By Rayanne Banaga is a Sudanese Canadian student at Mohawk College
Among the greatest allures of poetry, is the opportunity it presents as a home for the overlooked. Poetry has long been a safe space for unheard and misunderstood voices in the literary world. In its simple yet beautiful defiance of the laws of formal literature, it stands as the smallest revolution of a writer. There is no better place for marginalized writers to flourish, yet, there is still a fight for diversity in poetic literature.
There needs to be more room made for writers who represent people of colour and especially the diaspora; and not simply in writing that includes diasporic characters as an afterthought or as a support. The difference here is that people of colour are rarely ever the target audience, even when they are the ones who provide the story. The diaspora, which includes the communities of people of colour who are displaced and living outside of their original homelands, is an important but overlooked demographic. Diasporic people balance their existence between two realities: one, in which they are the norm, and the other, in which they exist in a place as strange guests, despite how long they may have been there. The unique opportunity that diasporic poetry provides is one in which the story belongs wholly to the writer.
The reader is meant to recognize him or herself in the writing. This can only be the case if more writers of colour are writing for their own audience. In accepting the complexities of diasporic writers, it is important to recognize that the experiences of people of colour do not mirror the experiences of white men and women.
Our complexities differ. This is why representation matters, especially in such an intimate genre of writing. Young generations of children in the diaspora are not relating to the content that they are being taught. Poetry is taught as something that should be relatable and something that should elicit an emotional response, however, the poetry that is introduced to them was never targeted towards them. It is written both for and by a completely different demographic. It does not account for their experiences. Instead, this generation of young children are being reminded that they are not the norm. Readers who have to search for poetry and art that recognizes their feelings ,are forced to believe and are constantly reminded that they are an inconvenience and an exception.
The reality of the matter is that a safe space in which people of colour are the norm does not currently exist. In literature, it does not exist because writers of colour are not permitted creative autonomy. In everyday reality, people of colour are not afforded humanity at all. Poetry should be the starting point for both of these things. Diversity in poetic literature provides a significant opportunity for readers to engage directly with the minds of the people of the diaspora. Further, it is important that in engaging with writers we learn to empathize with the complexities of different demographics in order to afford them humanity. Only when we accept the differences in experiences to be recognized and told through various perspectives, can we accept them as fully human. People of colour deserve to curate their own realities, realities in which they are multifaceted beings. This is the first step to a reality in which people of colour do not exist out of convenience and obligation but as the norm—as beings who are entitled to the space that they take up.
I do not believe in well behaved art
By Rayanne BanagaThe words confined between my lips are vulgar
My poetry is not the sweet embrace of lovers arms
But stains of poison
My tongue tastes of resentment
My story starts somewhere in the middle
And ends at the beginning
Inconvenient
My love is uncomfortable
I will not fill you with butterflies
My touch is the crawling of a million insects upon your skin
My truth will reach down your throat until you gag.
Good.
Puke. Itch and scratch. Cover your ears and wash your mouth with soap