The White Man and the Brown Woman/The School Gate
I recently attended an online poetry workshop that I found really helpful. It was run by Joelle Taylor, who is into performing her poems. I don’t intend to go that route, though it gave me a sense of how poems need to be written with the audience in mind. Ideally you need to feel what I’m feeling and sense in your body what’s going on in mine.
I’m sharing here two poems I started at the workshop. They’re different to my regular posts, with a specific focus on racism.
After some general exercises Joelle asked us to focus on individuals and create a character poem, which is the first. She then asked us to use a specific location and write a poem that might become the beginning of a film, and that’s what the second poem is. I wonder where you might take the story…?
The White Man and the Brown Woman
He’s a white working class man
From a poor estate
At the arsehole of a poor town
Where no one has a job
And youngsters roam the streets
Disaffected, bored, angry
*
She’s a brown woman
Born locally from parents who left their country
Ruled by an angry dictator
In fear for their lives
She did well and has a job in healthcare
Married to her brown husband who works in retail
*
The man sees the white man on the TV
Tell him how unfair life is
To white men
“Humph” he says to his missus
“He’s right you know, I like him”
*
She sees the white man on the TV
Tell her how unfair life is
To white men
“My god” she says to her husband
“He scares me”
*
An election for his County Council
He doesn’t really understand what that is
But he knows he’s angry about potholes
And all the brown people
(Apart from Mohammed at the Indian takeaway)
*
An election for her County Council
She’s not too sure how it all works
But she’s fed up with potholes
And the harassment she gets from white people
(Though she values all her white colleagues)
*
He sees the TV man’s Party on the ballot
He votes for them
They win
He says to his missus
“Now it’ll all be all right again!”
*
She sees the TV man’s Party on the ballot
She votes for another Party
They lose
She says to her husband
“Now I’m really scared!”
The School Gate
He stands at the school gate
Waiting for his boy
Watching the brown people
Who weren’t here twenty years ago
He feels anger
*
She stands at the school gate
Waiting for her daughter
Watching the white man watching her
She feels fear
*
His son comes out
Her daughter comes out
Holding hands…
