Virtual Book Launch
Programme
The Body is Poetry
The Body is Poetry
WELCOME and Introduction of Panelists
Christine Randle, Ian Randle Publishers
POETRY READINGS
Opal Palmer Adisa - Launch Address
Tanya Shirley
fabian m thomas
Natalie Corthésy
The Body is Poetry
The Body is Poetry
The Body is Poetry
"Sundress" and "Up"
Poetry + Voice by Natalie Corthésy
Movement + Direction + Videography + Editing by
Neila Ebanks
Technical assistance and administrative support
Odesha Coates
Opal Palmer Adisa
Opal Palmer Adisa
Opal Palmer Adisa
Poet and Launch Presenter https://www.opalpalmeradisa.com
Tanya Shirley
Opal Palmer Adisa
Opal Palmer Adisa
Poet and Panelist
fabian m thomas
fabian m thomas
fabian m thomas
Poet and Panelist
Free
by Natalie Corthesy
A free man can
see you in his sun burnt ancestors
yet he does not know his kin,
the names of the slaves that boarded the vessels,
nor the legend of their King.
A free woman can
feel you in her tightly knotted cane rows
but she does not know her tribe,
the rituals for babies born in drought
nor the courtship dance for a young bride.
Somehow, I have known you all my life
because the spirits followed me
through the middle passage, from a watery grave
unto island shores. I rise up
in a New World, free, yet still a slave.
But Mother knows best.
The Windrush that anchored me in Brixton
capsized innumerable souls with my own.
This village crippled folkways
silenced the kalimba lilt of colourful voices into a dull monotone.
I walk past generations
firing up Electric Lane with gritty cultural fare
but shops no longer sell that brand of happiness here.
I want to belong, to go home and come back.
But there is no refuge from being born black.
