POEMS BY PATIENCE AGBABI - READERS' 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.

About the Author

Patience Agbabi is a poet, performer and workshop facilitator. Born in London in 1965 to Nigerian parents, she was brought up by white foster parents in Sussex and North Wales. She was educated at Oxford University and has appeared at numerous diverse venues in the UK and abroad. R.A.W., her groundbreaking debut collection of poetry, was published in 1995 and won the 1997 Excelle Literary Award. Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and anthologies. Transformatrix, a commentary on late twentieth-century Britain and a celebration of poetic form, was published in 2000. From 1995 to 1998, she was a member of Atomic Lip, poetry's first pop group, whose final tour, Quadrophonix (1998), incorporated video with live performance.

Patience Agbabi has read repeatedly at literature festivals in the UK, including the Edinburgh Book Festival and Ledbury Poetry Festival, and music festivals including Glastonbury Festival and Soho Jazz Festival. She has also worked extensively for The British Council, delivering her work in a range of venues from university lecture theatres to a metro station. Her work has also appeared on television and radio. Patience Agbabi has just published a third collection, Bloodshot Monochrome (Canongate Books, 2008). She was named one of the Poetry Society's 'Next Generation' poets and is one of the most powerful figures among black British performance poets.
 
Read more about the author on the Contemporary Writers website.  Read Patience Agbabi's article 'Crossing Borders: from Page to Stage and Back Again' on the Crossing Borders website.

Poem 1: 'Sentences' (pp. 54 – 57)

 Before reading

• Activity 1
  What do you think the title refers to? What are the different meanings of the word 'sentence' in English?

• Activity 2
  ‘I now pronounce you Man and Wife.’ What does this sentence from the wedding ceremony indicate about gender roles? Do husbands and wives have the same rights and obligations in your culture?

Read in detail

• Activity 1
  Find evidence in the text of the different gender roles and power relationships in this couple.

• Activity 2
  The wife in the poem is a battered woman. Discuss with other readers: is domestic violence a problem in your country? Are there institutions to help people who are victims of domestic violence, both male and female?

• Activity 3
  Discuss: How does drinking contribute to violence? Is this a problem in your country?

• Activity 4
  Did you expect the woman to do what she does? Can you find clues in the poem to anticipate what’s going to happen?

• Activity 5
  Discuss: At the end of the poem we read 'cos she knew she’d been sentenced / twice'. In what way? How has the meaning of the title changed by the time you have finished reading the poem?

After reading

• Activity 1
  Discuss: is the judges’ sentence fair? Could something have been done to help the woman? Could she have taken a different course of action?

• Activity 2
  Suppose you are the woman spending her first month in prison. Write a diary entry or a letter to your family expressing your thoughts and feelings about your situation.

• Activity 3
  Write a newspaper article for the front page of a local newspaper covering the case and the judge’s sentence.

Extension

• Activity 1
  Do a web search or use the library to find Benjamin Zephaniah’s poem 'She’s Crying for Many'. [Would it be possible to include the poem or a link instead?] Read it and compare it to 'Sentences'. Do you know of any other poems or songs about domestic violence, in English or in your own language?

Poem 2: 'Ufo Woman' (pp. 65 – 68) 

Glossary:

VDU: A visual display unit, the old term for display monitors.
Nefertiti: the chief consort/wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten, mother-in-law and probable stepmother of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun. Her name roughly translates to 'the beautiful (or perfect) woman has come'. She also shares her name with a type of elongated gold bead, called nefer, that she was often portrayed as wearing. She was made famous by her bust, now in Berlin’s Altes Museum. The bust is one of the most copied works of ancient Egypt.

Before reading

• Activity 1
  What do you think the title refers to? What does the word UFO stand for in English? Why is the word spelt Ufo rather than UFO? Why is the pronunciation specified?

• Activity 2
  Find out using the Internet or printed documents:
  What are you supposed to do if you are a foreigner arriving in the UK? What airport will you land on if you are coming from Nigeria? What terminal? What kind of immigration control will you have to go through? What documents will you need?

Read in detail

• Activity 1
  Now check the immigration procedures the speaker must go through. Are they the same you have read about?

• Activity 2
  Discuss: Is the speaker really somebody who has 'just got offa the space ship'? What is the meaning of the word ALIEN in a passport stamp at Heath Row?

• Activity 3
  How do London and Sussex welcome the speaker? Find words in the poem which provide evidence for your answer. And what about Lagos, in the speaker’s Motherland?

• Activity 4
  Discuss: where does the speaker belong?  England? Nigeria? Outer space?

• Activity 5
  Discuss: What information does the speaker get from 'history'? And from 'herstory'? What do you think the word 'herstory' means? And what does the symmetrical tree stand for?

After reading

• Activity 1
  Discuss: In what way does the meaning of the title change at the end of the poem?

• Activity 2
  Discuss: Do you think the speaker will find 'that perfect destination'? If so, where can that be?

Extension

• Activity 1
  Role-play an interview between the Ufo woman and an immigration officer at her next destination. What questions will she have to answer? Will she look as she did at the beginning of the poem? Will she feel the same way?

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 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, but also Jackie, Tito, Jermain and Marlon.

Before reading

• Activity 1
  Predict: What do you think the title refers to? Read in the glossary who Ajax was in Greek mythology. Does this create any expectations as regards the content of the poem?

 Read in detail

• Activity 1
  Go over the poem and decide what it describes. Do other readers agree?

• Activity 2
  Find out in the glossary where the words 'Open Sesame' come from.  What doors are being opened here?

• Activity 3
  There are several instances in this poem of words with more than one meaning, ambiguity, symbolic references to the contemporary world. Can you find examples of these? What is their effect?

• Activity 4
  What voices can you identify in the poem? Who is the speaker?

After reading

• Activity 1
  Discuss: The poem can be said to be cyclical, as the end returns to the 'parallel lines' image it starts with. Who or what converge at the end?

Extension

• Activity 1
  Imagine Aja’s day at work. How does a family lawyer feel earning a living as a cleaner? In what way can this be related to drug addiction? Does the habit make things worse? What would you say to her if you met her?