In a month-long act of resistance, poets remind us that poetry can push back against forces that marginalize voices, erase stories, and impose control over how we live and imagine.
An interview with poet Delores V. Mullings
ALL LIT UP: How would you describe Black Girl in the Ring to someone picking it up for the first time?
DELORES V. MULLINGS: The title points to a traditional Caribbean game where one girl stands in the centre of a ring and is supported by the girls forming the ring around her. This collection comes full circle from Africa to the Caribbean and Canada (Ontario and later Newfoundland and Labrador) making the links between worlds across and in view of waters. It explores identity, violence, colonization, nature, feminism, institutions and love. Many of the pieces are about belongings–nationally and locally in homes, public, volunteer and workspaces. In this case, the ring is a metaphor for life where sometimes people are isolated and watched but in these poems the ring is a sacred space for the Black girl (body) where she reclaims power, joy, and agency. Some pieces are writing in Jamaican Creole, resistance to the colonial English language that bridges Jamaica and Newfoundland and Labrador’s sea, salt, and determination that will unlikely be seen in other places. This collection represents a private moment, behind the scenes of another wise public leader. It opens the door to get a glimpse to address the spirit and soul of person living and working within colonial structures.
ALU: How do you see poetry as an act of resistance?
DELORES: Poetry creates its own boundaries within politics and social contexts and as well between individuals. Its very nature is rebellious and stands the test of time because people can remember entire pieces of poetry, paragraphs or lines. Poetry is also flexible as it is not grouped within a formal and structural manner. Poetry uses language to claim or help others recognize my identities. In my case, living within the colonial order with repressive structures and expectations, I use my own language, the Jamaican Creole, to teach, express myself, critique, highlight cruelty and rage, and to show the nakedness and rawness of life whether it be in nature or on a bed. I also use my poetry to (re)write history given my positionality within colonial-dominated institutional and community structures and to ensure that my version (an alternative version) of history, including attempts of erasure, hostility, and everyday reality is documented.
ALU: What does poetry allow you to say or refuse that other forms don’t?
DELORES: I am a trained academic. Defiance is the word that comes to mind when I think about my feelings on academic writing. The expectations of good writing, legitimate writing, acceptable writing is in direct conflict with my understanding of poetry. Poetry allows me to speak from my heart, show my joy and pain, make visible the horrors of history and contemporary life, say things without being forced to “legitimize” them by bending to white supremacist ideals; make comments on behalf of others, speak from the position as observer and most importantly, poetry offers freedom to just be without apologies. I feel that poetry gives me the opportunity to show softness “beyond strength” with a full range of emotions, hurt, joy, sadness in somewhat of vulnerability. This is important because Black women are seen as “strong” which strips us of softness, vulnerability and care (for). Poetry allows me to show my full humanity and challenge attempts to erase people and their experiences.
ALU: Is there a line (in your own or someone else’s work) that you return to?
DELORES: My first teacher and mentor (from afar), the Honourable Louise Bennett’s (Miss Lou) Noh Likkle Twang! (Not Even A Little Accent). I recited this piece many times as a child while living in Jamaica.
The line that comes back to me:
Yuh mean yuh goh dah ‘Merica
An spen six whole mont’ deh,
An come back not a piece betta
Den how yuh did goh wey?
This piece Miss Lou digs deep into the idea of going to a foreign country and the community’s expectations of what the returning community member should have accomplished within six months. The whole piece speaks to shame and perceived lack of accomplishments without acknowledging the context of migrant life in the USA.
ALU: What role does community—readers, poets, teachers—play in your writing?
DELORES: Like Toni Morrison, I write for my people; for my communities near and far. Some of my work will not be accessible to some people – this is so because I borrow from their lives, their stories, to fill in gaps and create substance in words. Without my communities, teachers, readers and poets like Clifton Joseph, Miss Lou, Dionne Brand, Motion, Lillian Allen, and Ralph, I might not be writing. These were some of my first teachers. I might not have been inspired to write poetry without being exposed to them. I write mostly about Black people experiences as embodied souls on or in this stolen land. Miss Lou was my first teacher. I saw her at what was known at Little Theatre in Kingston Jamaica as a youth and I watched her on television performing, reading and teaching.
ALU: How do you sustain a practice of writing poetry in politically or personally challenging times?
DELORES: Writing poetry is my happy place. I can go to this place in a heart-beat. Poetry has possible saved me from mental collapse, it stabilizes me and helps me to find my foundation no matter what and in all situations. I write poetry everywhere – on air crafts, in lounges, waiting rooms, concerts, walking, watching sports. I use poetry to vent and regulate myself. Indeed, some of the poetry I write requires significant editing and some cannot be edited at all for public view.
Read “EAT THEIR YOUNG“
from Black Girl in the Ring
EAT THEIR YOUNG
(For Marina)
A statue looms among
square boxes in the likeness
of Gibraltar, undeniable, self-assured.
No matter what happens:
none of it matters.
Favoured deep blue accentuates
bold widows with fans that protect
cheekbones adorned with ruby,
matching rosebud lips hinting gloss:
a dark crown devoid of manicure.
Upside down v-like
palms, a chin rest cradle.
Painted piano fingers.
Framed, intelligent eyes,
runway specks of silver and gold.
The gong show opens,
yet laughter is elusive.
The big red nose and floppy
red shoes are scorched and brittle
from life on sun-drenched patios.
Crows’ feet mark deep, angry lines,
competing with receding hair
and half-moon parchment, fighting
for space in lights. Bags of puffy flesh
sag below multi-coloured water holes.
Barren lashes expose wrinkled mounds,
hanging in reckless abandonment
below chins, necks, and jaws.
Unruly, curly, straight, white, blond,
mousy brown, amber, salt and pepper mix.
Balance with determination, aiming
to wrestle power and recentre old glory.
Naturally, glass-cased white supremacist
sexism beckoned the Goddesses
to intervene.
To shine the light on others.
Out on a limb, they too, are bent on
arresting the sweep for preservation.
For reinvention, they too, spew
governance acid.
Sprinkles of the othered prop up ancient ruins,
lean on pale, younger, soft-spoken, and rehearsed
masqueraders echoing borrowed words
gifted by Black and Indigenous keepers:
Worriers. Knowers. Healers.
Truth and Reconciliation,
anti-Blackness, anti-racism,
Indigenization, all play hide and seek.
None of those words matter
in the stillness of the heat.
Complicity, mutiny, backroom brawls,
bombs, votes . . . all count coups,
soot-covered blueprints, drag marks,
blood-scarred floors, and the throwaway
rainbows of youth.
Blackness, the original brown wolf,
subhuman, the mangled bodies
of grandmothers, yet . . .
Gibraltar was unshakable:
check mate.
Gotham City’s old white joker
crawls from the rubble, skips,
dances, and surveys the dead
under floodlights
at the gathering.
On a windless, sky-blue, sun-dripped
Thursday afternoon in Muskoka,
when sheets of diamonds lined the lake,
the ancients with new flesh ate their young
. . . and savoured the aftertaste.
“It’s not personal.”
Reprinted with permission from Breakwater Books.
Watch Delores read from Black Girl in the Ring
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Delores V. Mullings was born and raised in the beautiful island of Jamaica, in a small rural community surrounded by love, water, sunshine, and all things natural. She immigrated to Canada as a youth and is blessed with a large family that includes two living children—Black queens. She is a multitalented, no-holds-barred, unapologetic free-spirited proud woman of African descent residing in the Black diaspora. Her love of water, moonlight, and nature drives her desire to live in small urban centres and rural areas. Delores is a budding poet whose work is an act of resistance to racial violence and injustice, anti-Black racism, and white supremacy, while also embracing love, resilience, courage, and boldness like the fiery Jamaican Yahdie that she is.
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Thanks to Delores for answering our questions, and to Breakwater Books for the text of “EAT THEIR YOUNG” from Black Girl in the Ring, which is available to order now (and get 15% off + FREE shipping Canada-wide with the code POETSRESIST until April 30!).
Follow our NPM series all month long to discover new poetry or connect with old favourites, and visit our poetry shop here.
