Combining the stanza with heritage

Each week, I will be recommending works from the pantheon of Black British Literature, to have at the forefront of your mind. This issue, in honour of National Poetry Day (October 4th 2023), we read five excerpts from works by Black British poets, inspired by cultural, historical, and personal experiences.

1. Kumukanda
by Kayo Chingonyi

“If my alternate self, who never left, could see me

what would he make of these literary pretensions,”

British-Zambian writer Kayo Chingonyi’s poem Kumukanda presents a beautiful reckoning of what it means to have lives strewn across countries. The questions, decisions, and complications that arise and necessitate or, at worst, demand a voice for them to be heard.

2. A Portable Paradise
by Roger Robinson

“And if I speak of Paradise,

then I’m speaking of my grandmother”

The announcement of Roger Robinson’s collection A Portable Paradise as the T. S. Eliot prize-winner felt like seeing the sun fully descend into the horizon. An arc finally completed by this legendary British-Trinidadian poet and musician whose work has been dedicated to stringing together words describing the Black British experience into poetic forms. A Portable Paradise very much carries oral traditions in its words. It deserves to be kept close, in the breastpocket, much like the words of similarly great poets like Maya Angelou and Gwendolyn Brooks across the Atlantic.

3. A Parable of Sorts
by Malika Booker

“On / the strike of dawn, we skittered from shadows, the

redeemed walking day’s straight-road into warpland.”

A Parable of Sorts is a different kind of poem, intense from the onset and persistent until its final line, when it lets off a great big exhale. This remarks the talent with which tenet of Black British poetry, Malika Booker, describes a scene of dance – rhapsody in motion – as well as displays a range of fierce poetic techniques that make the challenges of capturing dance in poetry seem easy.

4. Amo Amas Amat

by Bernadine Evaristo

“Who do you love? Who do you love,

when the man you married goes off

for months on end, quelling rebellions

at the frontiers, or playing hot-shot senator in Rome;”

This poem, taken from the prologue of the verse novel (yes, those exist!) Emperor’s Babe by Booker prize-winner Bernadine Evaristo, is a beautiful reflection of what can occur in the fusion between forms as she writes, so soulfully, an evocative depiction of a woman challenged about the man she loves.

5. The Perseverance
by Raymond Antrobus

“I am still outside the perseverance,

listening for the laughter.”

 Gut-wrenching, powerful, and moving are words not quite able to capture the weight with which Raymond Antrobus narrates his personal tale about fatherhood. It’s a beautiful poem, and one which I hope you’ll read and enjoy.

These poems are not a definitive list, as there are many more poems out there capturing the Black British experience, but I hope seeing this sample of what’s available might get you interested in the world of Black British poetry, and captured by the insight and imagination of these incredible poets.