Thinking Outside the Penalty Box anthology

Thinking Outside the Penalty Box: Poetry inspired by African footballers in Britain The Poetry Society 22 Betterton Street London WC2H 9BX www.poetrysociety.org.uk Cover: James Brown, jamesbrown.info Š The Poetry Society & authors, 2018

Thinking Outside the Penalty Box Poetry inspired by African footballers in Britain

Acknowledgements The Thinking Outside the Penalty Box team would like to thank Sarah Sanders at Arts Council England, Sam Gaskin-Kemp at Chelsea FC, Jack McNicholl and Samir Singh at Arsenal FC, the teachers and students at Sir John Lillie Primary School, Sulivan Primary School, Marlborough Primary School, Hanover Primary School, and St Andrews Primary School (all London). We’d also like to thank Judith Palmer, Nazmia Jamal and Helen Bowell at The Poetry Society, James Brown for his cover artwork, and Sharmilla Beezmohun for her support and encouragement. And special thanks to Nick Makoha, Sugar J, Theresa Lola, Roger Robinson and Kayo Chingonyi for their poetry.

The Poetry Society would like to thank Lizzy Attree and Nick Makoha for inviting us to collaborate on this project and Arts Council England for funding it. We would also like to thank Kayo Chingonyi for leading the Thinking Outside the Penalty Box workshop at The Poetry Society and for continuing to mentor the young poets who attended his workshop. Finally, a huge thank you to all the young poets presented in this anthology, and to all the other young writers who entered the Young Poets Network challenge.

Contents Welcome Introduction Nick Makoha Roger Robinson Sugar J Lydia Wei

Lone Star Balotelli Give Invisible The Name Behind the Jersey (Mikel John Obi) Hazel Vimbainashe Kamuriwo Big Man Like You Natalie Perman eni Fiyinfoluwa Timothy Oladipo Diaries of Death in June Kayo Chingonyi Choreography Maria Calinescu A Conversation between Gervinho and a Fan Amelia Doherty Eniola Aluko Emily Hana gervinho Cia Mangat She strikes the ball like a match Amelie Maurice-Jones the ball moves fast but i move faster Alannah Taylor Response to ‘Petition to give soldiers footballers’ wages’ Francesca Weekes In Praise of Eniola Aluko Fox White Cultural Exchange Young Writers and The Poetry Society Schools and The Poetry Society

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Welcome Welcome to our anthology Thinking Outside the Penalty Box, an anthology of winning and commissioned poems exploring the extraordinary lives of African footballers.

In early 2018, The Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network teamed up with Thinking Outside The Penalty Box, run by Lizzy Attree and Nick Makoha, to inspire young poets to look beyond the headlines and stereotypes at the experiences of African footballers playing in the UK and pen poems in response.

For the competition, we profiled several footballers, detailing their journeys from early dreams to professional success, and their various charitable and philanthropic projects. We also prompted poets to think about the unexpected links between poetry and the ‘beautiful game’. Three commissioned poems – by Nick Makoha, Roger Robinson and Sugar J – were inspiring kick-off points.

You can read those poems here, alongside the challenge winners and poems created in a workshop run by Kayo Chingonyi, and a poem by Kayo himself. We hope you will agree that poetry and football are successful team-mates.

Young Poets Network is a key part of The Poetry Society’s mission to support young poets and poetry-lovers. If you’re

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inspired by the poems presented here, visit our online platform at youngpoetsnetwork.org.uk to read the resources given for this project, as well as further poems, articles and new writing challenges.

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Introduction This anthology is the culmination of a pilot project called Thinking Outside the Penalty Box, that Nick Makoha and I started in 2016, supported by funding from the Arts Council, and produced in partnership with Arsenal and Chelsea Football Clubs, and The Poetry Society. Our project attempts to showcase African footballers in a positive light. The main motivation of the work in Thinking Outside the Penalty Box is to tackle racism with positive, inspirational stories and ideas around the incredible achievements of players. The project focuses on examples of positive change in football and uses poetry to evoke and articulate the complex feelings and emotions bound up in the lives of African footballers.

Thinking Outside the Penalty Box aims to: • tackle racism, sexism and stereotypes of ‘Africa’ in the UK • break down mythologies around footballers • link poetry with African footballers as a way of exploring feelings behind the stereotypes We worked with Chelsea and Arsenal Football Clubs’ education teams on a series of workshops about the lives of African footballers that play or have played for their clubs.

In total we produced nine workshops with Chelsea and Arsenal for children at primary schools, working with around 100 students. It’s had a great impact on the kids we’ve worked with in London primary schools. Eniola Aluko was one of the main footballers we focussed on in the Chelsea workshops, 6

along with the legendary Didier Drogba and Michael Essien, and her story had a dramatic impact on the children we worked with. At Arsenal we focussed on Kanu and his heart foundation and Chioma Ubogabu who plays for Arsenal Ladies.

We partnered with Chelsea’s Education Team to visit Sir John Lillie Primary School, Marlborough Primary School and Sulivan Primary School, delivering workshops about the lives of African footballers to children aged 9-10 years old. The children composed poems during the workshop and responded to the sessions with feedback that included responses to the question: Did the workshop change your idea of African footballers?

“Yes because I never really talk about African footballers.”

“Yes it did. How they help people.”

“I didn’t know Michael Essien started a charity [for Ebola].”

“Some African players face racism.”

“I learned that girls play football… that if you work harder you can be it.”

(Sir John Lillie School) “I learned money is not important, saying the truth is important.”

“I learned women players get paid less than men.”

“Now I know what they are going through and that they are not being treated fairly.”

“People from a poor family can achieve great goals.”

“They have to work harder than others.”

(Marlborough School) 7

Arsenal’s Education and Literacy team produced an amazing 59-page booklet, Arsenal African Allstars, for their Double Club, that went out to all the schools they work with on literacy projects in three boroughs. Children from Hanover Primary School and St Andrews Primary School attended the workshops at the Arsenal Hub delivered by poets Theresa Lola and Sugar J, toured the Emirates stadium and played football.

Poems were then commissioned from Nick Makoha, Roger Robinson and Sugar J, not only to publish in this collection but also to inspire more young poets to write poems of their own.

In partnership with The Poetry Society we set a challenge for Young Poets Network (bit.ly/ypnpenaltybox) to write poems inspired by the extraordinary African lives in football, and we are delighted to be publishing the three winners and a highly commended poet in this anthology.

We then worked with Zambian-born poet Kayo Chingonyi who ran a workshop for eight young poets at The Poetry Society, and also produced a poem for this anthology himself.

It was extraordinary and unexpected that all of the poets who attended the workshop were women, and many of them were inspired by the lives of female footballers.

We hope the collection of poetry as a whole will serve to illustrate the range and diversity of voices of poets and their responses to the extraordinary lives of African footballers. As 8

a major outcome of the project itself we hope the Thinking Outside the Penalty Box poetry anthology will form part of the foundation of a bigger project, taking in different football teams, more players, new poets and inspiring a generation of children to think about African footballers differently.

Lizzy Attree and Nick Makoha

An extended versions of this introduction is available to download at poetrysociety.org.uk/edu

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COMMISSIONED POEM

Nick Makoha Lone Star for George Weah

Lone Star, you were a man on the run when you picked the ball up on the edge of your penalty box. A planet at your feet, San Siro stadium sealed tight so nothing escapes. The crowd a pair of eyes as you moved toward the light. One man in costume dancing across the pitch as if he were liquid weight, a flicker, black Orpheus with five minutes to go. The opposition’s error believing that you were on your own. Past the halfway line was the future, wide open like the shores of Liberia.

You ran like a man with a ship to catch. Like smoke you had a story to tell. The boy from a village without a well, who never spoke of money or the war.

At their forty-yard line you struck the ball like a match.

Released from your spell it curled into their goal.

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COMMISSIONED POEM

Roger Robinson Balotelli In between the lilt of your name and your skin like onyx.

In between the matt curl of an afro and your flaming mohawk, between jollof rice and pani pizza.

Between the dam of your tears and the wet chest of your shirt.

In between why always me and leave me alone between the complicated and particular, speaking up and being spoken of; in between talent and challenge between cheering crowds and lonely clicks of flashing lights.

That liminal space, that difficult uncomfortable space between the thud of your shot and the frictive hiss of a spinning ball climbing the net; and you running, shouting to your fans I’ve slayed your demons, now what about mine?

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COMMISSIONED POEM

Sugar J Give Invisible Kolo Touré is asked what he’d do if he were invisible for a day, he says “I’d rob a bank and give the money to poorer people.”

There is so much we don’t understand about a man, we see everything and nothing at the same time like a page of writing written in a language we don’t read.

Jean-Michel Basquiat paints Self Portrait (Plaid) in 1983.

He colours himself featureless in all black, cream slit eyes floating on the faceless.

Still from the outline you know it’s him you can tell, maybe it’s the hair.

There is so much I don’t understand about a life, I see everything and nothing at the same time like a page of writing written in a language I don’t read.

When Basquiat paints himself a shadow is he saying we’re all the same or is he trying (and failing) to give invisible?

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Doesn’t he know that a faceless saviour can’t bring salvation?

Don’t they know this?

Doesn’t Touré know the question was a baseless dream?

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YPN CHALLENGE: FIRST PRIZE

Lydia Wei (USA) The Name Behind the Jersey (Mikel John Obi) When your father gave you your name, Nchekwube for hope and Obi for his heart, he tucked away the dreams he had for you in words that would call you to dinner, in words said over staticky long-distance telephone calls, in words breathed into the night air like the draw from a cigarette. He spoke your name like watching an old movie, every syllable pregnant with memory, his cupped hands over your mother’s stomach so that even the shadowy wombs had had faith in your victories. All the while your name hung over you like a talisman, like the harbinger of luck that lottery players watch out for on the day of the numbers – appearing on the back of your jerseys, in newspaper headings, in television sportscasts. Your name where yam roots bury themselves deep in velar consonants and where ekwe drums throb against the walls of bilabial sounds, and in its unbroken undulations the ball comes toward you, hard path crushing over the grass as the ricochet of your cleats against the leathery skin passes and the football pivots into the goal, quivering – – the crowd cheers your name, your father’s words appearing almost corporeal in the shouts rising from their

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taut throats, his dreams already slipping from under his fingers and rising above the open bleachers like the blooming shape of the cranes’ flight – Nchekwube for hope and Obi for his heart, the promise he had chosen for you so many years ago.

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YPN CHALLENGE: SECOND PRIZE

Hazel Vimbainashe Kamuriwo (UK) Big Man Like You Big man like you – I see you offside Tackling hot winds On unpaved roads Beneath the scorching sun, Dark skin sizzling like a snail No shoes, no shirt, no stress Just shorts and skinny dry legs.

Shoot! In between those two sticks Quick, shoot! Mind not the defensive Sahara dust Though it stings your eyes on all kicks.

In your mother’s belly, even then, you knew you must Shoot! Before she calls you offside...

And tell the referee your prayers inside – Referee the only cards I uphold are ones With references to chapters in my life where Impossibility is more than possibility!

Shoot! Before your doubt gets a free kick!

Bruised feet sweep into a perfectly on fleek, Wrapped, softened, pebbled brick; But you cannot afford to hit the brim, The sticks will fall... But have faith and...

Shoot! God will do the rest!

Big man like you – I see you onside.

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Forget not the little boy in the Big man you have become.

Forget not Him who exchanged Your dust for confetti.

Forget not where you came from When the crowd, not the dust, Goes wild when you kick.

Forget not where you came from, When the goal does not fall apart When you shoot.

Forget not where you came from, When there is a net to embrace The moment with you.

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YPN CHALLENGE: THIRD PRIZE

Natalie Perman (UK) eni “People have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box.” – Atticus Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird

pencil ready pencil suit at your first training camp where you learned to carry the ball on the tip of your foot just as the tip of your ballpoint pen ran the page; ran the paper pitch to the score of 102 words

102 games.

a homage to home that cheered in 33s the tension of a calf the pain of your yansh

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crumpled paper cheers from stands; the lone echo of How Far? from a hand that waves as your own.

they measure the length of your legs the power of your kick they call stay on your feet they try to tackle you in the net of MPs’ mouths; order man to man marking and legislation that leaves you your sole defender.

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YPN CHALLENGE: HIGHLY COMMENDED

Fiyinfoluwa Timothy Oladipo (Nigeria) Diaries of Death in June 12th 1993 Today we choose to celebrate the death of a democrat (mourn) Whichever shows the sympathy of relieved young schoolchildren, understanding the importance of brutal assassination.

Rather the significance of political manipulation.

Today, children under their thick ankara quilts reminisce of what could have been a country ruled by their orthodox parents.

A government for their headmasters.

One dictator was enough, but so is one bullet.

And even if the children did not rejoice (mourn) the ash skies would and the thistles of the wet season which approach like a headmaster.

There are much worse things than wooden canes.

8th 1998 Today we celebrate the death of a dictator, rather an imagined mythological beast.

Whichever makes the late 90s, seem like ten years of mares hiding from the hunter for a thousand nights.

We celebrate though, the nearness of change.

The elderly among us appreciate the accuracy of death, a day before nationwide executions.

Death comes in apples fed by prostitutes says the press.

The press over here is known for our love of bananas.

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7th 2016 Today we lament the death of a defender, a mythological beast clothes in leaf green plumage, and white talons — a super eagle.

Where do you find a man, who flies like an eagle, defends against the beasts all over Africa.

Who can withstand more than a wooden cane.

Who projects himself as a bullet.

Returns to his country as a coach, but instead he is occasionally subdued, just because he thinks apples taste better than bananas.

Where will you find a being willing to endure our worries of death for ninety minutes. While we watch on, a country divided.

By things more than a network of rivers.

Where will we find a Steven Keshi.

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WORKSHOP LEADER

Kayo Chingonyi Choreography We’d chase a beat-up sphere of synthetic leather across the parched dancefloor that claimed our days.

Rising from the clutter of a sliding tackle, like we’d never fallen in our lives, we’d sprint into space so we could dance again.

We knew when to bend our knees, pivot, hold our puffed chests poised, but best of all was how we’d synchronise our steps offset the strongest defensive tableau with a swerve, all the while tracing the arc of a cross lofted in from the wing.

We’d wait for the right time to swing our supple hips, catch the orb mid-flight so that the keeper would crumple to the ground empty-handed and the beat-up sphere would slide from the dancefloor to the bushes that served as goal nets.

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WORKSHOP ATTENDEE

Maria Calinescu A Conversation between Gervinho and a Fan The day before a match GERVINHO: I juggle chances in water a water made of hope’s projections hope splints grass to spikes pops out of your eyeballs me dancing with my ball in your expectatory fluid I learnt to think of it as mine to manage my 65m runs.

I am drinking my roles like liquor shots given to me for free for being Anyama’s prodigal son. father-to-be son teammate hero athlete celebrity villain best friend student businessman lover promoter brother forward I let you take me as your stage viper (sweet today, biting tomorrow) Players choose to be tall as the crowd’s mirage, persistent as a mangrove swamp.

The day after the match FAN: But why didn’t you Why don’t you go The match was terrible I smashed sticky fruit

score home last night spread it on the screen.

GERVINHO: Did you even watch the match last night I was not there, I watched it from a hospital

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to distract myself from the high-nailed labour-screams of my wife, whilst the birth was in the waiting game phase.

How could I Score a goal on the pitch when I was subbed off To score the father goal.

And fruit, keep fruit in stomachs, orange-glaze bowls, Dutch still lifes.

Football is no place to be still.

A match a few days later, Gervinho has scored twice FAN: I want to be you I want your dear number on my back I, shirted lamb mother’s number inked you star of the team GERVINHO: A cheering chant burns pride in my ear, thank you tonight, though this is a familiar sort of cant and tomorrow you will shriek, I know you fickle men I am one too but not quite like you.

Chant or not, I dash through the punctuation of shirts and tautness Nous sommes Les Mimosas, black and yellow us yellow-fume plumes can certainly face your bellow.

Looking up to Thierry when my legs were little I know how many faces see a precious mirror in me still aware of how it is (To dream) (And be dreamed on) I love the swish watery flow of game I perch, lucky pond skater fly surface tension, feet in a float glide float 24

whatever you chant, I try to follow the beautiful game, like Papa.

You have no idea how loud it is down here, just above the earth there are challenges everywhere I look, challenges made by booted fast feet, by night’s warm milk bottle leaking, charity meetings, silent fast greetings: the gaze of cameras, sharp, fries us like ants, burnt by a magnifying glass face held by a child on a sun-blessed patio.

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WORKSHOP ATTENDEE

Amelia Doherty Eniola Aluko You inspect the pitch like a courtroom A contract made up of goals and hat tricks Atlanta couldn’t hold your ocean at bay You had to take home a win Firing through the net, sixty-three goals And yet you remain unknown Like too many in women’s football.

Young player of the year, but how many Can define you, can connect your face to a name?

Just run for the winning goal and hear the jury Of a crowd roar like a pride of lions Taste the victory on your tongue You’re the champion of Chelsea.

You’ve made it.

Voyage: you can sail across the sea of teams Waving at you. They called you a liability But you were a second chance, a strategist, A warrior and mediator. You sacrifice, You are knocked down, but you rise, Running towards the net, You were ready to fly And you flew.

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WORKSHOP ATTENDEE

Emily Hana gervinho: the beat between each flame flickering across the stricken land. the crash of waves against shrapnel-spattered rock, the first formula for sand fortified by the thump kick thump of hearts and feet and sweat and hope – the roots of a future he promises just by being alive.

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WORKSHOP ATTENDEE

Cia Mangat She strikes the ball like a match for Chioma Ubogagu

Good God! Watch her, how she swallows the crowd-song, how boldly she strikes the pitch’s borders with her toes, warping the white lines, the way she knows to reduce each sun in the stadium lights to a ball, how she kicks into the midst of each fiery fist like she can’t resist insisting her way round a pitch, face gleaming like the end of a match.

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WORKSHOP ATTENDEE

Amelie Maurice-Jones the ball moves fast but i move faster a sharp arc of my ankle sends the ball bundling past the orange fork of road, past thin bells of grass, which rise into water: the ball (with passion) splinters a river’s ancient stillness in the way a ribcage – having healed – freshly cracks. i surge forwards and am thronged by moving faces by the riverside. our bodies move fast but our eyes move faster- - - in out in out the bob of the ball mid-river. my mind moves fast but my body moves faster- - - into the water, ignoring eyes on my spine and neck, which crane forward for treasure (it’s a mild springtime with burning eyes) the

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ball is rolling and blinking her eyes and so i surge upwards under under forwards, the fabric trophy caught between my left hand and chest. o my heart and the ball beat beat as i move forward and on-bank mouths i don’t even know celebrate wildly. the sun breaks – like baked bread – to harness this victory in gold. my heart is also gold. like thousands of flags furling and unfurling, the river praises recklessly.

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WORKSHOP ATTENDEE

Alannah Taylor Response to ‘Petition to give soldiers footballers’ wages’ “Let’s give our money to the ones Prepared to pay the price for love”

For love?

What else rises in the stadium air With roars wrenched from a thousand smiles And pounds in every body there And stretches further, miles on miles?

What lifts the kids whose fathers can’t Connect to them without a ruse, Builds solidarity with chants And twists their stiff detachment loose?

What kind of funded footman should Grow England’s fruits in foreign fields?

What shoots and leaves? Who shot and stood To magnify united squeals?

How many sail to English shores, High on the steam of a homeland’s dreams?

Not veterans of foreign wars, But the pride of their academies.

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How many African football stars Support those same academies?

How many share all that they are With communities and families?

Extraordinary to the last, Boots ripping air and grass and mud May passion scorch the torch they pass, That ties together earth-wide blood.

Forget shirts when you draft out attack, And number out defence and such, But give support to all on track To light the lives of land they touch.

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WORKSHOP ATTENDEE

Francesca Weekes In Praise of Eniola Aluko You stow your boots in your bag and head to work, wielding the law like a sword.

Working woman, your principles on your sleeve like a flag; uncounted the number of times you’ve scored.

The kiss of the ball rocking the net is a sound you know in your dreams; you run twice as hard as everyone else, a lawyer determined to win for your team.

Keepy-uppies on the way home from school, and in your hand a paper jewel from the school library, a book about childhood and justice, a book with the silhouette of a girl etched in black, a girl who is unafraid to run.

It could be you, or anyone.

It’s as if you live in your body every day with your eyes sky-wide, a force of impossible fluidity, with the wind on your side when you play, and coiled power in your stride.

There are law textbooks in your hand, and the boots in your bag have pounded Olympic ground.

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WORKSHOP ATTENDEE

Fox White Cultural exchange My cousin tried to teach me about football And I him about art, A challenge from our respective moral high grounds.

What we really asked for that day Was the permission to cement our differences for half an hour.

Our only point of connection the lead Argentinian striker whose name Perhaps overlapped with a painter of Persian miniatures And only because we both pronounced it wrong Anglicised syllables blunting both the same.

We share a grandmother if nothing else.

Even the lilt of our jawline, our turned up mouths Laughing at the other’s ignorance.

The Arsenal and Chelsea scarfs are produced on the same production line.

The same synthetic fuzz until the last vat of dye.

We point to our patina and say We are so irredeemably different.

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Young writers and The Poetry Society Young Poets Network is The Poetry Society’s online platform for young poets up to the age of 25. It’s for everyone interested in poets and poetry – whether you’ve just started out, or you’re a seasoned reader and writer.

You’ll find features, challenges and competitions to inspire your own writing, as well as new writing from young poets, and advice and guidance from the rising and established stars of the poetry scene.

For updates, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter @youngpoetsnet youngpoetsnetwork.org.uk The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award is the largest free international poetry competition for 11-17 year olds, with entries from thousands of young people worldwide.

Each year 100 winners (85 Commendations and 15 Overall Winners) are selected by high-profile judges to win publication, tuition, and poetry goodies. Past winners include Helen Mort, Jay Bernard and Richard Osmond, as well as many of the young poets presented in this anthology.

The Award closes 31 July every year, and is open to poems on all themes. With no entry fee, and no limit on number of poems, it’s a fantastic opportunity for any writer aged 11-17. foyleyoungpoets.org

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Schools and The Poetry Society Teaching resources, including free lesson plans, are available from resources.poetrysociety.org.uk Page Fright is an online resource bringing canonical poetry to life with contemporary spoken word performances. There are also ideas and writing prompts to inspire new writing. resources.poetrysociety.org.uk/Page-Fright Poets in Schools is a service placing poets in classrooms across the UK, encouraging an understanding of and enthusiasm for written and spoken poetry across all key stages. Whether it’s a one-off workshop or a long term residency, an INSET session for staff or a poet-led assembly, we can find the right poet for your school. poetrysociety.org.uk/education School Membership connects your school with all that The Poetry Society has to offer. School members receive books, resources, posters, free access to our Poets in Schools service, and more. poetrysociety.org.uk/membership

The Poetry Society in school. Photo: Hayley Madden for The Poetry Society.

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“You are knocked down, but you rise, Running towards the net, You were ready to fly And you flew.”

– from ‘Eniola Aluko’ by Amelia Doherty