I Come From - (Dean Atta) Be Nobody’s Darling- (Alice Walker) Homage to my Hips – (Lucille Clifton) Library Ology – (Benjamin Zephaniah) 4/30/92 for Rodney King - (Lucille Clifton) The Right Word - (Imtiaz Dharker) No problem- (Benjamin Zephaniah) Immigrant’s Song- (Tishani Doshi) Dis Poetry – (Benjamin Zephaniah) Directions – (Inua Ellams) The British - (Benjamin Zephaniah) Old Tongue - (Jackie Kay) The Laws of Motion- (Nikki Giovanni) Whenever you see this icon: I look at the world – (Langston Hughes) I, Too- (Langston Hughes) Dreams – (Langston Hughes) If we must die – (Claude McKay) The Law Concerning Mermaids- click to listen to a performance of the poem (Kei Miller) Someone Leans Near – (Toni Morrison) The Gift of India – (Sarojini Naidu) Brian – (Grace Nichols) Choose your Take a line from the favourite words/ poem and use it as a Creative phrases/ images and starting point for responses include these in a your own piece of piece of your own writing. to poetry writing.

If you like one of the poems, research the Choose your poet and learn more favourite section of a Share the poem with about their life and poem and illustrate someone who you the time they were it. think will enjoy it. writing. How has the poem been shaped by history? If you like one of the poets, research Create a piece of other poems they Write a poem/ story writing using one of have written, or ask that is a response or the techniques you your English teacher reply to one of the have seen in the for more poems. poems. recommendations about their work.

Find poems that have a theme or idea in common. Learn a poem off by Write a poem/ story Consider how heart and perform it using the same title. different poets for someone. present different ideas. Still Man is True

Still Man is true; I come back to Man Again and again. Leaving all the blue sins And filthiness of civilization behind, I rush to join Man's procession.

Neither forest nor loneliness, I adore Only the maddened din and bustle of life; The soul that longs for the blind self-success Is now detestable corpse, the food for a vulture.

Those who will go to the Moon leaving men on earth; Those who desire the blue-eyed nymphs of heaven; Those who are always indifferent to men's Defeat and bad news; I wish they succeed In building gold-house in heaven And I live and die here only with Man.

Sayeed Abubakar Listen Mr. Oxford Don

Me not no Oxford don me a simple immigrant from Clapham Common I didn't graduate I immigrate

But listen Mr Oxford don I'm a man on de run and a man on de run is a dangerous one

I ent have no gun I ent have no knife but mugging de Queen's English is the story of my life

I don't need no axe to split/ up yu syntax I don't need no hammer to mash/ up yu grammar I warning you Mr. Oxford don I'm a wanted man and a wanted man is a dangerous one

Dem accuse me of assault on de Oxford dictionary/ imagine a concise peaceful man like me/ dem want me to serve time for inciting rhyme to riot but I tekking it quiet down here in Clapham Common

I'm not violent man Mr. Oxford don I only armed wit mih human breath but human breath is a dangerous weapon

So mek dem send one big word after me I ent serving no jail sentence I slashing suffix in self-defence I bashing future wit present tense and if necessary

I making de Queen's English accessory/ to my offence

John Agard Checking out me history

Dem tell me Dem tell me Wha dem want to tell me Bandage up me eye with me own history Blind me to my own identity Dem tell me bout 1066 and all dat dem tell me bout Dick Whittington and he cat But Touissant L’Ouverture no dem never tell me bout dat

Toussaint a slave with vision lick back Napoleon battalion and first Black Republic born Toussaint de thorn to de French Toussaint de beacon of de Haitian Revolution

Dem tell me bout de man who discover de balloon and de cow who jump over de moon Dem tell me bout de dish run away with de spoon but dem never tell me bout Nanny de maroon

Nanny see-far woman of mountain dream fire-woman struggle hopeful stream to freedom river Dem tell me bout Lord Nelson and Waterloo but dem never tell me bout Shaka de great Zulu Dem tell me bout Columbus and 1492 but what happen to de Caribs and de Arawaks too

Dem tell me bout Florence Nightingale and she lamp and how Robin Hood used to camp Dem tell me bout ole King Cole was a merry ole soul but dem never tell me bout Mary Seacole

From Jamaica she travel far to the Crimean War she volunteer to go and even when de British said no she still brave the Russian snow a healing star among the wounded a yellow sunrise to the dying

Dem tell me Dem tell me wha dem want to tell me But now I checking out me own history I carving out me identity

John Agard Flag

What's that fluttering in the breeze? It's just a piece of cloth that brings a nation to its knees.

What's that unfurling from a pole? It's just a piece of cloth That makes the guts of men grow bold.

What's that rising over the tent? It's just a piece of cloth that dares the coward to relent.

What's that flying across a field? It's just a piece of cloth that will outlive the blood you bleed.

How can I possess such a cloth? Just ask for a flag my friend. Then blind your conscience to the end. John Agard Refugee Mother and Child

No Madonna and Child could touch that picture of a mother’s tenderness for a son she soon would have to forget. The air was heavy with odours of diarrhoea of unwashed children with washed-out ribs and dried-up bottoms struggling in laboured steps behind blown empty bellies. Most mothers there had long ceased to care but not this one; she held a ghost smile between her teeth and in her eyes the ghost of a mother’s pride as she combed the rust-coloured hair left on his skull and then – singing in her eyes – began carefully to part it… In another life this would have been a little daily act of no consequence before his breakfast and school; now she did it like putting flowers on a tiny grave.

Chinua Achebe Vultures

In the greyness and drizzle of one despondent dawn unstirred by harbingers of sunbreak a vulture perching high on broken bone of a dead tree nestled close to his mate his smooth bashed-in head, a pebble on a stem rooted in a dump of gross feathers, inclined affectionately to hers. Yesterday they picked the eyes of a swollen corpse in a water-logged trench and ate the things in its bowel. Full gorged they chose their roost keeping the hollowed remnant in easy range of cold telescopic eyes ...

Strange indeed how love in other ways so particular will pick a corner in that charnel-house tidy it and coil up there, perhaps even fall asleep - her face turned to the wall! ...Thus the Commandant at Belsen Camp going home for the day with fumes of human roast clinging rebelliously to his hairy nostrils will stop at the wayside sweet-shop and pick up a chocolate for his tender offspring waiting at home for Daddy's return ...

Praise bounteous providence if you will that grants even an ogre a tiny glow-worm tenderness encapsulated in icy caverns of a cruel heart or else despair for in every germ of that kindred love is lodged the perpetuity of evil.

Chinua Achebe Real

Not victory, nor slaughter The house of pain, nor pains of laughter Not bombs, nor the dust that was the village Not mansion, nor mud-hut, palace or cardboard sheet Not silk shawl or cotton canvas, Not car, nor carriage All is borne from no-thing Therefore nothing is all that is real The senses are but confusions illusion A compass of false conclusion Ears house some vibrations as cries or music Yet others pass undetected Eyes conclude colour, where some light is reflected Yet most light passes the eye, undetected Noses upturn at the stench of poverty But delight in the rich stink of robbery Hands hold solid, sure of shape Yet that same collection of atoms Is just empty space Tongues taste terrible bitterness where sweet cures reside And delight in deliciousness where pernicious poisons hide. What is real?

Kingslee James McLean Daley (Akala) Sari

Inside my mother I peered through a glass porthole. The world beyond was hot and brown.

They were all looking in on me - Father, Grandmother, the cook's boy, the sweeper-girl, the bullock with the sharp shoulderblades, the local politicians.

My English grandmother took a telescope and gazed across continents.

All the people unravelled a sari. It stretched from Lahore to Hyderabad, wavered across the Arabian Sea, shot through with stars, fluttering with sparrows and quails. They threaded it with roads, undulations of land.

Eventually they wrapped and wrapped me in it whispering Your body is your country.

Moniza Alivi Caged Bird

A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom. The free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn and he names the sky his own

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.

Maya Angelou Still I Rise

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

Maya Angelou Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms, The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.

I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees. I say, It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I’m a woman Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman, That’s me. Men themselves have wondered What they see in me. They try so much But they can’t touch My inner mystery. When I try to show them, They say they still can’t see. I say, It’s in the arch of my back, The sun of my smile, The ride of my breasts, The grace of my style. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.

Now you understand Just why my head’s not bowed. I don’t shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing, It ought to make you proud. I say, It’s in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need for my care. ’Cause I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.

Maya Angelou Equality

You declare you see me dimly through a glass which will not shine, though I stand before you boldly, trim in rank and marking time. You do own to hear me faintly as a whisper out of range, while my drums beat out the message and the rhythms never change.

Equality, and I will be free. Equality, and I will be free.

You announce my ways are wanton, that I fly from man to man, but if I'm just a shadow to you, could you ever understand ?

We have lived a painful history, we know the shameful past, but I keep on marching forward, and you keep on coming last. Equality, and I will be free. Equality, and I will be free.

Take the blinders from your vision, take the padding from your ears, and confess you've heard me crying, and admit you've seen my tears.

Hear the tempo so compelling, hear the blood throb in my veins. Yes, my drums are beating nightly, and the rhythms never change.

Equality, and I will be free. Equality, and I will be free.

Maya Angelou The Black Family Pledge

BECAUSE we have forgotten our ancestors, our children no longer give us honour.

BECAUSE we have lost the path our ancestors cleared kneeling in perilous undergrowth, our children cannot find their way.

BECAUSE we have banished the God of our ancestors, our children cannot pray.

BECAUSE the old wails of our ancestors have faded beyond our hearing, our children cannot hear us crying.

BECAUSE we have abandoned our wisdom of mothering and fathering, our befuddled children give birth to children they neither want nor understand. BECAUSE we have forgotten how to love, the adversary is within our gates, an holds us up to the mirror of the world shouting, 'Regard the loveless'

Therefore we pledge to bind ourselves to one another, to embrace our lowliest, to keep company with our loneliest, to educate our illiterate, to feed our starving, to clothe our ragged, to do all good things, knowing that we are more than keepers of our brothers and sisters.

We ARE our brothers and sisters.

IN HONOUR of those who toiled and implored God with golden tongues, and in gratitude to the same God who brought us out of hopeless desolation, we make this pledge.

Maya Angelou

Raymond Antrobus I Come From

I come from shepherd’s pie and Sunday roast Jerk chicken and stuffed vine leaves I come from travelling through my taste buds but loving where I live

I come from a home that some would call broken I come from D.I.Y. that never got done I come from waiting by the phone for him to call

I come from waving the white flag to loneliness I come from the rainbow flag and the union jack I come from a British passport and an ever-ready suitcase

I come from jet fuel and fresh coconut water I come from crossing oceans to find myself I come from deep issues and shallow solutions

I come from a limited vocabulary but an unrestricted imagination I come from a decent education and a marvellous mother I come from being given permission to dream but choosing to wake up instead

I come from wherever I lay my head I come from unanswered questions and unread books Unnoticed effort and undelivered apologies and thanks

I come from who I trust and who I have left I come from last year and last year and I don’t notice how I’ve changed I come from looking in the mirror and looking online to find myself

I come from stories, myths, legends and folk tales I come from lullabies and pop songs, Hip Hop and poetry I come from griots, grandmothers and her-story tellers

I come from published words and strangers’ smiles I come from my own pen but I see people torn apart like paper Each a story or poem that never made it into a book.

Dean Atta Homage to My Hips these hips are big hips. they need space to move around in. they don't fit into little petty places. these hips are free hips. they don't like to be held back. these hips have never been enslaved, they go where they want to go they do what they want to do. these hips are mighty hips. these hips are magic hips. i have known them to put a spell on a man and spin him like a top

Lucille Clifton 4/30/92 for Rodney King so the body of one black man is rag and stone is mud and blood the body of one black man contains no life worth loving so the body of one black man is nobody mama mama mamacita is there no value in this skin mama mama if we are nothing why should we spare the neighborhood mama mama who will be next and why should we save the pictures

Lucille Clifton The Right Word

Outside the door, lurking in the shadows, is a terrorist. Is that the wrong description?

Outside that door, taking shelter in the shadows, is a freedom fighter. I haven't got this right .

Outside, waiting in the shadows, is a hostile militant. Are words no more than waving, wavering flags?

Outside your door, watchful in the shadows, is a guerrilla warrior. God help me.

Outside, defying every shadow, stands a martyr. I saw his face.

No words can help me now. Just outside the door, lost in shadows, is a child who looks like mine.

One word for you. Outside my door, his hand too steady, his eyes too hard is a boy who looks like your son, too.

I open the door. Come in, I say. Come in and eat with us.

The child steps in and carefully, at my door, takes off his shoes.

Imtiaz Dharker Immigrant’s Song

Let us not speak of those days when coffee beans filled the morning with hope, when our mothers’ headscarves hung like white flags on washing lines. Let us not speak of the long arms of sky that used to cradle us at dusk. And the baobabs – let us not trace the shape of their leaves in our dreams, or yearn for the noise of those nameless birds that sang and died in the church’s eaves. Let us not speak of men, stolen from their beds at night. Let us not say the word disappeared. Let us not remember the first smell of rain: It will only make us nostalgic for childhood. Instead, let us speak of our lives now — the gates and bridges and stores. And when we break bread in cafes and at kitchen tables with our new brothers, let us not burden them with stories of war or abandonment Let us not name our old friends who are unravelling like fairytales in the forests of the dead. Naming them will not bring them back. Let us stay here, and wait for the future to arrive, for grandchildren to speak in forked tongues about the country we once came from. Tell us about it, they might ask. And you might consider telling them of the sky and the coffee beans, the small white houses and dusty streets. You might set your memory afloat like a paper boat down a river. You might pray that the paper whispers your stories to the water, that the water sings it to the trees, that the trees howl and howl it to the leaves. If you keep still and do not speak, you might hear your whole life fill the world until the wind is the only word.

Tishani Doshi Directions

(after Billy Collins)

You know the wild bush at the back of the flat, the one that scrapes the kitchen window, the one that struggles for soil and water and fails where the train tracks scar the ground? And you know how if you leave the bush and walk the stunted land, you come to crossroads, paved just weeks ago: hot tar over the flattened roots of trees, and a squad of traffic lights, red-eyed now stiff against the filth-stained fallen leaves?

And farther on, you know the bruised allotments with the broken sheds and if you go beyond that you hit the first block of Thomas Street Estate? Well, if you enter and ascend, and you might need a running jump over dank puddles into the shaking lift that goes no further than the fourth floor, you will eventually come to a rough rise of stairs that reach without railings the run-down roof as high as you can go and a good place to stop. The best time is late evening when the moon fights through drifts of fumes as you are walking, and when you find an upturned bin to sit on, you will be able to see the smog pour across the city and blur the shapes and tones of things and you will be attacked by the symphony of tires, airplanes, sirens, screams, engines – and if this is your day you might even catch a car chase or hear a horde of biker boys thunder-cross a bridge.

But it is tough to speak of these things how tufts of smog enter the body and begin to wind us down, how the city chokes us painfully against its chest made of secrets and fire, how we, built of weaker things, regard our sculpted landscape, water flowing through pipes, the clicks of satellites passing over clouds and the roofs where we stand in the shudder of progress giving ourselves to the vast outsides.

Still, text me before you set out. Knock when you reach my door and I will walk you as far as the tracks with water for your travels and a hug. I will watch after you and not turn back to the flat till you merge with the throngs of buses and cyclists – heading down toward the block, scuffing the ground with your feet. Inua Ellams The Laws of Motion

The laws of science teach us a pound of gold weighs as much as a pound of flour though if dropped from any undetermined height in their natural state one would reach bottom and one would fly away

Laws of motion tell us an inert object is more difficult to propel than an object heading in the wrong direction is to turn around. Motion being energy—inertia—apathy. Apathy equals hostility. Hostility—violence. Violence being energy is its own virtue. Laws of motion teach us

Black people are no less confused because of our Blackness than we are diffused because of our powerlessness. Man we are told is the only animal who smiles with his lips. The eyes however are the mirror of the soul

The problem with love is not what we feel but what we wish we felt when we began to feel we should feel something. Just as publicity is not production: seduction is not seductive If I could make a wish I'd wish for all the knowledge of all the world. Black may be beautiful Professor Micheau says but knowledge is power. Any desirable object is bought and sold—any neglected object declines in value. It is against man's nature to be in either category

If white defines Black and good defines evil then men define women or women scientifically speaking describe men. If sweet is the opposite of sour and heat the absence of cold then love is the contradiction of pain and beauty is in the eye of the beheld

Sometimes I want to touch you and be touched in return. But you think I'm grabbing and I think you're shirking and Mama always said to look out for men like you

So I go to the streets with my lips painted red and my eyes carefully shielded to seduce the world my reluctant Lover

And you go to your men slapping fives feeling good posing as a man because you know as long as you sit very very still the laws of motion will be in effect

Nikki Giovanni I look at the world

I look at the world From awakening eyes in a black face— And this is what I see: This fenced-off narrow space Assigned to me.

I look then at the silly walls Through dark eyes in a dark face— And this is what I know: That all these walls oppression builds Will have to go!

I look at my own body With eyes no longer blind— And I see that my own hands can make The world that's in my mind. Then let us hurry, comrades, The road to find.

Langston Hughes I, Too

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong.

Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, “Eat in the kitchen,” Then.

Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

Langston Hughes Dreams

Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow.

Langston Hughes Old Tongue

When I was eight, I was forced south. Not long after, when I opened my mouth, a strange thing happened. I lost my Scottish accent. Words fell off my tongue: eedyit, dreich, wabbit, crabbit stummer, teuchter, heidbanger, so you are, so am ur, see you, see ma ma, shut yer geggie or I’ll gie you the malkie!

My own vowels started to stretch like my bones and I turned my back on Scotland. Words disappeared in the dead of night, new words marched in: ghastly, awful, quite dreadful, scones said like stones. Pokey hats into ice cream cones. Oh where did all my words go – my old words, my lost words? Did you ever feel sad when you lost a word, did you ever try and call it back like calling in the sea? If I could have found my words wandering, I swear I would have taken them in, swallowed them whole, knocked them back.

Out in the English soil, my old words buried themselves. It made my mother’s blood boil. I cried one day with the wrong sound in my mouth. I wanted them back; I wanted my old accent back, my old tongue. My dour soor Scottish tongue. Sing-songy. I wanted to gie it laldie.

Jackie Kay If we must die

If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursèd lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Claude McKay The Law Concerning Mermaids

There was once a law concerning mermaids.

My friend thinks it a wondrous thing — that the British Empire was so thorough it had invented a law for everything. And in this law it was decreed: were any to be found in their usual spots, showing off like dolphins, sunbathing on rocks — they would no longer belong to themselves. And maybe this is the problem with empires: how they have forced us to live in a world lacking in mermaids — mermaids who understood that they simply were, and did not need permission to exist or to be beautiful. The law concerning mermaids only caused mermaids to pass a law concerning man: that they would never again cross our boundaries of sand; never again lift their torsos up from the surf; never again wave at sailors, salt dripping from their curls; would never again enter our dry and stifling world.

Kei Miller Someone Leans Near

Someone leans near And sees the salt your eyes have shed. You wait, longing to hear Words of reason, love or play To lash or lull you toward the hollow day. Silence kneads your fear Of crumbled star-ash sifting down Clouding the rooms here, here. You shore up your heart to run. To stay. But no sign or design marks the narrow way. Then on your skin a breath caresses The salt your eyes have shed. And you remember a call clear, so clear “You will never die again.” Once more you know You will never die again.

Toni Morrison Brian

Grace Nichols Sleeping Out

Grace Nichols To My Coral Bones Grace Nichols Like a Beacon

In London every now and then I get this craving for my mother's food I leave art galleries in search of plantains saltfish/sweet potatoes

I need this link

I need this touch of home swinging my bag like a beacon against the cold Grace Nichols Hurricane Hits England

It took a hurricane, to bring her closer To the landscape. Half the night she lay awake, The howling ship of the wind, Its gathering rage, Like some dark ancestral spectre. Fearful and reassuring.

Talk to me Huracan Talk to me Oya Talk to me Shango And Hattie, My sweeping, back-home cousin.

Tell me why you visit An English coast? What is the meaning Of old tongues Reaping havoc In new places? The blinding illumination, Even as you short- Circuit us Into further darkness?

What is the meaning of trees Falling heavy as whales Their crusted roots Their cratered graves?

O why is my heart unchained?

Tropical Oya of the Weather, I am aligning myself to you, I am following the movement of your winds, I am riding the mystery of your storm.

Ah, sweet mystery, Come to break the frozen lake in me, Shaking the foundations of the very trees within me, Come to let me know That the earth is the earth is the earth.

Grace Nichols Praise Song for My Mother

You were water to me deep and bold and fathoming

You were moon's eye to me pull and grained and mantling

You were sunrise to me rise and warm and streaming

You were the fishes red gill to me the flame tree's spread to me the crab's leg/the fried plantain smell replenishing replenishing

Go to your wide futures, you said

Grace Nichols The Gift of India (India, 1915)

Is there aught you need that my hands withhold, Rich gifts of raiment or grain or gold? Lo! I have flung to the East and West Priceless treasures torn from my breast, And yielded the sons of my stricken womb To the drum-beats of duty, the sabres of doom.

Gathered like pearls in their alien graves Silent they sleep by the Persian waves, Scattered like shells on Egyptian sands, They lie with pale brows and brave, broken hands, They are strewn like blossoms mown down by chance On the blood-brown meadows of Flanders and France.

Can ye measure the grief of the tears I weep Or compass the woe of the watch I keep? Or the pride that thrills thro’ my heart’s despair And the hope that comforts the anguish of prayer? And the far sad glorious vision I see Of the torn red banners of Victory?

When the terror and tumult of hate shall cease And life be refashioned on anvils of peace, And your love shall offer memorial thanks To the comrades who fought in your dauntless ranks, And you honour the deeds of the deathless ones, Remember the blood of my martyred sons!

–Sarojini Naidu Not My Business

They picked Akanni up one morning Beat him soft like clay And stuffed him down the belly Of a waiting jeep.

What business of mine is it So long they don’t take the yam From my savouring mouth?

They came one night Booted the whole house awake And dragged Danladi out, Then off to a lengthy absence.

What business of mine is it So long they don’t take the yam From my savouring mouth?

Chinwe went to work one day Only to find her job was gone: No query, no warning, no probe - Just one neat sack for a stainless record.

What business of mine is it So long they don’t take the yam From my savouring mouth?

And then one evening As I sat down to eat my yam A knock on the door froze my hungry hand.

The jeep was waiting on my bewildered lawn Waiting, waiting in its usual silence.

Niyi Osudare This Dog

Every morning this dog, very attached to me, Quietly keeps sitting near my seat Till touching its head I recognize its company. This recognition gives it so much joy Pure delight ripples through its entire body. Among all dumb creatures It is the only living being That has seen the whole man Beyond what is good or bad in him It has seen For his love it can sacrifice its life It can love him too for the sake of love alone For it is he who shows the way To the vast world pulsating with life. When I see its deep devotion The offer of its whole being I fail to understand By its sheer instinct What truth it has discovered in man. By its silent anxious piteous looks It cannot communicate what it understands But it has succeeded in conveying to me Among the whole creation What is the true status of man.

Rabindranath Tagore Coconut Hair

Caleb Femi

For Mos Def

Theresa Lola

Does my bum look big enough in this?

Aisha Sanyang-Meek

On Kindness

Inua Ellams Love After Love

The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott Midsummer, Tobago

Broad sun-stoned beaches.

White heat. A green river.

A bridge, scorched yellow palms from the summer-sleeping house drowsing through August.

Days I have held, days I have lost, days that outgrow, like daughters, my harbouring arms.

Derek Walcott The Fist The fist clenched round my heart loosens a little, and I gasp brightness; but it tightens again. When have I ever not loved the pain of love? But this has moved past love to mania. This has the strong clench of the madman, this is gripping the ledge of unreason, before plunging howling into the abyss.

Hold hard then, heart. This way at least you live.

Derek Walcott Be Nobody’s Darling

Be nobody's darling; Be an outcast. Take the contradictions Of your life And wrap around You like a shawl, To parry stones To keep you warm. Watch the people succumb To madness With ample cheer; Let them look askance at you And you askance reply. Be an outcast; Be pleased to walk alone (Uncool) Or line the crowded River beds With other impetuous Fools.

Make a merry gathering On the bank Where thousands perished For brave hurt words They said.

But be nobody's darling; Be an outcast. Qualified to live Among your dead. Alice Walker Torture

When they torture your mother plant a tree When they torture your father plant a tree When they torture your brother and your sister plant a tree When they assassinate your leaders and lovers plant a tree Whey they torture you too bad to talk plant a tree. When they begin to torture the trees and cut down the forest they have made start another.

Alice Walker Library Ology

Benjamin Zephaniah No problem

I am not de problem But I bear de brunt Of the silly playground taunts An racist stunts, I am not de problem I am born academic But dey got me on de run Now im a branded athletic I am not de problem If yu give I a chance I can teach yu of Timbuktu I can do more dan dance I am not de problem I greet yu wid a smile Yu put me in a pigeon hole But i am versatile

These conditions may affect me As I get older, An I am positively sure I have no chips on my shoulders, Black is not de problem Mother country get it right An juss fe de record, Sum of me best friends are white.

Benjamin Zephaniah Dis Poetry

Dis poetry is like a riddim dat drops De tongue fires a riddim dat shoots like shots Dis poetry is designed fe rantin Dance hall style, big mouth chanting, Dis poetry nar put yu to sleep Preaching follow me Like yu is blind sheep, Dis poetry is not Party Political Not designed fe dose who are critical. Dis poetry is wid me when I gu to me bed It gets into me dreadlocks It lingers around me head Dis poetry goes wid me as I pedal me bike I’ve tried Shakespeare, respect due dere But did is de stuff I like. Dis poetry is not afraid of going ina book Still dis poetry need ears fe hear an eyes fe hav a look Dis poetry is Verbal Riddim, no big words involved An if I hav a problem de riddim gets it solved, I’ve tried to be more romantic, it does nu good for me So I tek a Reggae Riddim an build me poetry, I could try be more personal But you’ve heard it all before, Pages of written words not needed Brain has many words in store, Yu could call dis poetry Dub Ranting De tongue plays a beat De body starts skanking, Dis poetry is quick an childish Dis poetry is fe de wise an foolish, Anybody can do it fe free, Dis poetry is fe yu an me, Dont ‘stretch yu imagination Dis poetry is fe de good of de Nation, Chant, In de morning I chant In de night I chant In de darkness An under de spotlight, I pass thru University I pass thru Sociology An den I got a dread degree In Dreadfull Ghettology. Dis poetry stays wid me when I run or walk An when I am talking to meself in poetry I talk, Dis poetry is wid me, Below me an above, Dis poetry's from inside me It goes to yu WID LUV.

Benjamin Zephaniah The British Benjamin Zephaniah

Take some Picts, Celts and Silures And let them settle, Then overrun them with Roman conquerors.

Remove the Romans after approximately 400 years Add lots of Norman French to some Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Vikings, then stir vigorously.

Mix some hot Chileans, cool Jamaicans, Dominicans, Trinidadians and Bajans with some Ethiopians, Chinese, Vietnamese and Sudanese.

Then take a blend of Somalians, Sri Lankans, Nigerians And Pakistanis, Combine with some Guyanese And turn up the heat.

Sprinkle some fresh Indians, Malaysians, Bosnians, Iraqis and Bangladeshis together with some Afghans, Spanish, Turkish, Kurdish, Japanese And Palestinians Then add to the melting pot. Leave the ingredients to simmer.

As they mix and blend allow their languages to flourish Binding them together with English.

Allow time to be cool.

Add some unity, understanding, and respect for the future, Serve with justice And enjoy.

Note: All the ingredients are equally important. Treating one ingredient better than another will leave a bitter unpleasant taste.

Warning: An unequal spread of justice will damage the people and cause pain. Give justice and equality to all.

Benjamin Zephaniah