I Have Crossed an Ocean: Selected Poems

By Grace Nichols

Grace Nichols' poetry has a gritty lyricism that addresses the transatlantic connections central to the Caribbean-British experience. Her work brings a mythic awareness and a sensuous musicality that is at the same time disquieting. Born and educated in Guyana, Grace Nichols moved to Britain in 1977. I Have Crossed an Ocean is a comprehensive selection spanning some 25 years of her writing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Release date: Mar 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781780370347

Grace Nichols

Grace Nichols is one of Britain's most highly-acclaimed poets. Born in Guyana, she moved to England in 1977. She has won many prizes, including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Her A & C Black titles include Come on into My Tropical Garden and Give Yourself a Hug. Grace Nichols was born in Georgetown, Guyana, and has lived in England since 1977. She has written many books for both children and adults and has won, among other awards, the 1983 Commonwealth Poetry Prize. She was poet-in-residence at the Tate Gallery, London (1999-2000). Grace Nichols performs her work internationally and is one of the poets on the UK national curriculum.

Book preview

GRACE NICHOLS

I HAVE CROSSED AN OCEAN

SELECTED POEMS

Grace Nichols’ poetry has a gritty lyricism that addresses the transatlantic connections central to the Caribbean-British experience. Her work brings a mythic awareness and a sensuous musicality that is at the same time disquieting. Born and educated in Guyana, Grace Nichols moved to Britain in 1977. I Have Crossed an Ocean is a comprehensive selection spanning some 25 years of her writing.

‘Not only rich music, an easy lyricism, but also grit, and earthy honesty, a willingness to be vulnerable and clean’

–

GWENDOLYN BROOKS

‘Grace Nichols has wit, acidity, tenderness, any number of gifts at her disposal’

–

JEANETTE WINTERSON

‘Grace Nichols came to Britain from Guyana at the age of 27 and she has carried the warmth of her Caribbean sensibility through many a cold English winter. Her poems celebrate sensuality and generosity and attack petty mean-spiritedness… Deeply Caribbean in sensibility, she writes sensitively of other traditions, especially Africa and India’

–

PETER FORBES

, Contemporary Writers

‘From her first collection in 1983, I Is a Long Memoried Woman, she has been a strong presence in the linguistic interweave between the Caribbean and the UK. Her poetry and prose move easily between the poised world of Western culture, Old World history and myth, and the gritty rhythms of the Caribbean everyday… There is wit, irony and passion…real poise’

–

MICHELENE WANDOR

, Poetry Review

COVER PAINTING

Olmec Maya – Now and Coming Time (1985)

by Aubrey Williams

OIL ON CANVAS © DACS, 2010 / TATE, LONDON 2010

Grace Nichols

I HAVE CROSSED AN OCEAN

SELECTED POEMS

For John, Lesley, Kalera and Yansan,

and for my sisters and brother,

Avril, Valerie, Dennis and Claire

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book includes poems which Grace Nichols has herself chosen from her previous collections: I Is a Long-Memoried Woman (Karnak House, 1983); The Fat Black Woman’s Poems (1984), Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman (1989), Sunris (1996) and Startling the Flying Fish (2006) – all published by Virago. The poems for younger readers are from the following books: Come On Into My Tropical Garden (A&C Black, 1988), No Hickory No Dickory No Dock (Puffin/Viking 1991), Give Yourself a Hug (A&C Black, 1994), The Poet Cat (Bloomsbury, 2000), Paint Me a Poem (A&C Black, 2004) and Everybody Got a Gift (new and selected, A&C Black, 2004).

A new collection by Grace Nichols, Picasso, I Want My Face Back (2009), is published by Bloodaxe Books separately from this book.

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

FROM

I Is a Long-Memoried Woman

(1983)

from One Continent to Another

Days That Fell

Waterpot

Each Time They Came

Taint

Sacred Flame

Without Song

Ala

Sugar Cane

Like a Flame

Up My Spine

I Coming Back

Night Is Her Robe

Skin-Teeth

Love Act

In My Name

Yemanji

Like Anansi

Of Golden Gods

I Will Enter

This Kingdom

Wind a Change

Omen

Holding My Beads

Epilogue

FROM

The Fat Black Woman’s Poems

(1984)

Price We Pay for the Sun

Those Women

The candlefly

Iguana Memory

Star-apple

Be a Butterfly

Back Home Contemplation

Praise Song for My Mother

Like a Beacon

Island Man

Spring

Waiting for Thelma’s laughter

Winter Thoughts

Two Old Black Men on a Leicester Square Park Bench

THE FAT BLACK WOMAN’S CYCLE

The Assertion

The Fat Black Woman’s Motto on Her Bedroom Door

The Fat Black Woman Goes Shopping

A Fat Poem

Tropical Death

Invitation

Thoughts Drifting Through the Fat Black Woman’s Head While Having a Full Bubble Bath

The Fat Black Woman’s Instructions to a Suitor

Small Questions Asked by the Fat Black Woman

FROM

Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman

(1989)

Dust

Grease

With Apologies to Hamlet

In Spite of Me

Wherever I Hang

My Black Triangle

Even Tho

Configurations

Abra-Cadabra

Out of Africa

FROM

Sunris

(1996)

Introduction to Sunris

Sunris

To the Running of My River

Timehri Airport to Georgetown

Blackout

First Generation Monologue

Long Man

My Northern Sister

Against the Planet

Black

White

Wings

Icons

Hurricane Hits England

FROM

Startling the Flying Fish

(2006)

My Children Are Movers

To My Coral Bones

I, Cariwoma Watched History

Other Ships

In My Sea-House

Palm-Tree Seductions

Facing Atlantic

Startling the Flying Fish

Is That You, Columbus?

Our Cassandra

The People Could Fly

Many an Aztec Eye

Gold

Mother of the Mestizo

You There, Hummingbird,

Old Canecutter at Airport

Cane Still Dancing

Hibiscus

Sly Anansi

Why Shouldn’t I

Not the Kind of Tree

Rain Music

For the Life of This Planet

Follow That Painting Back

Ink of Exile

The Children of Las Margaritas

Lip-shore

Footprints of My Arrival

Poems for Younger Readers

Sun Is Laughing

Headmistress Moon

In the Great Womb-Moon

Baby-K Rap Rhyme

Give Yourself a Hug

Cat-Shots

Cat-Rap

Sleeping Out

Me and Mister Polite

Turner to His Critic

Come On into My Tropical Garden

Mama-Wata

For Forest

Wha Me Mudder Do

Granny Granny Please Comb My Hair

Don’t Cry Caterpillar

Ar-a-rat

Teenage Earthbirds

Book-heart

GLOSSARY

About the Author

Copyright

from

I IS A LONG-MEMORIED WOMAN

(1983)

Even in dreams I will submerge myself

swimming like one possessed

back and forth across that course

strewing it with sweet smelling flowers -

one for