I wrote a little something after my walk yesterday in the blustery wind/ sea spray of Whitley Bay.
cold seeps into my teeth
grin in the wind/ whistles
through my ears. lost. pain/
with the tide out/ boulders revealed
i prefer the bay full/ full to the brim
like my love for the seas/ me /and you/
I see you, white blossom.
I feel your softness and gentle caress-petals.
Hanging, heavy bell-like clusters of white,
delicate to the touch as well as to the nose.
I taste your thirst for life, to cling on,
as your prime is short-lived, ephemeral
but no less spectacular. Thank you,
sweet one, for blazing white-bright
in my line of sight, that my heartswells
with awe and wonder and love. For you.
For this world. For we share this glory
through our true nature.
April was National Poetry Month in the States. I attempted to complete and share a poem a day for the month.
On the whole, I just missed a few days towards the end of the month. Things went a bit off the boil, when things got a bit busy. What with birthday celebrations and friends visiting, my attentions were distracted and my energy levels were depleted.
But hey 20+ new poems which didn’t exist before this month is always a win in my book. I feel when I do these challenges, what I produce is hit and miss. Because of the necessity of creating something everyday, the time needed to go deep into a subject or issue is lacking. Surface shenanigans are usually the case.
Speed is needed rather than depth. But now, as May rolls along there is time to revisit and redraft and build upon what is already there.
It’s time to slow down the poetry creation process and spend some quality time going deep. Do some more research, collect some more stories and facts as inspiration and see what happens from there. Let the poems sit and fester and start to speak for themselves.
My poetry writing muscles have been flexed and they’re primed to continue lifting heavier weights of meaning and impact now.
I’m looking forward to see which pieces develop, which ones will fall by the way side and which ones will become pure steel.
Commentary: years ago I wrote a poem titled ‘ i am becoming my mother’. I think it’s in my first full collection Family Album, Flambard Press 2011.
A few weeks ago while attending one of my late night across the Atlantic poetry group workshops, I had an inkling to revisit this poem with the intention of bringing it up to date. To try and incorporate all the ‘Sherees’ that have developed, spored since the first poem, since my mum’s death and teachings have passed into decades gone by.
So I created this piece. Same title but definitely more expansive.
i am becoming my mother
Dehumanising the Black woman. Mammy, Jezebel, Sapphire, Bitch.
The black woman is seen as one dimensional; the mule of the world, carrying the heavy burden of mothering all others except her own.
Her own children are lost; lost to the auction block, the ocean, the noose.
A Black woman is a source of strength and love. Passing on power as well as pain.
Her body carries stories, carries histories, carries an archive.
as a black woman,
resting deep within the meadow,
held in softness,
grass tickling shins,
dress billowing about
like blossom,
is a political act.
I recently talked about the coming of April and how more poetry would be appearing on here as I attempt to ‘play with words’.
You can not imagine the delight as well as confirmation I received this morning while reading an article for the commissioned essay I’m writing at the moment around (Black) Motherhood.
A bone of contention with me is when I see the words ‘mother’ and ‘motherhood’, even though I have birthed children, I do not see these terms applied to me. ‘Mother’ and ‘motherhood’ come with the connotations of white and whiteness for me.
Test it yourself. Be honest. When I first mentioned ‘mother’, what image came to mind for you? If not a white woman and child. I’ve seen image after image of the idea of motherhood, the natural beauty of ‘The mother’ and nine times out of ten the image is of a white woman and child. As if a Black woman is not/ cannot be seen as a mother, even though a Black woman is the source of the whole human race. Go look that one up!
Anyway, I’m going off topic here ( but not in terms of the hybrid essay I’m writing for the forthcoming special Demeter Press collection, The Mother Wave: Matricentric Feminism as Theory, Activism, and Practice (2023)).
Reading this article this morning, ‘ Conjuring the Ghost: A Call and Response to Haints’ by drea brown, there is a mention of poetry lying in the body, coming from that dark place within where our true spirits lies hidden and growing, argues Audre Lorde. But poetry is also our way, Black people’s way, or theorising and making sense of things. Through our stories, narratives, riddles, poetry; playing with words and language, we not only gain an understanding and reimagining of our lives but these are also tools of surviving.
As Black women, speaking from my lived- experience here, through our creativity, through our playing with language in such a spirited way, we enter in the process of not just theorising and strategising but also self-making and through this practice passing this on to others. Passing on this power to others. It’s what we do, have been doing through time. Starting with the mothering we do of ours and others babies
Words: adapted from ‘Conjuring Hands: The Art of Curious Women of Color’, by gloria j. wilson, Joni Body Acuff and Venessa Lopez
we crave joy. unmediated, defined by self, not by others.
for me, joy is intertwined with the idea of ‘safety’.
for me safety means not only protection from White hands that hold sticks, stones, batons, and guns.
but also safety from White minds and from White eyes.
in the past, in attempts at safety, i have resorted to running, literally and figuratively.
i fold in on myself to avoid harmful interactions. to keep myself safe.
i’m no longer prepared to relegate myself to the corner of the room. i go to the waters seeking guidance from the ancestors, seeking safety, seeking joy.
I got the sea, after an intense and beautiful anti-racism facilitation session with the National Trust.
At some point, I’ll unpack this experience. I just know I make a promise to myself before this last session to save something back for myself.
I give and give. I have a tendency to give in the hope to be received and receive. I give as I believe I’m here to be of service.
It is only recently that I feel that in order to keep on being of and in service, I have to give to myself, first and foremost.
So I go to the sea after this anti-racism book group session, keeping a promise to myself.
I go to the sea to heal.
To be cleansed. To be released. I save just enough energy to get me to the sea. To strip down and take the short sharp steps into the waters.
This afternoon, the sea is full to the brim.
Just like my heart after the intense and beautiful final session with the National Trust around being a good ally in a society becoming more anti-racist.
When light drips from the moon, I wonder what she sees in me.
As her light stalks through cracks, does she feel the longing threaded through the hairs of my arm, and slicing through the rim of my smile?
When light bulges from the moon, thrumming the water of my weight, does she sense my hunger for a lover’s hips touching my inner thighs, for a breath down my neck, in caress?
When the moon’s light fingers me from sleep, to wind circles over my skin, moth light, white light, does she taste
the salt in my bones
the sugar in my sweat
the howl in my throat?
If I allowed curiosity and love to seep through the wounds, I wouldn’t be here now at the page trying to make sense of it.
A black girl walks through the meadow, enters the dark woods and forfeits her life. And I can’t but think if she was white …
Trust. Always difficult for me to hold, like light on burnt leaves. Like the coming of winter any day now.
The race talk, an accumulation of cautionary tales told through time, she, with earth in her voice, filled the void of rage with what was right for her soul. Joy.
Living Wild Studios 