"Mtembezi" ‐ The Wanderer

Nahar Sadian 

I'm an American,
Or maybe an African.
My homeland... I don't know.
I don't know my ancestors,
I only know that they were born free, free people.

My ancestors were divided
still before they were put on ships from Africa to America.
They were divided according to tribes
Not two people from the same tribe next to each other
So they could not communicate with each other
They were to serve their white owners
They weren't to talk with each other
They were to serve and be quiet.

In the back of my mind, I think I remember the language of those ancestors,
The language of the sun and happy smiles which was forbidden in an empire in which
the sun would never set,
I speak a dialect , a mix between the language of my people and my owners'.
People do not like my accent,
they tell me to go back home.
Sometimes they use words, in other cases, I can read it from their faces.

But where is my home?

I see their faces,
Pale and reddish, their noses up into the sky.
They're not interested
They KNOW that my family came from slaves
Sometimes they know it better than me...

October 2017

Humans

Aitor Rodríguez García

                    

I see it every day,

in every corner I might say.

Don’t pretend to be okay,

because you think we’re on your way.

Every day, every day.

I saw two women on my bus,

going to work in their hijabs.

Maybe you think they’re different from us.

Just stop thinking. Just hush.

I saw a gypsy walking at night on the pathways.

You were on the same side, looking at your faces.

You turned around and crossed the highway,

scared again by the races.

The women didn’t have a bomb.

The gypsy didn’t have a razor.

You are all just mere racists,

not better than Adolph Hitler.

We are just mere humans,

not divided by races.

Stop this nonsense

and let’s be united together.

October 2017

Why?

David Hernández Coalla

               


Dad, why do they speak so weird?
Mom, why do they eat this food?
When here:
a different house,
a different school.

                          When there:

                          the old accent,

                          the old mood.

The memorable memories that I’ve learnt,
will they ever be missed?

If I just knew where to stand...
       just knew where I am...

October 10, 2017 

Don't belong to no city

Carmen Lucía Prieto Eugenio

Don't belong to no city

don't belong to no land.

Don't know my home

but I'm still trying to find it.

Don't let them know you are different,

you are different.

Don't let them know.

Don't let them know.

October 2017

   

“Where are you from?”

Massiel Beatriz Romero Ballester

Is always the question,

As if to determine my value

They need to place me somewhere else.

It’s a long story, love.

It wasn’t my choice

I was only four

“You’re not from here”

Is what I always hear

I am from every place I’ve been

Still they won’t believe me.

Words they understand slip from my mouth,

And they pretend not to know in fear of looking dumb

“You don’t look like them” they say

“You don’t look like us either” is what they mean.

I have no songs to sing along

Because I wasn’t taught when I was born

That I should learn the foreign songs.

My skin is not Black

as it should have been

And they are in shock

‘cause they don’t know what to expect from me.

I’m always asked

Where my heart lies

My heart lies in itself

Waiting for my legs

To take it somewhere else.

October 2017

Poetry and society

This week we've started talking about POETRY. We've discussed the role of poetry in society, and the ways in which we are accessing poetry, no longer so much through books, but more and more often through YouTube videos.

In this week's PLA we analysed some Black British poems, like, for example, John Agard's "Listen Mr Oxford Don", Meiling Jin's "The Knock", and Grace Nichols' "Wherever I Hang", all of them dealing with the immigrant experience: the criminalization that is so commonly projected onto immigrant subjects, the feelings of unbeloning they experience, or their fear of deportation, among other things.

          

                                                                                              

While talking about the new channels that poets are using to disseminate their poems and that audicences are employing to gain access to poetry works, my students introduced me to a Spanish poet called Loreto Sesma. I've just seen one of her videos, one in which she recites her poem "Desastres", and I'm struck by some of her lines, like one that says, "¿Por qué no se habla de aquellos que se esconden en un verso?" So I'm really grateful to my students for introducing me to a new poet. Thank you, guys! So good to learn things from you!

I myself introduced them to a British poet who also resorts to the Internet to spread her poems, Hollie McNish, whom I got to know thanks to my colleague Irene Pérez. In class we saw McNish's video-poem "Foreign" and part of "Embarrassed". The former talks about many Britons' hypocritical behaviour, that is, their acceptance of foreign money and objects, and simultaneously, their rejection of foreign people, whom they accuse of being a burden on the British economy. The latter poem talks about hypocrisy too, though in this case the target is society's double standard when it comes to women's tits: female breasts are OK if they're for show, but wrong, an embarrassment, if they're for breastfeeding, McNish denounces.

I hope my students enjoyed listening to McNish's poems and all our reflections on poetry.

And I also hope that some of them will take this week's new challenge. Here it is.

Will you dare to write a poem in which the poetic persona is an immigrant?