Title of Book: Poetry Jump-Up: A Collection of Black Poetry
Author’s name: Compiled by Grace Nichols
Publisher: Puffin Books 1990
Rating: (*****)
This brave collection of poetry was published in 1990—a generation ago. And yet it has a warm and enchanting appeal to children (eight-12 years), a wonderful expression of a dynamic verse filled with life and music—and brings together the voices of black writers from England, Africa, America, Asia and the Caribbean.
I chose to focus on this admirable literary effort so that our BLM (Black Lives Matter) adherents would realise that people across the continents have been expressing themselves, without clenched fists or rabble-rousing. In her very foreword to the collection, the compiler, Grace Nichols), states: “I found myself having to deal with the controversy surrounding the term “black” itself.
She goes on to say that: "Black evokes for me almost unconsciously, a certain cultural spirit or aesthetic with underlying connections to an African past. This spirit manifests itself in the creole speech of the Caribbean for example; in the black English of Afro-Americans; in the blues, jazz, gospel. Calypso and dub, the influences of which can be felt on Afro-American and Caribbean poetry."
That said, discussions go on as to whether black should be seen as a racial/cultural definition for people of colour who have shared a common resistance to discrimination. I have digressed, only to establish the point that writers from all over the world have been writing from their hearts and souls and beliefs to enable people to share a humane fellowship in all things under the one sun that rises and sets on all irrespective of ethnicity, geography, wealth or poverty.
"Poetry Jump-Up" is uniquely a celebration of voices across the world. In its tight scope of 143 pages, there are 88 poems of varying lengths, from as many as 68 poets.
Reynold Bassant
The feast of offerings opens with “Lullaby” from Burundi (Africa):
A heart to hate you
Is as far away as the moon.
A heart to love you
Is as close as the door.
Then we get another heartfelt pull from Langston Hughes:
"Just because 9 loves you—
That’s de reason why
Ma Soul is so full of color
Like de wings of a butterfly."
Then the tone segues into something from Jamaica by Lesley Miranda:
Me don’t want no hairstyle
cause me don’t want no hair pile
pon me bedroom floor__
I gonna stick to me
dread style__
Shift to Guyana and Ian Mc Donald writes in Georgetown Children:
Under the soursop silver-leaf tree
The High School children play skip and free…
Black child, yellow child, brown child, white
They all the same if you looking right.
And then this from Grace Nichols "What Me Mudder do":
"Me mudder chase bad-con
with one 'shoo.'"
Ain’t have nothing
Dat me mudder can’t do.
Even Maya Angelou gets into the fray with On Aging:
When you see me walking, stumbling.
Don’t study and get it wrong.
Cause tired don’t mean lazy.
And every goodbye ain’t gone.
This collection is full of music, joy and celebration, tinged with some regret and longing. But they are full of hope, bounce and kinetic strength—with vital and relevant voices reverberating from the heart. If only we could find the time and get children back into our public libraries, we could read to them, using the art of fine prosody, lead them into places, near and far; to open up their curiosity—urging them to want to take the book and read it for themselves.
But that’s another story. Albeit about closing down our public libraries. Just when we need more children to be reading. Just for the pleasure to enter words and create pictures upon pictures. It's what poetry does in its myriad ways.
Words wit black skin
Words wit white skin
Words wit brown skin
Words wit no skin at all
Words huggin words
An saying I want to be a poem today.
I highly recommend Poetry Jump-Up. It’s a trip across many countries, meeting different landscapes, hearing new voices and feeling the pulsation of the music emanating from the poems. Any collection of books—at home or in public libraries—should include a copy or two of Poetry Jump-Up.