Dorothea Smartt
United Kingdom
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Dorothea Smartt
Following in the footsteps of enslaved ancestors, this Brit-Bajan poet's deep listening brings buried voices and stories to life.
BIOGRAPHY
Dubbed 'Brit-born Bajan international' by Caribbean literary icon Kamau Braithwaite, Dorothea Smartt... More >
Because I am nothing you can name
“...I still do not exist because the ‘me’ that they see is one they haveconstructed without my participation...”Larry Olomoofe, Visible Invisibility: Deconstructing the Hungarian GazeYou despise mebefore you know me,recreate me as something of your own,and don’t stop to ask me.I don’t think, thereforeI’m some thing you can toy with.I’m nothing, to be made some thing,useful for you to examine, fill, classify.You assume I am yours for the taking,presume I was just waiting for you,to make me mean something.Because I’m nothing you can nameI become nothing,expire when you leave the scene,a shadow cast from your light.I’m nowhere, the edge of terra incognita.I’m nothing, the unknown incarnate.I’m nothing, your antithesis, your anti-Christ.The chimera on the edge of your map,something to be tamed, domesticatedand you call me Samboo.Because I’m nothing you can nameI scare you. You war against me,decide I cannot liveAs I lie down I slowly fade,pine and expire, defaced and denied,saddened and alone in your world.Because I’m nothing you can name,I repeat my own names to myself –Ibn Bilal Mamadu Abdul Rahman –over and over, out loud. I let them sing in my ears,bounce off the perimeters of my confinement,define me, Fulani, beyond your stares,anchor me in the quicksand of my memory,call up echoes of home-voices soundingmy true-true names, with love.Because I’m nothing you can name,I falter in my eyes. I peer at my reflectionat the quayside wonderingif my mother will recognize me?Am I still my father’s son?Are my grandfathers ghosts?Am I still alive at home?Because I’m nothing you can name,I no longer speak, my words senseless,and you hear nothing. I swallow myselfwhole, haunting my insides.I look for a way out.I am not brave, I do not offer resistance;I am not wise, I have no answers and questions disappear.Because I’m nothing you can name,I am not.
