Bridget Minamore, ladies and gentlemen!
For a young woman in her 20s, Bridget Minamore has already achieved what many could only wish to in a lifetime. She is a writer who has just completed an English degree at University College London. She facilitates poetry workshops, writes and performs things for all sorts of people, and was shortlisted to be London’s first Young Poet Laureate. The Guardian, The Independent and The Huffington Post have been keen supporters of Bridget’s work, with its broad scope and diverse topics. Recently, Bridget has been writing about about hip hop, climate change, her 97-year-old grandmother, football, London, Ghana and teeth. She reads a lot of books and has just got back from travelling in South America in time to be joining us at Cowes Enterprise College on Friday 17th October. Here’s a little taster of Bridget’s work, but there are many more poems, pictures and videos of her work on her website.
They Told Me To Write About Deptford
We hold pride in our homes in the base of our throats
like the last gasp bastion of breath your niece made
before each and every feeding –
it’s a greedy way of living only babies understand.
You are greedy so you left.
You are elsewhere now,
pretending that new home is your home,
that Eastern corner of the city claims you now, they say,
you love it there, they say, and you say
kind of / yes but no / you’re wrong,
I love it there but it’s not home, and
anger, suddenly becomes irrationally easier for you to hold.
You are protective of this place, so you fight back with facts like
– the canals in East London aren’t even all that, and
– it’s not rough here it’s eclectic, and
– no-one even likes the underground, and
– I prefer the smell of weed and not shisha in the streets, and
– in Deptford there are 4 night busses from central London
so the one night bus to Hackney Wick just isn’t cutting it, plus
the 8 drops me off on the wrong side of the Stadium anyway.
You are protective of this place.
South East London is your awkward cousin, the men you love,
Ghanaian food, Chelsea football club, Beyoncé –
someone, something,
only you can say bad things about.
– and you are here now;
showing others market stalls with clip on earrings,
because home apparently never changes and never ages
and always leaves imprints behind
you show them the door to the shed at your old hairdresser’s house
you hid behind because the she told the tax man she was unemployed
you show them the empty space left for the man with the pincers for fingers
who always put extra onions on your burgers before he died
you show them the remnants of the cafe round the corner
with a train for a seating area that they, They, are trying to take away
the station that has never really felt like a station
because it still doesn’t have proper barriers
your dad’s old cab office
the place that’s the base of the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign
the pub that has the same football supporters every Sunday in the season
so you dare not mention Arsenal here
the plantain that is always 6 for a pound not 5
because if Abdul tried to raise the price
Marcia and Afua and Roland would tell him
he was trying to end their lives
and the university you nearly went to but avoided
because everyone told you to spread your wings and
fly a bit further from home
you tell them to be wary of the wha gwan’s in the street
because here wha gwarn does not mean what’s going on
it means when and where are we going to meet
you tell them of the way your mother speaks differently here
as if she can tell the darker faces from closer lands
will still always understand her better than you can
you tell them of rumours of So Solid Crew sightings
that stretched from New Cross to Peckham in the early 2000s
but you decline to remind them of the bridge
that visitors always describe as having water running under it
because they never see this part of the city clearly
You are protective of this place,
This awkward blue Ghanaian Beyoncé on the wrong side of the river.
You are here now.
But you are greedy.
So you left.
– and every time you come back you are reminded
of the wet, running water under the bridge that doesn’t exist,
and the reasons your Dad left that cab office,
and the pulled taught forehead that would follow a too tight braiding trip to Jessie’s house,
and the theatre you didn’t know existed until you were old enough to miss it,
and the Jollof rice and chicken wings you always get from the Nigerian man
at the base of the market that is never as nice as it first seems,
but you are greedy,
and so always
keep on eating it.
IWLF SCHOOLS 