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used the music of the language to focus on the themes of guilt, injustice and violence. More extensive research might have allowed me to write ‘The Weight of the Night,’ from the victim’s point of view. Perhaps this is a failing on my part. Instead, I used a second person perspective to force readers into the story’s muddy heart. Rochelle More than any sequence in my debut collection, ‘Rochelle’ embodies the spirt of Road Trip. It tells the story of Rochelle who reluctantly drives from south Wales to London to visit her sister who has had a miscarriage. The original version of ‘Rochelle’ was written in 2013 when I had first discovered the villanelle form. At the time, I spent my nights gorging on short stories by Raymond Carver. In the poem, ‘Late Night with Fog and Horses,’ Carver describes the scene of a relationship break up. He juxtaposes a downbeat mood with the majesty and mystery of an urban equine encounter: ‘Tears were falling when a horse stepped out of the fog/into the front yard.’ Like a good copycat, I transposed this scene into my own sequence of poems. For my 2019 re-write of ‘Rochelle,’ I abandoned the original villanelle form for 18-line poems and a looser, half-rhyme structure. I was writing to deadline and a looser form meant faster writing. More importantly, I incorporated the Windrush scandal into the narrative. Without mention of this British tragedy, my collection would have felt incomplete. In part 5 of ‘Rochelle’, Kite discusses his mother: ‘She was a psychiatric nurse. As a child, I didn’t get why she was always glum and shouty. After forty years, she retired and guess what? She almost got deported because of that Windrush shit.’ In his silence and rage, Rochelle sensed his need to be held… As a member of the post-war Windrush generation, my own mother left Jamaica when she was just 17. She trained to be a nurse and tells many stories of patients who would rub her arms to see if the colour would come off. Revolting. I feel more comfortable writing about the patient who threatened to dismember her with an axe. He was mentally unwell. My mother faced that threat with compassion. She was a dedicated nurse. Many Windrush children travelled to England on a parent’s passport. These children were born British citizens because Britain owned the country in which they first drew breath. However, some 70 years later, many of these Black Britons have been told: prove that you are legally allowed to remain in Britain or be deported. This, indeed, is ‘Windrush shit.’ In part 5 of ‘Rochelle,’ my disgust resonates in the line endings – in each hard, half-rhymed ‘d’. Road Trip ends with ‘The Baboon Chronicles’ and the image of a man quietly walking out of a shop. Perhaps it would have been better if ‘Rochelle’ was the last sequence. At the end of this narrative, we are told: ‘love sang, sang, sang.’ This reminds me that ultimately, my book was written for my Welsh, Mixed Race children. In years to come, if they struggle to understand their relationship with Britain, my book might help. Perhaps it will teach them to love this land, despite its failings. 1 9 P O E T R Y W A L E S
page 23
ABEER AMEER Ahmad After R. S. Thomas He counts the passing of minutes, asks what time he’d need to leave the house to catch the next flight to Baghdad. InshaAllah. InshaAllah. He potters into the kitchen, sings the lullabies his mother sang, hides teaspoons in his robe pocket and flips the kettle’s switch on again. He can’t bear to find the water cold as the land he finds himself in. He leaves the front door ajar, waits for a tide of visitors; neighbours already passed. Small rooms and damp walls here, just as his chest, his ribs, each bony ridge. His final days, he speaks only through his eyes; aged throat of strained breaths, unable to take a sip, a drip of water, without the ocean’s overflow into his lungs. He sees the date tree, smells the Jadiriyah garden jasmine. Breaths quicken. Slow. Gone. Before dark just as the sun sets, the last Thursday of Ramadan, the man who filled our house travels to the space between worlds; the unseen so vast. His body still in the book-filled room as we surround the bed. Bookmarks Most often he used the tissues he’d wrapped in elastic bands and crisp packs from the haystack in his pocket. Sometimes, mounds of paperclips red and green marked the places in books he’d read. Planted with care; stars and underlines, tissue alerts between leaves. Weeks after his breath left the dry lips, downy hair, sinews of his ribs, his reading glasses still sit there. Arabic letters and lullaby hums, red toy cars and golden teaspoons, bookmark his place everywhere. 2 0 P O E T R Y W A L E S

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used the music of the language to focus on the themes of guilt, injustice and violence. More extensive research might have allowed me to write ‘The Weight of the Night,’ from the victim’s point of view. Perhaps this is a failing on my part. Instead, I used a second person perspective to force readers into the story’s muddy heart.

Rochelle

More than any sequence in my debut collection, ‘Rochelle’ embodies the spirt of Road Trip. It tells the story of Rochelle who reluctantly drives from south Wales to London to visit her sister who has had a miscarriage.

The original version of ‘Rochelle’ was written in 2013 when I had first discovered the villanelle form. At the time, I spent my nights gorging on short stories by Raymond Carver.

In the poem, ‘Late Night with Fog and Horses,’ Carver describes the scene of a relationship break up. He juxtaposes a downbeat mood with the majesty and mystery of an urban equine encounter: ‘Tears were falling when a horse stepped out of the fog/into the front yard.’ Like a good copycat, I transposed this scene into my own sequence of poems.

For my 2019 re-write of ‘Rochelle,’ I abandoned the original villanelle form for 18-line poems and a looser, half-rhyme structure. I was writing to deadline and a looser form meant faster writing. More importantly, I incorporated the Windrush scandal into the narrative. Without mention of this British tragedy, my collection would have felt incomplete. In part 5 of ‘Rochelle’, Kite discusses his mother:

‘She was a psychiatric nurse. As a child, I didn’t get why she was always glum and shouty. After forty years, she retired and guess what? She almost got deported because of that Windrush shit.’ In his silence and rage, Rochelle sensed his need to be held…

As a member of the post-war Windrush generation, my own mother left Jamaica when she was just 17. She trained to be a nurse and tells many stories of patients who would rub her arms to see if the colour would come off. Revolting. I feel more comfortable writing about the patient who threatened to dismember her with an axe. He was mentally unwell. My mother faced that threat with compassion. She was a dedicated nurse. Many Windrush children travelled to England on a parent’s passport. These children were born British citizens because Britain owned the country in which they first drew breath. However, some 70 years later, many of these Black Britons have been told: prove that you are legally allowed to remain in Britain or be deported. This, indeed, is ‘Windrush shit.’ In part 5 of ‘Rochelle,’ my disgust resonates in the line endings – in each hard, half-rhymed ‘d’.

Road Trip ends with ‘The Baboon Chronicles’ and the image of a man quietly walking out of a shop. Perhaps it would have been better if ‘Rochelle’ was the last sequence. At the end of this narrative, we are told: ‘love sang, sang, sang.’ This reminds me that ultimately, my book was written for my Welsh, Mixed Race children. In years to come, if they struggle to understand their relationship with Britain, my book might help. Perhaps it will teach them to love this land, despite its failings.

1 9 P O E T R Y W A L E S

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