Extract: Jamaican British

after Arron Samuels

Some people would deny that I’m Jamaican British.

Angelo nose. Hair straight. No way I can be Jamaican British.

They think I say I’m black when I say Jamaican British

but the English boys at school made me choose Jamaican, British?

Half-caste, half mule, house slave - Jamaican British.

Light skin, straight male, privileged - Jamaican British.

Eat the callaloo, the jerk chicken - I’m Jamaican

British don’t know how to serve our dishes, they enslaved us.

In school I fought a boy in the lunch hall - Jamaican.

At home told Dad that I hate dem, all dem Jamaicans - I’m British.

He laughed and said you cannot love sugar and hate your sweetness,

then took me straight to Jamaica - passport British.

Cousins in Kingston called me Ja-English,

proud to have someone in their family – British.

Plantation lineage, World War services, how do I serve Jamaican British?

When knowing how to war is Jamaican

British.

Extract: Echo

Oral speech was deemed as superior in order to communicate with God--History Of Deaf Education (British Sign Language Zone)

My ear amps whistle
like they are singing to Echo, Goddess of Noise
wailing for her return as a ravelled knot
of tongues of blaring birds, of consonant crumbs
of dull door bells, of sounds swamped
in my misty hearing aid tubes.
 

Gaudi believed in holy sound
and built a cathedral to contain it
pulling hearing men from their faded
knees like Atheism is a kind of Deafness.
 

Who would turn down God?
 

Even though I have not heard
the golden decibel of angels
I have been living in a noiseless
palace where the doorbell is pulsating
light and I am able to answer.

Commissions & Articles

Crossing Borders Commission

Part of the ILS 'Crossing Borders' commission series.