JOHN AGARD

Me not no Oxford don

me a simple immigrant
from Clapham Common
I didn’t graduate
I immigrate
But listen Mr Oxford don
I’m a man on de run
and a man on de run
is a dangerous one
I ent have no gun
I ent have no knife
but mugging de Queen’s English
is the story of my life
I don’t need to axe
to split/ up yu syntax
I don’t need no hammer
to mash/ up yu grammar
I warning you Mr Oxford don
I’m a wanted man
and a wanted man
is a dangerous one
Dem accuse me of assault
on de Oxford dictionary/
imagine a concise peaceful man like me/
dem want me serve time
for inciting rhyme to riot
but I tekking it quiet
down here in Clapham Common
I’m not a violent man Mr Oxford don
I only armed wit mih human breath
but human breath
is a dangerous weapon
So mek dem send one big word after me
I ent serving no jail sentence
 I slashing suffix in self-defence
I bashing future wit present tense
and if necessary
I making de Queen’s English accessory/to my offence

Derek Walcott
Love After Love
The time will come 
when, with elation 
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror 
and each will smile at the other's welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 

You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 

for another, who knows you by heart. 
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 

peel your own image from the mirror. 
Sit. Feast on your life. 

A Far Cry From Africa

A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
Of Africa, Kikuyu, quick as flies,
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries:
"Waste no compassion on these separate dead!"
Statistics justify and scholars seize
The salients of colonial policy.
What is that to the white child hacked in bed?
To savages, expendable as Jews?
Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break
In a white dust of ibises whose cries
Have wheeled since civilizations dawn
From the parched river or beast-teeming plain.
The violence of beast on beast is read
As natural law, but upright man
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.
Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars
Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum,
While he calls courage still that native dread
Of the white peace contracted by the dead.
Again brutish necessity wipes its hands
Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again
A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,
The gorilla wrestles with the superman.
I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?

David Dabydeen

“I am inclined to think that Britain has heavily depended on us for its material and cultural development. So
when I say I want to be part of it, I mean I’m willing to admit that. To admit that I (‘I’ meaning not just myself
but the tribe) have had an important say and influence in their development. The sense of belonging only comes
if the British acknowledge this. In this respect there is no strain. At the end of the day one arrives at some kind of
outlook: over the centuries our cultures have become so interwoven that you can’t be a Guyanese without being
a Brit, and you can’t be a Brit without being a Guyanese, or a Caribbean.”