Lian Elle (Times Malta) interviewed poet Marika Booker ahead of the 2024 Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival. InijamedMarika Booker (whose parents are from Guyana and Grenada) and Raymond Antrobus (who is also of Jamaican descent) Seven authors will be featured at the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival this week (28-31 August 2024). [Many thanks to Peter Jordens for bringing this item to our attention.]
LE: Malika, you are the child of Guyanese and Grenadian parents. You identify as British Caribbean. To what extent does your identity influence your poetry?
MB: I identify as a British writer of Guyanese and Grenadian parents, and as a woman of diaspora shaped by my transnational upbringing: I was born to parents who belonged to the Windrush generation, a pioneering and adventurous generation of young Caribbean women and men who migrated to Britain in the post-war period of the 1950s and 1960s.
They were invited by the UK to come as British citizens to help rebuild the country after the war. The racism my parents experienced in this country led them to return to Guyana when I was born in 1970. They did not want their children to suffer the same racism they had suffered.
I returned to England to join my maternal Grenadian family when I was 11. By this time my nuclear family was split between Grenada, Guyana, Brooklyn (New York) and Brixton (London). These experiences of diaspora in the Caribbean have shaped me and inspire my poetry.
I write from an upbringing in the British Caribbean, shaped by the food, music, dance, culture and rituals we adhere to. My poetics is shaped by the legacy of the Middle Passage and my ancestors’ presence in a brutal plantation-dominated society and how that shaped and influenced them today.
LE: Food is an integral part of your poetry. Food and poetry interact with each other both as a theme and a situation. Marika’s Poetry Kitchen How did the concept of “bringing poets together through an emphasis on craft, community and development” come about? Where does it take you?
MB: I’m interested in the relationship between the table’s role as a place where family and friends gather to eat together, and the way writers gather around a table in a room to write, hone their craft, and share a meal.
Marika’s Poetry Kitchen The idea came to me one evening during a conversation with poet Roger Robinson in my kitchen. Roger and I had just completed a course called “Afro Style School” with poet Kwame Dawes and had learned so much that we wanted to share this knowledge with our peers.
At the time, black and working-class writers were marginalized from the literary world, and even workshops and safe spaces were not open to us. We wanted to grow as writers and develop our craft, so the organization Spread the Word organized an Afro Style School with Ghanaian-Jamaican poet Dawes (who had just won the Forward Poetry Prize).
The Afro Style School was a safe, nurturing space, yet rigorous and developmental, and it allowed for great growth in our work and poetics, so it was a shame that this only happened when Dawes visited the UK from North Carolina (where he lived and lectured).
As Roger and I sat in my kitchen, I told him how it had helped us build a community of black writers and advance our craft, and how it was a shame it couldn’t continue. Roger said, “We can start our own. What should we call it?” I asked. Marika’s Poetry Kitchen” he said. “When should I start?” I asked. He said, “Next week.” So, Marika’s Poetry Kitchen was born.
I used a book by June Jordan. Poetry for the People Lauren Muller and the Blueprint Collective compiled it as our blueprint. Marika’s Poetry Kitchen Now in its 24th year, members have had a major impact on the UK literary scene, with works published and awards won. [. . .]
The Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival will feature seven authors from five countries: Marika Booker, a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian parentage, Irene Chias, an Italian novelist living in Malta, David Aloysio from Malta, Mario Cardona, also from Malta, Raymond Antrobus from the UK, Josep Pedrales from Spain and Maja Lucevic from Croatia.
The festival, organized by Inizjamed, will take place from 28 to 31 August. All events will take place at the Valletta Design Cluster and the MCAST campus in Paola. Tickets for the final day can be purchased at showshappening.com/inizjamed/il-festival-mediterranju-tal-letteratura-ta-malta-2024-2. For more information, follow Inizjamed on Facebook, Instagram and on their website at inizjamed.org.
For more information, https://timesofmalta.com/article/my-poetics-shape-legacy-middle-passage.1097057
[Photo above by Siro Micheroli: Malika Booker.]
