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Watch and Tell: Black Women Writers in Britain

Desola Olaleye

Watchers & Seekers and Let It Be Told | Photo: Desola Olaleye

Before I turned eighteen, I was conscious of black feminism. I don’t think I formally adopted its label or flew its flag, but I was drawn to the spirit underlying its letter. I could identify traces of it in literary works, visual art, and social movements. I could name some of its movers and shakers: Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, June Jordan. Not once did it cross my mind to include a non-American woman in that list.


At the time, the black feminism I knew was of the North American ilk. I knew little of the black women in countries of my birth (Nigeria) and residence (Britain) who articulated their frustrations about multiple, intersecting oppressions. We didn’t learn about them in school. There was no room for them in the syllabus. There was no room for Walker, Davis, Lorde, hooks and Jordan either. But I could easily find information about them outside the classroom—in local libraries, bookshops, and on the Internet. In suburban England, black feminism seemed to be an import. Its face was distinctly American.


Recently, I found myself absorbed in two books that shift attention from the black feminism of North America. First released in 1987 by feminist publishers in Britain—The Women’s Press and Virago Press—these texts showcase the manifold perspectives and writings of black women in Britain. These books emerged at a time when “black” was read capaciously and adopted as a marker of identity by women with roots reaching into Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.


The first book, Watchers & Seekers, was edited by Rhonda Cobham and Merle Collins. It features the essays, stories and poems of black women like Maureen Ismay, Grace Nichols, Rita Anyiam-St. John, and Bunmi Ogunsiji.


Let It Be Told is the second book, edited by Lauretta Ngcobo. Alongside creative writing by ten black women including Grace Nichols, Maud Sulter, Marsha Prescod and Ngcobo herself, there are personal reflections from each contributor about their writing practice and philosophy. These reflections shed light on the quotidian routines of creative work and the difficulties of writing against erasure and stereotypes.


I have been struck by poems, passages, and sentences in these books that I wish to highlight here. My hope is that the works of these women will be, not necessarily championed, but more widely sought, read, and digested.


From Veronica Williams’s ‘One Angry Woman’ (Watchers & Seekers):

I am a woman and I’m angry

At having to behave in ways female.

I’d like to climb rocks and build a bridge

To shoot the menstrual cycle up in a spaceship.

But I’d like to be pampered after building

With long slim glasses of cherried liqueur

Under starlit, moonbeamed nights


From Grace Nichols’ ‘My Black Triangle’ (Watchers & Seekers):

My black triangle

sandwiched between the geography of my thighs


is a bermuda

of tiny atoms

forever seizing

and releasing the world


From Merle Collins’ ‘Same But Different’ (Watchers & Seekers):

My friend and I

travelled home together by night bus

My friend is white

As we parted at the station-shop

she said

that her fears

were of rapists and robbers

for me

that too

But as I walked the distance home

on pounding tiptoe

Each sudden shadow

was a threat of the National Front


From Monique Griffiths’ ‘Girl Talk’ (Watchers & Seekers):

Cha, me tired of men whistling at me

when I walking the government street.

And why the knowing glances and stares

when our eyes accidentally meet?

I’m fed up of being furtively fondled

without my knowledge or consent.

Wonder if those loving words

were contrived or lovingly meant?

If you’re black and on the game

who can really tell?

Who wants to hear from a commodity

that we never ever sell?

And if you’ve ever had an abortion

does even your best friend know?

Or did you tell your boyfriend

you had a particularly heavy flow?


From Grace Nichols (Let It Be Told):

It’s difficult to answer the question “Why I write” because writing isn’t a logical activity. It’s a compulsion like a disease that keeps you alive. At a simple conscious level I would say that I write because writing is my way of participating in the world and in the struggle for keeping the human spirit alive, including my own. It’s a way of sharing a vision that is hopefully life-giving in the final analysis.


From Lauretta Ngcobo (Let It Be Told):

…the Blackwoman is pressured by three conflicting motives: the instinct to write for its own sake, the artist for herself; the demand to keep faith with our own society; and the need to defend our culture against further erosion.

***

I don’t think I know why I write, I just know I must. I scribble a lot that I know will never be read by anyone, for since I was a little girl by conditioning, I never expected anyone to read anything I wrote, outside my classroom assignments. I feel the need to communicate with myself. It is a duty to myself.


***

How does one free the woman without burning the whole society down?



I’m sure I’ll be combing through these books for a while; lots to return to, re-read and reflect on. Their covers alone, illustrated by Fyna Dowe (Watchers & Seekers) and Folake Shoga (Let It Be Told), are enough to pull me back.

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© DIANA DESOLA OLALEYE

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