New Poem of the Day
This week's Poem of the Day is taken from John Lyons' new and selected poems, 'No Apples in Eden' (2009).
A GRANDMOTHER’S HOME RULE
1
He lived anxious days of learning
under his grandmother’s stern eye,
punitive leather strap, her fierce faith in English:
Des days in dis island people tink dey free.
Dey callit ee man cee pay shon, buh ah telling yuh,
slavery eh done yet, yuh know. Education is
de onliest way outa slavery, so yuh better siddown
read yuh book
2
After evening johnnie bakes, soursop bush tea
he sat in the orange glow of a pitchoil lamp
reading Nelson’s West Indian Reader,
how that little one-eyed, one-armed man
hounded Villeneuve across troubled seas;
how under Sir Ralph Abercromby, Trinidad became
a British colony without sword and cannon fire.
But where was his grandmother’s history?
Look for her history
in African cooking pots
simmering with food for the soul,
blending the bitterness of enslavement
with a sweet freedom of spirit to survive.
Look for her history
in the love chamber of the big house
on the Alexanders’ cocoa plantation;
the creole ochre of her skin,
her body’s lexicon of gestures,
the onomatopoeia of feelings:
Eh-heh? Buh eh-eh!
Ah-ya-hai, mama yo!
History waiting to be written
in a nation’s first language.
- John Lyons, No Apples in Eden (2009)
The Poetry Business receives financial assistance from Arts Council England.
