Reflection
I was raised within the confines of the Catholicism transported from County Wicklow to Liverpool, my mother’s place of birth, and married to the missionary zeal of Nigeria.
My father came to England as a seaman joining the Merchant Navy to “do his bit” for the Mother Country. His ship was torpedoed and he spent the remainder of the conflict as a prisoner of war. My mother never shook off the weight of domestic labour and though she spent her last years running a herbalist business, she was always either the cleaner or laundry hand, and I really believed she equally enjoyed both.
The poem isn’t really a reflection of my parents. In a true light, their marriage suffered from the bigotry of the times. Because Dad held the English in a sort of awe, he avoided confrontation, so my mother survived better and found an inner strength against those who looked down on her family when my father was away at sea.
To be honest I wrote the poem within minutes of being told the theme of a workshop. It was in Liverpool, it seemed appropriate. I write best when I write without preparation. I always need someone to proof my work but the body of it is always well-fed and mature.
There is nothing clever about my writing and I write for performance, not the page. I come from a family of talkers. From both sides of the globe my family have retold their lives to each other around coal fires in a converted terrace shop with a crooked window installed by whole village of Black men, to whom my father never spoke a word because they were Caribbeans. (another example of the ignorance of those times).
I do not attempt to follow any form, it doesn’t interest me. I want my work to sound like a conversation - the exchange of secrets, often some that should not really be spoken. My mother’s mouth was filled with the over-the-fence chatter of Liverpool, expanding her expressions with an inherited Irish superstitiousness - we never did anything that might tempt fate against us. So we never wrote anything down, preferring to whisper it on.
I want my work to be powerful and therefore it must be honest. I believe the poet is the timekeeper of society. I believe the poet is life’s narrator, commentator and often its critic.
I don’t rant or rave about racism. My inner skill is the Scouse humour -hard hitting and in your face. I don’t attempt to RAP. I am not a pseudo African-American - I am Black British.
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