POEMS BY PATIENCE AGBABI - TEACHERS' NOTES

Text taken From: Bittersweet – Contemporary Black Women’s Poetry

About the Book

Bittersweet - Contemporary Black Women's Poetry is edited by Karen McCarthy and published by the Women's Press, London, 1998. The book showcases established poets such as Alice Walker, Grace Nichols and Ntozake Shange as well as innovative new voices, such as Patience Agbabi.

Aims and objectives

These notes, written by Claudia Ferradas Moi, are aimed at teachers of English as a second or foreign language working with young adults whose level of English is upper intermediate or advanced. They are designed to provide ideas for class work, but some of the activities can be used as homework.

Three Poems by Patience Agbabi, 'Sentances', 'UFO Woman', and 'Ajax' are discussed in the following notes. We will be adding the downloadable text of the poems to the website shortly but in the meantime you can find Bittersweet on amazon.co.uk.

Poem 1: 'Sentences' (pp. 54 – 57)

Before reading

• Activity 1

     The definition of Sentence:

 
    1. A group of words that usually contains a subject and a verb, and expresses

        a complete idea, as in:

       His voice dropped at the end of the sentence. 
       In a few short sentences, Quinn explained what he had done.

    2. A punishment that a judge gives to someone who is guilty of a crime, as in:
        She received an eight-year prison sentence.

    (Source: Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English On Line )
 

• Activity 2

     Notice the superiority on the part of the male role that seems to be implied by

     the words 'Man and Wife'. Why not 'Woman and Husband'?

Read in detail

• Activity 1
  See, for example, lines 6; 11; 17 - 18; 26 – 31, 48 - 49

• Activities 2 and 3
  Open answers

• Activity 4
  Notice the foregrounding of the knife, 'an excellent chopping knife', on lines 20 and 81.

• Activity 5
  She was sentenced for life twice, first when they were pronounced Man and Wife (see line 70) and then when she got a life sentence for murder. The title refers to these two punishments that the woman cannot escape.

After reading

Activities 1, 2 and 3: Open answers

Poem 2: 'Ufo Woman' (pp. 65 – 68)

Before reading

• Activity 1
  Readers are encouraged to think of a UFO (unidentified flying object) and therefore of an alien, a woman from outer space. However, the use of only one capital letter (Ufo) seems to indicate that this is not an acronym and the pronunciation suggests it is not an English word.

• Activity 2
  You will arrive at Heathrow Airport, terminals 2, 3 or 4, depending on the airline. Terminal 5, the one the speaker lands on in the poem, is still under construction. This may give a 'futuristic' effect to the narrative - terminal 5, the most modern one, may be the most suitable location for a spaceship to land. See Heathrow Airport for more details. You will also need to go through security checks and immigration control, where they will ask for your passport and any additional documents needed to prove what the purpose of your visit is. Apart from your passport, you may need a visa (depending on what country you are from) and a work permit if you are planning to work. You may also need a student visa to study. Click here for the Home Office website where you would sign up for this.

Read in detail

• Activity 1
  Quite similar: immigrants are expected to get to know about the country, learn to speak its language, and follow all instructions given on airport screens and instructions videos.

• Activity 2
  The word 'alien' is used here not only to refer to a creature from outer space but, symbolically, to anyone who is considered different and discriminated against as a result. It is also meaningful that the official word to refer to someone who does not belong to a community is also 'alien', a label that immigration authorities will therefore use and may stamp on the passports of non-residents. The idea that this woman seems to have just landed from outer space is therefore highly ironic, a poignant analogy with the situation of unwelcome immigrants, who are discriminated against because of the colour of their skin, clothes or customs.
   
• Activity 3
  The speaker looks different and is discriminated against in London and Sussex. See lines 17, 20 - 26, 33 - 38. Back in the Motherland (which is not outer space but Nigeria!) she also feels an alien (in Lagos): 58 – 68. Both in the UK and in Nigeria, her appearance 'makes them stare with flying saucer eyes' (lines 26 and 65).

• Activity 4
  The poem highlights the theme of discrimination, showing the difficulties found by those who emigrate and feel lost in a sort of no-man’s land, with little sense of belonging to either their Motherland or the host country. The poem is highly autobiographical, as Patience recreates the culture shock derived from her visit to Lagos as a child. The writer raises issues connected with the search for identity migrant writers (and imigrants in general) are engaged in. The speaker seems to belong nowhere; too black for the UK, too 'white' for Nigeria when she gets back. This tug of war between identities leaves the speaker in  a hybrid place 'searching for that perfect destination' which perhaps she will never find.

• Activity 5
  History reminds her of the slave trade and the way in which black and white populations came into contact. 'Herstory' refers to an account of history from a female (her) rather than male (his) point of view. It may also refer to the writer’s own personal history (her story) and the symmetrical tree may refer to her own genealogical tree, as she has two families: her Nigerian parents and her white foster parents. But of course readers can find multiple meanings to interpret this image. See also Patience Agbabi’s poem 'Seeing Red' in New Writing 12 page 41.

After reading

• Activity 1
  Lines 71 - 76: the speaker realises it may be a blessing to be an 'outsider, other' in Nigeria but landing out of a UFO in Heath Row is a curse. She takes the name Ufo woman and she’ll now be 'searching for that perfect destination' instead of staying at Heath Row.

• Activity 2
  Open answer

Extension

• Activity 1

     Open answer

Poem 3: 'Ajax' (pp. 115 – 120)

Glossary:

Ajax: Brave Trojan hero in the Illiad. Even the enemy regarded him as a great man both in stature and wisdom:
'Who then is this other Achaean warrior, valiant and tall, towering above the Argives with his head and broad shoulders?' [Iliad 3.225]

Open Sesame: A famous phrase from the tale 'Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves', part of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. Ali Baba, a poor Arab woodcutter, happens to overhear a group of forty thieves visiting their treasure store in the forest where he is cutting wood. The thieves' treasure is in a cave, the mouth of which is sealed by magic—it opens on the words 'Open, O' Simsim' (commonly written as 'Open Sesame' in English). When the thieves are gone, Ali Baba enters the cave himself and takes some of the treasure home.

Trainspotting: A 1996 film by Danny Boyle based on the novel by the same name, written by Irvine Welsh. The story is about a group of heroin addicts in Edinburgh. It stars Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle. The screenplay does not contain any references to the non-drug-related hobby of train spotting. The title is a reference to an episode in the original book (not included in the film) where Begbie and Renton meet 'an auld drunkard' in a disused railway station which they are visiting to use as a toilet. He asks them, in a weak attempt at a joke, if they are 'trainspottin'. As they walk away, Renton realizes the drunk was Begbie's father.

Deadmeat: A British movie set on the streets of London which presents two terrorist groups at war with the British Government. Written and directed by Q.

Crash: A British film by John Stewart (1987).

The Jackson Five (later known as The Jacksons) was an American popular music quintet. The group, fully active from 1966 to 1990, played R&B, soul, funk and later disco. Considered a huge popular phenomenon in the early 1970s, the Jackson Five are also notable for launching the careers of their lead singers, particularly Michael Jackson.

Before reading

• Activity 1
  See Glossary (above)

Read in detail

• Activity 1
  'Ajax' blends together the names Jax (line 47) and Aja (line 84). It is for the reader to decide whether these are two people or two aspects of the same person (see lines 97 – 100).
  The poem describes a rather hallucinogenic series of perceptions related to drug taking. There are explicit references to drugs and their effects, as well as symbolic ones through the titles of films and songs and the reference to parallel lines (the railway and underground lines, as much as the lines of white powder to be snorted, an analogy also found in the title of the novel Trainspotting - see glossary - though the reference there can be said to be the marks left by heroin shots on an addict’s arms).

• Activity 2
  See 'Glossary'. The doors to be opened are 'the doors of perception', which are unfortunately jammed (19 - 40). The Doors of Perception is a 1954 book by Aldous Huxley detailing his experiences when taking drugs. This short book is considered to be one of the most profound studies of the effects of mind-expanding drugs and what they teach about how the mind works. The title comes from William Blake’s 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell': 
  'If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.' Huxley's book inspired Jim Morrison to name his legendary rock band 'The Doors'. Morrison himself would quote Huxley at length and is thought to have died of a heroin overdose.

• Activity 3
  Some examples:
  Polysemy and ambiguity:
  Parallel lines (6), kick (19), penalty fare £10 (line 26: the price paid for the drug as well as the fine to be paid for not having a ticket on the underground).
  References to the contemporary world: Charles Dickens’ crumpled face - the face on the £10 note; Club 2001; names of films (28), names of songs and music groups from the 70’s (Bee Gees, 'Do what you Wanna do'…, etc.) The effect is that of a pastiche where more and more people and objects circulate as in a kaleidocope. The effect is confusing, and it resembles the effect of drugs, thus contributing to the meaning of the poem.

• Activity 4
  The speaker’s voice as well as whoever is speaking the lines in italics (the speaker’s 'other'?) and is hybridised with the speaker’s voice. Split personality is one of the effects of cocaine (lines 38 and 99 – 100). So who is the speaker? Jax, whose real name is Eva? (line 47)? Aja, family lawyer form Nigeria (line 84)? Who is the 'real' woman and who the one who is part of cocaine induced fantasies?

After reading

• Activity 1
  'I watch her ascent as I’m coming down' (line 97): Who are these two people? Aja and Jax? Is the cocaine trip over and the one on the underground the reality to be perceived from now on? What clues are there in the poem that the trip on the tube merges with the effects of cocaine? What signs and ads can the speaker see? How do they merge with her imagination? (see lines 25 – 30 in particular).

Extension

• Activity 1
  Open answer