Books Unlocked October 2017 - Black History Month

WHO WAS

JAMES BERRY, OBE?

“Poems come from your more secret mind. A poem will want to ask deeper questions, higher questions, more puzzling questions, and often too, more satisfying questions than the

everyday obvious questions...” James Berry (1924-2017)

James Berry, OBE was one of the best loved and most taught poets in Britain.  Not only one of the first Black poets to achieve wider recognition for his work, Mr Berry was winner of the 1981 National Poetry Competition with his entry ‘Fantasy of an African Boy’.  His collections of poetry and stories are notorious for the use of both West-Indian dialect and standard English language.  This was significant in relating the crossing of cultures to a wide range of readers and synonymous with the experiences of his West-Indian counterparts.

In his teenage years, Mr Berry saw no future in Jamaica, so left for the US where he worked for four years as a contract labourer on farms and in factories.  In June 1948 a friend decided to travel to the UK to seek work and it was then Berry articulated “The next ship, I’ll be on it”.  In June 1948, he was among the first in a post-war wave of West-Indian emigration arriving at Tilbury Dock aboard the SS Empire Windrush after an 8000-mile journey from the Caribbean to London.  Mr Berry relates his experience aboard the SS Empire Windrush in his poem To Travel This Ship.

To Travel this Ship

To travel this ship, man
I gladly strip mi name
of a one-cow, two-goat an a boar pig
an sell the land piece mi father lef
to be on this ship and to be a debtor.
Man, jus fa diffrun days
I woulda sell, borrow or thief
jus fa diffrun sunrise an sundown
in annodda place wid odda ways.
To travel this ship, man
I woulda hurt, I woulda cheat or lie,
I strip mi yard, mi friend and cousin-them To get this yah ship ride.
Man – I woulda sell mi modda Jus hopin to buy her back.
Down in dat hole I was
I see this lickle luck, man,
I see this lickle light.
Man, Jamaica is a place
Where generations them start out Havin notn, earnin notn,
And – dead – leavin notn.
I did wake up every mornin and find notn change.
Children them shame to go to school barefoot.
Only a penny to buy lunch.
Man, I have follow this lickle light for change.
I a-follow it, man!