Poetry Vs Colonialism, an anthology by Laila Sumpton

an anthology

Poetry Vs Colonialism, an anthology

First published in the UK in 2022 by Poetry Vs Colonialism, www.poetryvcolonialism.co.uk, © Poetry Vs Colonialism 2022. Writers retain all rights to their work. Design by Salvo Design and Print. Logo design by Christian Denardi Vattathara. The publication is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. 2

an anthology

CONTENTS Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Gold, Nick Makoha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Tobacco, Sandra A Agard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Sugar, Keith Jarrett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Cotton, Laila Sumpton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Four Pantoums and a Song, Laila Sumpton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 Afterword, Joanna Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Contributors and Supporters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

FOREWORD Co-founders: Laila Sumpton, Dr Pen Woods and Prof Victoria de Rijke. Poetry is a wonderful tool for exploring history: you can move between centuries in a matter of lines and condense, unpack and amplify all the complex emotions that colonial history brings up. Our project has been lucky to work with some incredible poets, schools, artists, museums and academics so that together we can find new ways to explore the stories of materials crucial to the rise of the British Empire: sugar, cotton, tobacco and gold. Poets Laila Sumpton, Nick Makoha, Sandra A. Agard and Keith Jarrett have worked with students to explore this history in a multisensory way so that they can bridge past and present, and investigate how these narratives feel alongside their own identities. We hope you enjoy the journey the poems in this collection will take you on, and consider your own connection to sugar, cotton, tobacco and gold and the global histories they encompass. Racism and colonialism are historic interrelated conditions of culture and society with complex legacies that underpin our social and cultural relations today. They are also contingent. The role that racism and colonialism play in culture and society is remade by all of us every day in our relations with each other. Education and emotional engagement enable us to reset how we want to live the legacies of racism and colonialism in our society now and in the future. As this collection makes vividly apparent, poetry affords a unique platform for us to do this anti-colonial work and make its rich plurality visible to each other and available to be celebrated and learned from. This is the contribution that Poetry Vs Colonialism offers to help us work towards antiracist and anti-colonial futures. Thanks to the support of Arts Council England, Keats House, Middlesex University, Culture Mile London, the University of Newcastle and Queen Mary University of London, we have built a committed network of arts and heritage professionals keen to continue working together on how we can make space for creatively investigating colonial histories. Although this work lies at the heart of what some are calling ‘the culture wars,’ we are certain that a more inclusive history is vital for a more equal future. Poetry Vs Colonialism is a way to do just that.

GOLD 6

GOLD Nick Makoha The British Empire did not exist in the Middle Ages. In the early Middle Ages, England was part of other empires. Also, the continent that we call Africa is the oldest inhabited territory in the world. From Africa, many great civilisations have arrived that have contributed to the development of humankind. There was the Nubian empire of Kush which stood for a thousand years. It was an economic powerhouse. It was both a trading partner and a military rival to Egypt. Other great African civilizations are The Kingdom of Aksum, The Songhai Empire, the land of Punt, The Carthage Empire (Rome’s rival in the Punic Wars) and The Mali Empire. Often the lens of history only focuses as far back as the colonisation of Africa when seven European countries during the age of New Imperialism (1881-1914) scrambled for its control. Africa went from being 10% controlled by Europe to 90%. What is often foregrounded is the slave trade but other damages to the continent are the stripping of is assets such as Gold. In my journey to understand my own African history I was led to Musa Keita I or Mansa Musa the ninth Mansa of the Mali Empire. He was the wealthiest person in history and came to power in 1312 C.E. While in Cairo, Mansa Musa met with the Sultan of Egypt, and his caravan spent and gave away so much gold that the overall value of gold decreased in Egypt for the next 12 years. Stories of his fabulous wealth even reached Europe. The Catalan Atlas, created in 1375 C.E. by Spanish cartographers, shows West Africa dominated by a depiction of Mansa Musa sitting on a throne. My poem Codex 12 speaks in the voice of Mansa Musa and looks at Mansa Musa’s hajj to Mecca in 1324 C.E. On this trip he travelled with an entourage of tens of thousands of people and dozens of camels, each carrying 136 kilograms (300 pounds) of gold. The second poem looks at Balthazar the black King of Macedonia who gave the gift of myrrh to Jesus.

Codex 12 Nick Makoha To enter a desert is to enter a sea. Reader, when I was king, there was no face of a man I could not carry. As your sovereign, the kingdom was my chorus. I did not fear the night and its terror. I lived as a kite above men. Dressed my subjects in Persian silk and brocade. I adorned their staffs with gold from Bure. Gold was my true advantage binding the serpent of one’s will to the dragon of one’s spirit. When I was king, my beloved followed as if I were another road, a way to heaven. She covered my hands in dust. The whites of her eyes never left me. When I was the wick, she was the flame. When I was the scale, she was the balance. You were my light in this world. Were we not better than Thebes and its valley of kings, where the Nile’s water surrounded us? Where we lived as pilgrims in a town void of walls and solid buildings. When I was king, in the month of Rajab the Amir escorted me on horseback to Cairo. Did we not lavish them with rare confection? Did we not treat them with difference? In the Souks what quarrel did we have with shadows and custom? In the parlours and the street-corners, what did we not purchase from the vendors? Gold had no equal. When it was spent, we continued to Mecca. A flock of birds followed our trail as well as bandits. They left me with nothing but my people. But it was you Creator who brought me to silence at Mount Arafat. Not thirst or hunger. You were the column of smoke. The light on my crooked path. Now that you have found me don't leave me to this earth? I have no need for it. Enough!

Where is Balthazar Nick Makoha After - Adoration of the Magi: stained glass panels by the Master of the Holy Kindred, Germany, about 1500. Museum no. C.74 & 75-1919 What is it in stars that puts faith in a man to leave his fattened cows and pregnant wives for the east? Directed by faith and dream, he battles impatient storms and curling winds to watch a horizon vanishing. Wrapped in velvet and gold he knows that we are not our clothes. Where the manifestations of an unborn king in his childhood imagining. What is it that he would deny the halo of rain in a sky, The silhouette of a mountain and its river running by. All gathered wisdom is dumb, so he silences his tongue, loosens his sword form his sheath. His lungs search for new ways to breath. Why does he deny himself sleep and openly weep in the company of two strangers. What makes three kings realise that they are as worthless as a scar? Ask Balthazar

Poems by Year 12 Students at London Academy of Excellence Tottenham

AU Aadam Hannan They take our gold Call it colonisation, They take our pride And change our civilization,

Hardened by our previous ignorance, Burnt into history is our glory, Mining through brute force, Our ends shine as bright as our gold.

We All Know the Story Sabita Manipallavarajan And BANG! Men from afar claiming to bring civilisation, have taken over with brute force. They sweet talk the weak with a gleaming smile, hiding their tyranny Embarking on journeys with their hearts drowned in ignorance.

Forget Golden Silence Nana Oppong Break this rock open? My story is golden. Some pay it no mind. To them my history as a joke. Forget golden silence. When I talk I spit diamonds. I’m not about to change even if they think it a crime. ‘We so cool’ and full of greatness. The mirror shows my status. Turn back time? They steal our homes and evangelise disease to my people. Oil wells are meant to be in my backyard but instead it’s full of bones. Now my home’s a shadow of what it could’ve been. Brainwashed by a curse of hypocrisy and tyranny.

Claiming our Gold Eda Recber You would have thought they were philanthropic But we were victims of colonisation Their stories of claiming our gold are all hypocrisy They made us believe in civilization just to feed their desire. All achieved by force. Our futures will face the consequences of the oppressors, who didn't even ask. Nothing can be done now.

Gold Vs the World Kumbeh Sillah Imperial Colonisation British Civilization Racial Hypocrisy Hateful Adventurer Thieving Pirate Disguised by The Gold Digger The all mighty Asante Colonising White men Gold Battlefields

The Return of Gold Ayshenaz Yadirgi Steal our strength, steal our power, steal our gold and call it civilisation Curse our lands prized possession and call it colonisation Take our birthdays, our weddings, and our moments and call it organisation What mother nature had already granted us lit your jealous eyes. Curse our extravagance and wealth. Curse how we worked hard and how we sweated under the sun and its burn. Curse how we sparkle dangerously. Curse how they went against God and stole what belonged to us. We were loyal and humble, his extravagance, why be arrogant in the eyes of God? Gold will always belong to us. It will always be ours and it will always find its way home,

The Asante Abigail Esalo The blinding faith and the howls of mothers whose child had been taken away, that ignited a fire under the brave women of the Asante. Glory, Fear, Hate, Faith fought the spread Western disease and Ghana’s colonisation. Or as brits would call it the “introduction of civilization”, that spurred acts of tyranny.

Gift or Greed Maryam Ahmed It’s liquid, sweet as honey, yet it’s not transparent to see clearly, not cheap enough to think clearly, not honest enough to answer clearly. Who of those are innocentdepends on what you say is and what it is not. Which businesses are truly a philanthropic enterprise when they have frontiers of ignorance enticing those who may or may not know of their tyranny, enthralled by the golden project. A valuable asset, what could be greater?

The Midas Touch Asmaa Abby Who knows if all gold is nothing but a curse? What if all its history contains nothing but hypocrisyYet no one faces the Consequences They keep claiming to just be the Pirate. Oh, they’re just following the leader Apparently no one knows the Owner. Maybe it’s their hungry appetite Maybe it's their Ignorance Maybe it's poisoned with diseaseCan you talk about it without Flinching?

TOBACCO 19

TOBACCO Sandra A Agard Throughout history tobacco has been the source of both great wealth and pain - dividing countries and families alike. The English word tobacco comes from the Spanish word "tabaco" which in turn is thought to have been derived from the Taíno (the Arawakan language of the Caribbean) word for a tobacco pipe or a type of early cigar. The indigenous peoples of the Americas originally grew the plant for medicinal and ceremonial purposes. When Columbus first reached the Americas the indigenous people he and his crew encountered gifted them tobacco leaves as well as fruit and other food. However, as the leaves were not edible the Europeans, seeing no value, threw them overboard. However, watching how the indigenous people both traded and gifted the leaves, their true value soon became apparent. It is a common belief that Sir Walter Raleigh first brought tobacco to England in 1586 from the British colony of Virginia- which used to be wholly indigenous land. Records however show that tobacco had been around in England long before that date as tobacco was already being used by Spanish, Portuguese, and British sailors. Sir John Hawkins and his crew probably brought tobacco to England as early as 1565. Tobacco received a warm welcome in England. It was seen as healthy and good for curing all kinds of ailments from toothache to cancer. In contrast to the potato – another new crop that was met with great scepticism!! The trend of smoking tobacco spread throughout the country with talk that even Queen Elizabeth I was persuaded to try it. However, when King James I took the throne, he was quite opposed to tobacco and described it as ‘loathsome’. He imposed an import tax on it. The Catholic Church also objected to tobacco and banned it from their holy places. Despite these objections the use of tobacco grew. During the 1700s tobacco was a very lucrative crop due to its growing demand in Europe. The climate of the Chesapeake area in Virginia was found to be too rich for traditional European crops, especially cereals like barley, but tobacco was ideal to grow in this kind of soil. The cultivation of tobacco changed everything. As the industry grew so did the number of enslaved Africans needed to grow the crop. States like Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina had huge cotton and tobacco plantations. Tobacco is a labour-intensive crop.

Enslaved people endured brutal and torturous working conditions. It was in response to these conditions that in 1849, Harriet Tubman made the first of her escapes to freedom. She went on to become one of the most important conductors on the underground railroad. In the twentieth century the health issues surrounding tobacco were becoming more well known however its high value led to both the entertainment and tobacco industries working to promote tobacco products and downplay their dangers. This can be seen in the film Now Voyager (1942) and the Marlboro cigarette campaign (1954-1999). The history of tobacco is long and tumultuous. It’s past steeped in blood, sweat, pain and countless tears.

YOU… / Under my breath Sandra A. Agard and Miriam Nash You… Gave those, who others named The First Nation, deep mysteries, and joy. They inhaled your smoke, giving thanks and praise to spirits and to the land. They dreamt of ancestral voices and dances that twirled, whirled, in clouds of ancient songs. Breathe long Scent of a song You… Were given as a gift in friendship. Respect was shown to the visitors. This gift was to seal a new relationship of Trust, Truth, Justice. Conquest was a word unsaid… Dread, Dread Scent of the dead This gift was to bridge the divide between two peoples – one old, the other so new, and in time to be so cruel. Steal / rule Steal / rule You… Returned with Sir Walter Raleigh to his Queen with the potato, which was seen first as poison foe. But - You were judged a wonder to behold. Hold me close Burn me cold You… Were a healer to the sick, able to dress wounds, ease pain – even soothed an aching tooth. Sooth, Sooth Chew on the truth 22

You… Did not fool the Spaniard – Gonzalo Ferdanez de Ovrido Valdez who noticed how his compatriots fell drunk on your smoky ways. They hungered your breath. They craved for you. Never satisfied Tied, Tied Scent of pride You… Had My Kinsfolk, the enslaved, toil back breaking days and nights in your fields to grow, cut, harvest your leaves so you could be the delight, that friend to trust, dance with, sing to, love. Never enough Never enough You… Put your seeds into the hands of these enslaved who tended your every need on sprawling Southern plantations. Your finnicky ways took so many to cure your leaves, to press them into hogshead barrels. Press press Unbless Unbless So, from “day clean to first dark”, six days a week, they, the enslaved worked and worked and worked - only the Sabbath to rest. Rest, rest, No rest, no rest

Many refused, fled along Underground Railroads seeking Freedom’s paths. Some were led by the one they called the Moses of Her People – Harriet Tubman was her name. She defied You…She defied one and all. Free free Flee from me Tall tall She guides them all You… Embraced Love’s first kiss. Sealing your lovers with a warm embrace. In that touch You gave so much…too much…too much. Too much Too much

And You… Kept on giving…giving… – Stealing stealing If only we had listened to Valdez and not been tricked by false claims of stories, cities of gold and treasures. Smoke got in our eyes Spirits dance Alive alive You… Flicked and twisted in darkened cinemas. Engulfing all your wor-shippers within your haze. From Now Voyager to Marlboro Man. From black and white classics to living vibrant colours… Odours and lovers

You The screen of smoke hides so many stories, so many truths, so many secrets, so many hurts… Scent of the dirt Fingers and shirts You Survived so much. Yet hurt so many…so many. What have you got to say? Forever silent...but so deadly. But your breath…your kiss…embrace says so much…so much My scent My touch We Must now see through your mist. To reveal You… The histories. The mysteries. The untruths. The secrets For it is time… Take me back to the earth

Poems by Y12 students at London Academy of Excellence Tottenham

Tobacco Elizabeth Aguilar Ever so tempting One should take great, great caution Lest they be entranced An intoxicating plant Forever always aware Dear tobacco leaf How many hands have suffered Your sharp thorns piercing The overworked hands The hands of those who’ve been stained Hands which have stories to tell

Tanka Sybil Osei Beautiful facade We take a strong inhale A euphoric exhale Scent of earth, with pungency Green infused trance, addictive

Letter about Liberty Sybil Osei We are Looking for a golden chance To leave, I want to breathe We are Betting on another life To take, Everyone with us No matter the complexion, we will Reach for the stars Pondering Thoughts bottled up in jars To those three words, You will fly

Hidden message Joshua Johnson I was once Lost In that great Big pond. No one noticed. Forgotten, Until I came home With a Brand new story. I was once Trapped. Imprisoned On my own Private island. I swam For days Across The ocean To make it Home. I was once Pushed Out of a plane With no Parachute. No fear, As I Plummeted. Forever Immortalised. I was once Abandoned In space. Weightless. Drifting, with Nothing to Hold on to, Venturing into Nothingness.

Poems by Y9 students at Parliament Hill School

Tobacco tankas and haikus Emily Pannes What is tobacco? The gravel that fills your lungs. Head a swirly daze. The bitter sweetness it tastes. Hard to stop. So hard to stop.

Ferdaus Ahmed Gua, so sweet - yet so spicy. Spitting. Smacking on blood red liquid. So calming yet so addictive. Feels like split into two worlds at once. TOXIC. TOXIC. TOXIC.

Avigea Tsenkova Soft rustle of herbs Yesterday’s wounds reopened We don’t want no more

Orzala Omarkhai (Ozzy) Chad is red, sweet and strong. It makes people happy that their connection To their culture - back to their Motherland

For Two Voices Kenza What is it good for? I say nothing, you say everything. What is it good for, I say again. It treats me. It livens me. Healing the past wounds they say. Absolutely nothing I say.

Tobacco Kyrah Tobacco The monster that holds me in it’s grasp Tobacco Every time I swear it will be the last Tobacco The pipe relieves me of my past But the moment I dare stop the Memories start flooding back so fast. Crumbly, fragile, the flakes are embedded In a silvery paper, smoke till I feel light headed I should stop, can’t stop. I fear it’s too late. The powerful poison has decided my fate.

SUGAR 34

SUGAR Keith Jarrett Sugar is at the heart of so much we consume. From breakfast to dinner, and beyond, from what we drink to how we celebrate, almost wherever you are in the world, it sticks to the tongue. Sometimes hidden in foods you least expect, it appears on the labels, in many guises. Recently, in order to reduce sugar’s hold on our cultures, governments around the world have taxed it, and many food and drinks companies have sought ways to replace it. Sugar has become controversial, something to reduce. How did this once-luxury product originating in Asia become so common? How does this relate to the transatlantic slave trade, to wars and revolutions, and to European empires establishing themselves in the Caribbean as we know it now? The answer is a long and complicated one, complete with tales of brutality, human trafficking and many such unpleasant things, a far cry from the sweet taste that we are all so familiar with. 5 facts to get started: On the history sugar and slavery 1. We get the word ‘sugar’ from the Arabic sukkar ‫ركسلا‬ The sugar crop originated in Northern India before being introduced to Europe via the Arab world, where it quickly became a popular trading product in the Middle Ages. Sucre, Azúcar, Zucker… all these words sound similar in many European languages because they all have the same root. 2. By 1750, sugar was the most valuable commodity in the world! European nations gradually colonised the Americas, beginning in 1492. During this time, the Portuguese transplanted the crop to Brazil, and enslaved Africans were trafficked there to work on plantations to produce even more. Demand for sugar in Europe continued to increase, and nations such as Britain, France and the Netherlands used forced labour in the Caribbean region to produce sugar and increase their power and wealth. Cities such as Antwerp and Bristol became extremely wealthy from the sugar trade, and we can still see evidence of this wealth in buildings and places where sugar was imported. 3. The 1791 Haitian Revolution set the course for the end of the transatlantic slave trade. As the sugar crop thrives in a tropical climate with lots of rain, countries in and around the Caribbean became important for its production. Plantation conditions were brutal under chattel slavery; the enslaved were not seen as fully human, and so had no human rights. From the back-breaking task of harvesting the cane, to the intense heat of the boiling houses where sugar was extracted, the process of sugar production was a difficult and 35

treacherous one. Many people died, or were killed when they rebelled or tried to escape. In Haiti, a successful rebellion by enslaved people led to their independence from France, and to freedom from slavery. The country became the first independent nation in the Americas since Christopher Columbus’s ‘discovery’! 4. The Slave Trade Act 1807 followed suit (then the Abolition Act in 1833) Haiti’s new status alarmed the European nations with colonies in the Americas, and it also energised the abolitionist movements on both sides of the Atlantic. Within a few years, the 1807 Act was passed in Britain, prohibiting further trafficking of enslaved Africans to the American continents. Finally, in 1833, slavery was abolished in Britain’s colonies, although formerly enslaved people living in the Caribbean were forced to work for their plantation owners under an ‘apprenticeship’ for six further years, and people from India and China were brought to the Caribbean to work on plantations for a period of ‘indentureship’. 5. Cuba maintained chattel slavery until 1898 (the average life expectancy is over 75 years old) Slavery continued in other countries such as the USA, Cuba and Brazil for many more years. Even though the Atlantic triangular trade in humans had diminished, plantation owners considered the children of enslaved people to be their property, too. And even though Britain had abolished chattel slavery, sugar companies and merchants continued to trade with countries like Brazil and Cuba, which had not - and then invested their wealth in property in and around important trading cities such as London, Liverpool, Bristol and Cardiff, where they bought influence. Some organisations like the Tate are just starting to acknowledge the indirect relationships between chattel slavery and their own wealth.

Residue Keith Jarrett diabetes & capitalism & stalks & bagasse & the boat’s bottom deck & docks & chains & boiled bubbling of bones & pulp & pulpits & bronze manillas & blood & molasses & dental floss & fillings & open vowels & the Atlantic & Olokún & duality of meanings & that D’Angelo track & fillin in t e g ps & we don’t discuss it & heart dis-ease & (museum) artefacts & the tip of the tongue & the duality of meanings & the cartography of my sister’s hair & canerow & reparations & monuments & (the overthrown ones) & (the overlooked ones) & always the sea & dissolving in the mouth of history &[ & ]

the granular Keith Jarrett until you have scraped the hurricane wind from your tongue bent yourself back to touch the earth and sprung up again until you have licked clean the machete’s blade watched yourself lit aflame in the fields of your fallen brothers until you have been bundled into the arms of a truck felt your bones crushed until you sing sap and boil and boil again until your sweat becomes liquor until it is swept into sand until you have spooned toothily into cargo ships and crossed the waters in bottles cartons and tins do not speak to me of sweetness

Waiting for that kind of crystallisation Keith Jarrett where all you under-understand of processes language and lands lands with precision on the page speakey-spokey refined and aligned with purpose but as playful as rum running rings round buckra’s tongue buckled down with history’s sour servings you’ve devoured in small portions of the night between sips of its sweet and sticky embrace while you try to place our place inside this twisting story that runs down the chin messy and manypronged and prolonged and unfinished

Poems by Y12 and Y13 students at Dulwich College

Sugar-Coating Ned Wildgoose-Bulloch I They dance like lights, not bright Yet bright in my eyes, In their hues, Lime, neon pink, electric blue Popcorn, And their promise of sugar. II Foreign plants fill native lands, For foreign dreams and foreign hands, Laboured by another band, Strangers to those dreams of sugar And to these lands They’ve lived within for centuries. III It’s like digesting rocket fuel. There’s power and strands of excitement. Your spinal cord untethers from the Earth as Your brain flies into a Busy oblivion. IV Sugar powder will catch fire. Do not let it spark. Sugar’s power’s earning money. If your factory burns, Post a note through my door And we’ll smother your problem with Chocolate.

V It had been imported; The Curly Whirly’s whirls curled around my awareness As it curly whirled around my tongue, and tied tight, bound To me and my country of origin. It shortly went slack in the heat, but the moment Remained, Twisted between my neurons. VI In what society do you belong, grain of sugar? You form cubes when forced, but otherwise Lack structure. We accept you without a plan of how you Will complement our bodies. You can’t sugar-coat your laziness And we can’t sugar-coat our impulsive nature. VII Do there exist many sugars or is there but a single sugar? VIII After draining the tub of popcorn light, I see that there is darkness. Each piece I consumed had nooks and crannies That I assimilate.

Sugar, Sugar Jamie Chong I am a bleached grain of sand that has seen too much: boiling houses like smog in London rising and coming down like hellfire; my brothers melt and reappear in crystallisations of ecstasy. So preserved that we are toxic, poison, dangerous; we are death between your lips. The hands that churn and turn, calloused and worn out, are replaced by another man’s, his life paid out by metal sums. I see the ones who eat, eat, eat, do nothing but consume, from their porous skin exudes the blood of those they killed. All returns to where they once came. Born from red streams, destined to dissolve back into those fat arteries, I am bound and birthed for this fate. Homeland stripped, left me naked like women misused, abused. I am so empty yet full of regret. Born dark from pounded cane, I am made lighter and lighter. Powdered gold cannot look like the hands of their maker. From that day when I am white like them and the statues that they have stolen, I am Aphrodite Areia and I will wage vicious war.

Invade their mouths like salvos as they turns black, black, black. All returns to darkness again. They made me to live eternally, wrapped in flawless foil where I crinkle like cracked cellophane. Flash like Hector's helmet, metal like the gold of their decaying lives. I am the root of their dying rust, my death will bring a victory to all who've lost their lives for the sickly sweet, saccharine stickiness of self-destruction. I am dopamine, death, Dionysus, the bubbles of champagne and wine, master of addiction, the king of highs. The birth of an empire and its end, a capitalist currency, drowning, dying. I was born to die and die and die again. What a curse it is to be immortal, so I will throw myself at death and be unafraid. After all, we return to darkness again.

Sugar Ekow Amoah I The choice churns in my head Of cocooning crystalline precipitate.

II 60 for 16 Blasé

III 10 billion grams of sugar in the new coke zero! Crinkling coke containers Did it really happen if nobody gave out coke?

IV Synesthetic markers of a time that fades from thought What is your role in human development? Where there's coke, there's fire. In the beginning was the coke and the coke was sugar, and the sugar was coke.

Poems by students from London Academy of Excellence, Tottenham

Sugar Kay Sokunbi Alcohol & glucose & diabetes & science & respiration & photosynthesis & freeness, breathing & reparations & illicit yet magnificent feelings & intoxication & bacon butty breakfast & sugary smooth syrup & honey & tummy aches & forbidden foody obsessions & reminiscing on childhood confessions & 1833 free & 1898 reality

Refined Sugar Refined sugar had to be dried thoroughly if it was to be as white and pure as the top merchants demanded. This necessity was sometimes a problem in tropical climates. Sugar of lesser quality with a brownish colour tended to be consumed locally or was only used to make preserves and crystallised fruit. (https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1795/life-on-a-colonial-sugar-plantation/)

The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice; the darker the flesh, the deeper the roots*. But not for the white man’s table. Not the right kind of sweet, Not the white kind of sweet, Not the fine kind of sweet, For this table. A table piled high with jellies and almonds and ices and pain, sweetmeats and puddings, all wrought from the cane. Wrought from the cane and dried in the sun, until history, labour and roots are gone. Washed white. White washed. Leaving nothing but Pure White Refined Sugar. * Black by Dave

Hidden Sugar Where breweries belched beer breath And crumbling warehouses stored sugar Now office lights beam bright Like a never ending fruit machine. Walking heart attacks in pinstripe trade rotten smiles Thinking of deadlines and the sweet taste of success. While down on the Isle of Dogs The scars of the docks and basins Are hidden amidst skyscrapers, Of hedge funds and Investment banks who Hide money in shell companies on Caribbean islands, where once the moneyed Men of these isles kept slaves. Compensation money given to wealthy Families and West India Quay The statue of Milligan and the legacy Of wealth built on the backs of chained People whose names they changed.

COTTON 48

COTTON INTRODUCTION Laila Sumpton Cotton is a part of our life from birth to death as Sarojini Naidu’s poem ‘The Indian Weavers’ tells us, and it’s colonial history changed the world and unites four continents. When investigating cotton, as with so many of these traded items, we balance beauty and craft-personship with brutality and exploitation. The same is true today- the fabric industry continues to abuse workers rights, impose harsh and at times toxic working conditions, and turn fertile farmlands into near deserts. But let’s go back to the master weavers of Mughal Courts who were creating muslin fabrics that according to Sufi poet Ab’ul Hasan Yamīn ud-Dīn Khusrow (1253–1325) were ‘so transparent and light that it looks as if one is in no dress at all but has only smeared the body with pure water.’ When Europeans first saw cotton fabrics printed with patterns they thought that there was magic at play, and the chintz craze would see British wool and linen merchants outlaw ‘the tawdry, bespotted’ cottons made by ‘Heathens and Pagans.’ But, fashion won, and the chintz black market thrived until British manufacturers found a way to mass manufacture at home- decimating the once mighty Indian fabric sector. Colonialism is not just about trade and resource extraction, it is about taking a culture and making it your own. Historian Gene Dattle described cotton as the oil of the 19th century stating that ‘English textile mills accounted for 40 percent of Britain’s exports. One-fifth of Britain’s twenty-two million people were directly or indirectly involved with cotton textiles.” It is important to remember that before colonisation India’s share of the world's Gross Domestic Product was 40%, and when they gained Independence it was a mere 4%. All that wealth, and all of those secrets of weaving cotton fabrics went back to the British Isles and fuelled the industrial revolution. When we look at our universities, hospitals, museums, schools and galleries today a huge number will have been founded by the profits of the East India Company and organisations which traded enslaved Africans like the South Sea Company. Colonisation and the enslavement of Africans has left a legacy we cannot ignore which is stitched into the very clothes we wear today. There is another important part of this story, rather than import cotton from India and to drive down costs further Britain imported cotton grown by enslaved Africans in the American South. So next time you see a Regency or Victorian dance party on screen, know that those gowns and handkerchiefs are woven through not just the ‘Satanic Mills’ but slavery. At school this link was never made clear to me, but now we can support students to see how interwoven these strands of history are so they can tell the story anew.

Jamdani weavers Laila Sumpton If I sing to you of Jamdani of ‘‘running water’ and ‘evening dew’* of muslin so fine it is breath on skin caressing each curve in light. When Jamdani purred their fingers they tasted hunger for sunlit waters for gowns that made their bearers float for meadow mists that clung and knew that ten East India Men simply would not do. All else is coarse when it sings on limbs so it fell to that Honourable crew of purveyors to sequester thirty six thousand Bengali weavers (for their use alone). For the soirees demanded more and the Winter Season at Bath had debutants waiting to launch whose dowries would jacket soldiers red and build the fleets needed for Jamdani waltzes and quadrilles at the London Summer Balls and if you have sugar in your tea and gold on your fingers and muslin on your skin you my dear can go. *Traditional Urdu names for muslin: Abrawan (Running Water), Shabnam (Evening Dew) Because, ‘When spread on the ground they say it can barely be distinguished from dew on the grass’

Poems by Year 12 London Academy of Excellence, Tottenham

Within a tuft of cotton Sumi Nam Kita Rakhtam is a soft puff of clouds homegrown on sunlit lands. is a curling thread to be woven on looms sung in sync. is the captured day's light easily spread into "morning dew." is just under half the world's wealth, held by one's past from Before. are the spools dyed different hues - colourfully bright. is the greed of passersby who have decided its worth is for them. are words tittered in fear and silenced by a new guest company. are voices choked from natural song - instead "God save the queen" forced upon their lips. is the crimson dye of sunburnt skin enslaved by soft sheep. is a crowd of clouds shaped into lambs, herded into other pastures. is a history of tradition lost on deaf ears of foreign singers. are beautiful songs and poetry remoulded into golden English. are the giggles of non-native nobles dancing with a trend - laboured by its fabric. are the spools of dulled colour - fashionably boring. is half the earth's wealth reduced to a fraction, held by one's future from After. are the trails of unwelcome guests who've left only destruction. is a history left unknown to those who only wear its produce. are brown hands weaving until their tips fold together, interlocked. are fingertips dyed a wedding red, married to marred magic. is blood.

Woven in me Leyla Marquez Hilmi Sweat-saturated fingers entwined My rough hands pleading for moisture While fingertips lay exhausted from their complex chore The birdsong of my family pattern racks my brain It leaves no other space The space for something more They take from my family, my nation, my future They take because terra nullius But once they take what is so rightfully there’s What is left for me?

Cinquain Leyla Marquez Hilmi Cotton As light as air Complexity and skill, Our skill exploited not for us For them.

Ingrained Holly Aldina Bokolo Wa Mbengi Ingrained in cotton An untold story, An unsung song, No secrets within it The red coats took it and now it’s GONE. Becoming a staple, The muslin wrap, Treasured by nobles For the status it brought. Jamdani Massacre upon massacre, Blood and Blood, Divide et impera, They profited and plunged. Jamdani Exploiting existing conflicts, Exploiting existing wealth, They severed a nation. And there it fell. Yet. Still, ingrained, in cotton A luxurious past, The wealth of an era Weaved within the fibres it has. The weavers delivering their song, Their rapid movements The labour and time Their superhuman ability to weave the sun’s light.

Captors of the morning dew The mughals bore the muslin new, A cultural sentiment They wore with pride The stories of a precious time. Coloniser gloom and doom, Their hands wield the travesty they knew. The wealthy empire Exploited them for dust They were not a commodity, They were not a product there for us

The truth within the stitches Shameeka Jamdani weavers sing their story, Their breathtaking muslin brushes against their skin, Muslin soaks up every drop of sunlight, The cotton is airy and soft; keeping you warm Every stitch filled with manipulation The agonised screams drowned out by the ships horns Every drop of their sweat filled with hopes of freedom Their truth is hidden behind ball gowns and lies.

Poems from Parliament Hill Students, Year 9

Cotton The East India campaign, The looting tax and pain.

Muslin so pure and fine what a blessing from heaven just don’t look behind the white, hurt your eyes.

Woven in cotton I feel The satisfaction of draping a gorgeous sari The cooling sweat as a reward of toil and exertion The happiness from compliments I’ve received The aches of picking and collecting all day The warmth of my newest shawl weigh down on my shoulders The fulfilment of a gold coin placed on my palm after a day’s work The guilt of leaving it abandoned for the new season.

The texture of cotton It’s stolen creator slaving away To the hot Indian hands watched by the merchant The fine waters washing against the rough bamboo The dark mill spinning, churning, churring away Shining through the window no mention of the past The soft white hand lets the fabric touch her Not a mention of the warm brown hands The true texture of cotton

Four COLONIALIST PANTOUMS AND A SONG 59

Four COLONIALIST PANTOUMS AND A SONG Laila Sumpton The demand for fine cotton, gauze, muslin, chintz and silk fueled the expansion of the East India Company- the most powerful company of it’s time. If you were looking for an opportunity to return to the UK incredibly wealthy, they were the ones to sign up with. Founded in 1600 they operated till 1874 amassing an army of around 200 000 soldiers95% of whom were Indian and even created their own currency. They went from trading with the Mughal emperors to taking over the states of India, eventually ruling a country of 200 million people. If a state refused their terms and conditions they would face 24 hours of looting- ironically ‘loot’ is a Hindi word. Recently an episode of The Antiques RoadShow on the BBC featured a Mughal ring filled with precious stones which had been found in a charity shop in the UK. The antiques expert explained that it had ‘found its way over from somewhere near the Taj Mahal’- which is a euphemism that someone needs to write a poem about swiftly! In return for their protection the East India Company made the princely states pay extortionately high taxes. Maharajas were forced to give them the money saved in case the crops failed and their grain reserves. This led to the Bengal famine in 1770 where 10 million died- which was 1 in 3 citizens. Accounts were written about the Companies’ cruelty, including ‘Considerations on Indian Affairs’ written in 1770 by a former employee William Bolts- inspired by this I wrote a satirical pantoum containing advice on how to colonise. Students at the Keats House summer school attended our workshop on Keats’ own connections to the East India Company and were supported to write their own poems inspired by this history.

‘Considerations on Indian Affairs’ (after William Bolts) Laila Sumpton Arrive with little to sell, temper your awe and hunger then allude to your strength and sniff out the finest goods. Temper your awe and hunger, flatter and fan the leaders and sniff out the finest goods, then sit at their feet and smile. Flatter and fan the leaders, shoulder some of the burden then sit at their feet and smile as you just help organise. Shoulder all of the burden, send for some more red jacketsas you just help organise and manage what comes and goes. Send for some more red jackets, manage the competition, and manage what comes and goes; then reassure the leaders. Manage the competition, allow the leaders hobbies, then reassure the leaders, and bolt the palace doors.

Pantoum Jessica Robinson Arrive with little intentions, Other than taking over. Those in the chosen country, Will listen without thinking over. Other than taking over, Make sure to not lose control. Listen without thinking over, they will And I promise you will not be killed. Make sure not to lose control, I say Or this empire could woefully fail. I promise you won’t be killed, my men As long as it’s me you hail.

March of the Missionaries Karensa May López Weathered boots on foreign shores, New muskets shining with the dream of hidden treasures. Curt bows and formal addressed in A language spinning from their tongues to poison the air. New muskets shining with the dream of hidden treasures, Sights set on a burning horizon. A language spinning from their tongues to poison the air, Drowning out all other sound. Sights set on a burning horizon, That dwarfs the new dawn rising from the earth. Drawing out all other sound, The thump of boots on stolen land.

Old Habits Max Baker Set foot honest but perceptive Wriggle cosy to their hearts Whisper dreams down the trade lines Clasp shoulders, stain fingers with tea. Wriggle cosy to their hearts Loosen crumbs - grasp falling fragments Clasp shoulders, stain fingers with tea Invite more wealthy and white. Loosen crumbs - grasp falling fragments Lend a hand with tax - borrow their arms Invite more wealthy and white Pass parcels of opulence, construe oceans of wealth. Lend a hand with tax - borrow their arms Ransom resistors, force feeds debts Pass parcels of opulence, construe oceans of wealth March soldiers through their banks. Ransom resistors, force feed debts Sow seeds in England of rabid national narcissism March soldiers through their banks Make them cry pity for themselves - then capture and trade their tears.

Colonialist Song Liv Goldreich I am not made for this country. Place cotton between my teeth, my lungs. Don’t try to learn their tongues. The taste of a new currency is burning in my throat. Place cotton between my teeth, my lungs so that my skin will become soft muslin. The taste of a new currency is burning in my throat. My dead skin will be woven through this embroidery. Will my skin become soft muslin? The snakes feast on my generous hands, feeding on my dead skin woven through this embroidery. Remember to pillage the dust. Snakes will feast on my generous hands. The women here are only walls. Remember to pillage the dust – and a hefty bale of malaria. The women here are only walls so sit here and count family like coins, wheezing on a heavy bale of malaria – and smile as teeth become chaff.

AFTERWORD 66

AFTERWORD Poet and writer Joanna Brown attended a workshop run by Poetry Vs Colonialism and Culture Mile London for culture and heritage workers at the Museum of London. Our workshop attendees bought artwork or heritage item connected with colonial history, and together we looked at how we could creatively tell the stories bound up in these items. We discussed what decolonising could and should mean for the culture and heritage sector and planned events to explore our history of empire.

Let the light in . . . Joanna Brown for Poetry vs Colonialism, December 2021 What does it mean to decolonise? To navigate our way from colonising state to decolonising statement, And voyage towards a vision of a fairer future? From collectors to collective, we move forward together. Let there be care in curation. Let objects claim their rightful restoration. This is a more compassionate exploration. How do we tell a fuller story? How do we free from the vaults of history Those voices weighed down by silence? Courageous curiosity is key. Now is the time to unbury the archive and set free Those truths, however uncomfortable they may be. Listen. Can you hear them? A wealth of stories whispering in stone, Pressing against the walls of a bordered, bounded history. Listen. A composer, Born on a slaving ship sailing from Guinea, lands in Greenwich. An African grocer in London, the goods he sells - tea, tobacco, sugar Steeped in the unfree labour of those from whom he has been severed. A painful irony. His name, Ignatius – flame. He writes. His words sparkle like stars. His letters sail on a Westminster wind, His voice calls for Abolition - he casts his vote. His music is a gift of gold to dance to. A joyful noise of resilience and warmth and light, An invitation to join hands and step into the circle, It sings his legacy across the centuries . . .

Listen. Take this pencil. Its hue, named for an artist: Fondyke brown. (Van Dyck, renowned From Antwerp to the English court, Consummate maker of kings and queens in colour.) The wood, the gum, the pigment, all, From Africa. Origin is the glue that binds us. Hold the pencil between your finger and thumb. Consider the thing in your hand and the hand itself. Let them dance together and notice how your finger guides the wood across the page To make your mark and tell the tale anew. Pass it on. Listen. Take this map. A cartographer’s view of Empire at high noon. Africa – a continent fragmented by men in moustaches flicking flags Like toys across a conference table in Berlin. A cavalier act of divisions drawn with ruler and pencil. Carving up cultures, cutting tongues in two. Here, history did not begin with the arrival of booted European feet. It was interrupted. Centuries of civilisation Kicked under the imperial carpet. Go back and retrieve it. Kumasi - a kingdom crafted in gold. A sacred stool: a seat for a royal king, Snatched, displaced, dishonoured In an unceremonious severing of culture from the root. Power unseated by an act of vengeance, Gazed on by those blind to its true sovereignty, Its poetry lost on those who do not speak its language. An empty entertainment. History hollowed out and unmade for exhibition. What happens if History and Geography never speak to one another? How can we make sense of the world if we try to separate space and time?

This conversation is not an erasure or a disappearing. Not a silencing but a reckoning with the past. It is an opening up of the past’s possibilities. Discomfort is the door. Sometimes we have to face the darkness to let the light in. Let us be brave enough to know what we do not know, And understand that we cannot know everything. Whose knowledge is this anyway? Who gets to say ‘This has value – Or that’? Perhaps we should begin again at the beginning, with the child. Foster curiosity, nurture confidence and watch creativity shine. Show the child themselves reflected, valued, honoured in these spaces We call archive, museum, gallery. See them rise up! Hand over ownership. Give learning space to breathe. See them rise up! Watch that child’s back straighten, Watch their chin lift, Their eyes light. Let them listen, learn, wonder, question, challenge, confront, craft, imagine, imagine, imagine and make new their sense of the past. In this space let them speak their whole self with pride, and Rise up! Let us refashion the past so that it may speak to the future in a truer tongue. Let us make space for new questions and conversations. Let us craft a language to say what has not been said. We are all of us collectors, curators, custodians. Like Anansi, we carry our own stories within us In the webs of language and culture and history we spin. The stories we hold are limitless. It is time for them to sing. It is time to let the light in.

Contributors and supporters Sandra A. Agard has been a Professional Storyteller, Writer, Cultural Historian and Literature Consultant for over forty years. She has performed at venues across the UK and internationally. She has written numerous plays and has had work published in a variety of collections and anthologies like Time for Telling ed. by Mary Medlicott and Unheard Voices ed. by Malorie Blackman. Sandra was the Literature Development Officer for Southwark and Lewisham Libraries for eighteen years. In 2016, Sandra was the Centenary Storyteller for the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire. Sandra published her first children’s book called Trailblazers: Harriet Tubman-The Journey to Freedom in 2019. Sandra co-edited with Laila Sumpton the book Where We Find Ourselves – a collection of poems and stories. Sandra has recently performed in the play Passing On, a collection of monologues and duologues at the Roundhouse in London. In 2022 Sandra will be publishing four books for children on Black History. Sandra is currently a Learning Facilitator for Schools at the British Library. Joanna Brown is a writer, researcher and educator, working with a focus on Black British lives and histories. She is currently reading for a PhD in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London and is a British Library Eccles Centre Research Fellow. Her short memoir, Birds can be heard singing through open windows, was Highly Commended in the 2020 Spread the Word Life Writing competition. Joanna trained to teach at the Institute of Education and worked for several years as a primary school teacher in Haringey. Her recent work for schools includes the Africa Writes poetry development programme. At the British Library, she has led school workshops and CPD sessions, exploring the Library’s collections with pupils and teachers to spark curiosity and inspire creative writing. Joanna writes for children under the name JT Williams. Her debut novel, The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries, spotlighting Black British lives in Georgian London, will be published by Farshore Books in June 2022.

Keith Jarrett’s writing and research spans poetry, fiction and the essay form to interrogate Black British and Caribbean history, religion and sexuality. Keith is an international poetry slam champion and was selected for the International Literature Showcase as one of 10 outstanding LGBT writers in the UK. Selah, his debut poetry collection, was published in 2017. His play, Safest Spot in Town, was performed at London’s Old Vic and filmed for BBC Four, and his poem ‘From the Log Book’, was projected onto the façade of St Paul’s Cathedral as a commemorative art installation. He has been commissioned for written and performed work at the Royal Festival Hall, Madrid’s Matadero and Centro Azkuna in Bilbao, both in English and Spanish. Keith is currently the poet-in-residence at Imperial Healthcare Trust and teaches Creative Writing at NYU London. He also supervises on the MFA programme at Birkbeck University, where he completed his PhD. Nick Makoha is the founder of The Obsidian Foundation.Winner of the 2021 Ivan Juritz prize and the Poetry London Prize. In 2017, Nick’s debut collection, Kingdom of Gravity, was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection and was one of the Guardian’s best books of the year. Nick is a Cave Canem Graduate Fellow and the Complete Works alumnus. He won the 2015 Brunel International AfricanPoetry Prize and the 2016 Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Prize for his pamphlet Resurrection Man. His play The Dark—produced by Fuel Theatre and directed by JMK awardwinner Roy Alexander—was on a national tour in 2019. It was shortlisted for the 2019 Alfred Fagon Award and won the 2021 Columbia International Play Reading prize. His poems have appeared in the Cambridge Review, the New York Times, Poetry Review, 'e Rialto, Poetry London, TriQuarterly Review, 5 Dials, Boston Review, Callaloo and Wasaari. He is a Trustee for the Arvon Foundation and the Ministry of Stories, and a member of the Malika’s Poetry Kitchen collective. https://nickmakoha.com Miriam Nash is a poet, performer and educator. Her collection of poems All the Prayers in the House (Bloodaxe Books, 2017) won a Somerset Maugham Award (2018) and an Eric Gregory Award (2015) from the Society of Authors. Her latest book, The Nine Mothers of Heimdallr (Hercules Editions, 2020) is a matriarchal re-telling of the Norse creation myth. She works as a school librarian in northern Italy.

Victoria de Rijke is Professor in Arts & Education and Director of the Centre for Education Research and Schoarship (CERS) at Middlesex University in London, where she has worked for interdisciplinary, anti-racist and equal opportunities education for over 30 years. Her research and publication is transdisciplinary across the fields of literature and the arts, children’s literature and play, through the associations of metaphor. Publications include Art & Soul: Rudolf Steiner, Interdisciplinary Art and Education (2019). Current research is on aspects of Art, Play and Identity, eg. with Santiago University, Chile for research and knowledge exchange in Bio-sociocultural Inclusion: Challenging Homogeneity in Schools. Laila Sumpton is a poet, editor, performer and educator who works with schools, hospitals, museums, galleries and charities on a wide variety of poetry projects. She manages the Arts Council funded initiative Poetry Vs Colonialism- where poets work with museums, academics and schools to explore the British empire and its legacy. She was recently the Keats House Poet in residence and has co - edited 'Where We Find Ourselves' an anthology from Global Majority writers published by Arachne Press. Laila has been commissioned by Tate Modern, the Tower of London and the Royal Free Hospital amongst others and published in numerous anthologies and magazines including Ambit and Modern Poetry in Translation. Dr Pen Woods is Lecturer in Early Modern Drama at Newcastle University. Her research, in collaboration with arts organisations in the UK and Australia, has focused on the flip-side of current and historical performance: how performance is received and what it does to and for audiences. As well as a historian of performance, audience and spectatorship, Woods is a cultural theorist of affect and a historian of the emotions, with a particular focus on how emotions produce the social and cultural scripts we live by and how we can intervene in these. She has two books in preparation, On Audience with Duke University Press and Guilt Creatures: Global Audiences for Hamlet with Palgrave Macmillan.

We would also like to thank our collaborators- without whose support this project would not have been possible. Arts Council England, Culture Mile London, Museum of London, Middlesex University, Newcastle University, Queen Mary University of London and the Being Human Festival The schools and organisations we have run workshops with: Dulwich College, London Academy of Excellence Tottenham, Parliament Hill School, Middlesex University- Teacher Trainees, Highgate School, Freedom From Torture Write to Life group and Scottish BPOC Writers Network. The organisations, artists and academics who inspired and advised our poets: Cotton - The Muslin Trust, Keats House, Season of Bangla Drama, Dr Lipi Begum, historian Sonia Ashmore, dancer and composer Archita Kumar. Gold - Eleni Bide (Goldsmiths Company), Angus Patterson (Senior Curator of Metalwork V&A Museum) and jeweller and goldsmith Emefa Cole. Tobacco - Professor Nicholas Ridout (Queen Mary University of London). Sugar - artist Karen McLean and Dr Malcolm Cocks (St Pauls School and formerly Dulwich College).

IMAGE CREDITS Gold, page 6 Ring (Vulcan Series), Oxidised silver and gold leaf, Designed and made by Emefa Cole England 2012, H: 42.5 mm, Diam: 37.5 mm, London Museum no. M.13-2020, Reproduced courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Tobacco, page 19 Flowering Tobacco near Berlin, Connecticut, Russell Lee, Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress). Sugar, page 34 Sweet Capitalism, a manilla made of sugar by artist Karen McLean, 2020. Cotton, page 48 A scarf which belonged to Fanny Brawne- who was engaged to the poet John Keats, 18—, Cloth, K/AR/01/037, Image used with permission of Keats House, City of London Corporation. Four Colonialist Pantoums and a Song, page 59 Painting, portrait of East India Company official, by Dip Chand, opaque watercolour on paper, Murshidabad or Patna, ca. 1760-1764, Reproduced courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Afterword, page 66 Tortoiseshell and ivory tea caddy and spoon which belonged to Charles Brown. 18—, K/AR/01/146, Image used with permission of Keats House Museum, City of London Corporation.

an anthology Poetry Vs Colonialism brings together poets, academics, schools and museums to investigate our colonial histories via items traded in the empire- cotton, tobacco, gold and sugar. This anthology brings together new poetry on these topics by Laila Sumpton, Nick Makoha, Sandra A Agard and Keith Jarrett alongside the students they have worked with. 76

Poetry Vs Colonialism, an anthology

Articles inside

Four Pantoums and a Song, Laila Sumpton

Contributors and Supporters

Sugar, Keith Jarrett

Gold, Nick Makoha

Afterword, Joanna Brown

Foreword

Cotton, Laila Sumpton