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Belonging or Belongings

Several years ago at a poetry festival in Galway, I heard David Dabydeen talking about the difficulty of deciding where he belonged and what form of English belonged to him. As a Guyanan of Indian descent, educated in both Guyana where he spoke creole, and Cambridge, UK where he adjusted his language, he wondered if he should write poetry in creole or in Standard English.  In his first book, Coolie Odyssey, he used both forms of English and is obviously at home in both. Significantly, although establishing himself as a writer and academic in the UK, he has been Guyana’s ambassador to China since 2010.
Belonging and belongings are two useful words for writers in finding their identity and working out what’s important in their life as writers. I worked recently with Moy McCrory, a short story writer of Irish origin, who teaches at Derby University. Moy told me about a dream she had of a young girl dragging a corpse behind her. After a bit of introspection, she realised that the corpse was Ireland, and it is something that every Irish writer in the diaspora drags with them.  As a writer of Russian Jewish heritage with ties to Israel, I realised that I probably had two or three corpses in my wake. (You can find our joint article in Creative Writing and Education ed. Graeme Harper Multilingual Matters 2015)
I think the recognition of this, and maybe it is healthier to speak of roots rather than corpses, is something useful for every writer, and you don’t have to be a descendant of immigrants to find your roots. I’ve just come back from reading at the Ledbury Poetry Festival, and while I was there, took part in a John Masefield walk. Masefield left Ledbury while still a boy, went to sea, and then lived in many parts of the UK, but the west country and the sea inform a lot of his poetry. Recently, there has been an upsurge in the kind of writing that looks at urban settings and the natural world, a new or perhaps renewed genre known as psychogeography, I think here of writers like Richard Mabey and Robert Mcfarlane for the natural world, and Ian Sinclair walking round the M25.
Of course your writing may not be autobiographical so you might argue that the identity of the author becomes less important. However, if you are writing fiction, it might still be significant in your choice of characters and settings, and following on from that you might want to explore how those characters regard their own identity and sense of belonging. It’s worth thinking of writers like Thomas Hardy whose fiction is imbued with his own sense of belonging to Wessex and where you could argue that the landscape or place becomes a character in the fiction; and more recently, the work of novelists like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in Americana where her characters are caught between their belonging to/ownership of Nigeria and/or the USA.
So my recommendation is to dig for your roots and recognise that persistent corpse. Roots feed the growing plant and strangely once you recognise the corpse, it can actually be a bonus. I’ll end by offering a stimulus poem which can prompt your own poem or piece of fiction. I’ve used it a lot across all age ranges in workshops and it never fails to produce effective poems and stories in response. It’s called The Leaving by Clare Crossman (and I have her permission for it to be reproduced.)
Liz Cashdan. OCA Tutor and Assessor
 
The Leaving
 
In case we never return:
I am taking a jar of rain.
Bottled at source from butts
and puddles in early May.
 
Some things green: seeds of mustard
and cress, moss coloured wool,
a piece of copper for imprinting
verdigris on every surface.
 
The jar will lie in the cool
closed suitcase and if I can’t
forget, I’ll take it out.
Hold the glass to my face,
Let the liquid slosh its
messages of storms,
 
heedless blackthorn blossom,
blast of air on corners,
taste of leaves and streams
the last cold nights of spring.
A warm April day patterned with sun.
 
A tonic of wind.
An atomiser of weather.
In another country,
here I walk two worlds.
Migrant, as others, carrying home.
 
Clare Crossman


Posted by author: Liz Cashdan

3 thoughts on “Belonging or Belongings

  • Dear Liz,
    Thank you for your helpful piece. It is especially welcome to me, as a student of The Art of Poetry, who is struggling to identify what is important enough to me to write about. I find it hard to find enough to say without some sense of emotional attachment. The references to published poets will, I hope, inspire me.
    As someone who was frequently uprooted in my youth, I have always found it hard to know where I belong. But I recognise the sense of regret in leaving which is so poignant on Clare Crossman’s poem.
    It is great to see rich input for those of us on the creative writing trail.
    I wonder why there are never (as far as I am aware), any examples of student’s work in the weekend bulletins? It would be good to read something.
    I am also doing Drawing 1, so find great pleasure in seeing the visual art pieces, but miss the creative writing.
    Any suggestions?
    Best wishes,
    Alison

  • Hello Alison,
    Submissions to the blog from writing students are very welcome but unfortunately we don’t receive many. I’ve asked on the writing forum about the possibility of students recording themselves reading their work aloud – either video or just audio – as I think it would showcase the work effectively to viewers, some of the tutors have done this but no takers from the students so far. Alternatively an extract from a longer piece or a poem could be used but I need people to send the work to me. If you or other writing students would like to be featured please email blog@oca.ac.uk
    Joanne

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