James Berry
James Berry (1924 – 2017) spent his childhood in a village in Jamaica, before working in the United States, finally settling in Britain in 1948 where he remained for the rest of his life. One of the first black writers in Britain to achieve wider recognition, Berry rose to prominence in 1981 when he won the National Poetry Competition with his poem 'Fantasy of an African Boy'. His five collections of poetry and his stories and poems for children have been widely acclaimed.
A champion of West Indian British writing, Berry often used a mixture of West Indian dialect and standard English in his own work. In 1990, he was awarded an OBE and in 1991, received a Cholmondeley Award. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate by the Open University and is an Honorary Fellow at Birkbeck College.
He died in June 2017.
Selected Poems by James Berry
The Outsider
If you see me lost on busy streets,
my dazzle is sun-stain of skin,
I’m not naked with dark glasses on
saying barren ground has no oasis:
it’s that cracked up by extremes
I must hold self
together with extreme pride.
If you see me lost in neglected
woods, I’m no thief eyeing trees
to plunder their stability
or a moaner shouting at air:
it’s that voices in me rule
firmer than my skills, and sometimes
among men my stubborn hurts
leave me like wild dogs.
If you see me lost on forbidding
wastelands, watching dry flowers
nod, or scraping a tunnel
in mountain rocks, I don’t open
a trail back into time:
it’s that a monotony
like the Sahara seals my enchantment.
If you see me lost on long
footpaths, I don’t set traps
or map out arable acres:
it’s that I must exhaust twigs
like limbs with water divining.
If you see me lost in my sparse
room, I don’t ruminate
on prisoners and falsify
their jokes, and go on about
prisons having been perfected
like a common smokescreen of mind:
it’s that I moved
my circle from ruins
and I search to remake it whole.
Englan Voice
I prepare – an prepare well – fe Englan.
Me decide, and done leave behine
all the voice of ol slave-estate bushman.
None of that distric bad-talk in Englan,
that bush talk of ol slave-estate man.
Hear me speak in Englan, an see
you dohn think I a Englan native.
Me nah go say ‘Bwoy, how you du?'
me a-go say 'How are you old man?'
Me nah go say
'Wha yu nyam las night?'
me a-go say “What did you have for supper?'
Patois talk is bushman talk –
people who talk patois them dam lazy.
Because mi bush voice so settle in me
an might let me down in-a Englan
me a-practise.
Me a-practise talk like teacher
till mi Englan voice come out-a me
like water from hillside rock.
Even if you fellows here
dohn hear mi Englan voice
I have it - an hear it in mi head!
Fantasy of an African Boy
by JAMES BERRY
Such a peculiar lot
we are, we people
without money, in daylong
yearlong sunlight, knowing
money is somewhere, somewhere.
Everybody says it’s big
bigger brain bother now,
money. Such millions and millions
of us don’t manage at all
without it, like war going on.
And we can’t eat it. Yet
without it our heads alone
stay big, as lots and lots do,
coming from nowhere joyful,
going nowhere happy.
We can’t drink it up. Yet
without it we shrivel when small
and stop forever
where we stopped, as lots and lots do.
We can’t read money for books.
Yet without it we don’t
read, don’t write numbers,
don’t open gates in other countries,
as lots and lots never do.
We can’t use money to bandage
sores, can’t pound it
to powder for sick eyes
and sick bellies. Yet without
it, flesh melts from our bones.
Such walled-round gentlemen
overseas minding money! Such
bigtime gentlemen, body guarded
because of too much respect
and too many wishes on them:
too many wishes, everywhere,
wanting them to let go
magic of money, and let it fly
away, everywhere, day and night,
just like dropped leaves in wind!
A Nest Full of Stars
by JAMES BERRY
Only chance made me come and find
my hen, stepping from her hidden
nest, in our kitchen garden.
In her clever secret place, her tenth
egg, still warm, had just been dropped.
Not sure of what to do, I picked up
every egg, counting them, then put them
down again. All were mine.
All swept me away and back.
I blinked, I saw: a whole hand
of ripe bananas, nesting.
I blinked, I saw: a basketful
of ripe oranges, nesting.
I blinked, I saw: a trayful
of ripe naseberries, nesting.
I blinked, I saw: an open bagful
of ripe mangoes, nesting.
I blinked, I saw:
a mighty nest full of stars.
naseberry: sapodilla plum with sweet brown flesh