Inua Goes to Buckingham Palace...

I have one suit. My mother chastises me about this, begs that I purchase another, but I counter argue saying I’ve no place to wear the one I have to; only worn it twice. I have two corduroy blazers that pass for ‘smart/casual’. But when I gotta look fresh, like say I were to meet a queen, it’s what I’d wear, and what I wore to Buckingham palace on the 9th of May 2011. I caught a bus from Peckham High Street, through Victoria to Hyde Park. The irony was not lost on me, I, the son of immigrant parents, going through the chicken strewn streets of South East London - here, where our representative at the House of Parliament feels it necessary to wear kevlar before walking through in broad daylight - from here, to pretty much the heart of British establishment, class structure, colonial history, slave ships, warts and all... I got off at Hyde Park corner and walked down Constitution Hill, lost in my thoughts, nerves surrendered to Mos Def’s familiar voice, half closed eyes, oblivious to the cyclists flashing by till one cursed ‘GET OFF THE CYCLE PATH ASSHOLE’. I turned to retort with something its equal, till checking my footsteps, realised he was right. I was at the traffic lights, crossed the street towards the main gates and waited for KC and YB, friends of mine who too had been invited to the ‘Reception for Young People In the Performing Arts’. Another friend BM was across the road, her mother and aunt who fussing over, making sure her blue dress sat right, that her curtsey was perfect. I crossed over to say Hi, got a text message from KC who’d gone in already. BM and I waved to her folks, showed our invitations at the gates and stepped into the palace grounds.

It was big, grounds covered in reddish gravel crunching beneath our feet. We walked the inside perimeter of to the main entrance, up the red carpeted flight of stairs to the cloakroom/desk and deposited our bags/jackets in return for a rectangular white disk. Mine was numbered 333 and I made a joke to BM about a Nigerian in Buckingham palace and the devil’s digits. We retraced our footsteps turing right and up a wider, red-carpeted set of stairs. As you can imagine, the walls were draped with paintings, classical ones depicting who I took to be old royals in varying poses; everything gold leafed, foliage patterned, chandeliers, royal seals.

At the top, we turned into a row of stands differentiated by letters. I reached the one that held the first letter of my surname. ‘Mr Ellams?’ says he. ‘...er Yeah?’ says I. I believe we spelt your name wrongly? I looked to my invitation card where ‘Inua’ had been spelt ‘Innua’, a commonly made mistake ‘...er yeah?’. ‘Here’s another with the corrected spelling, we apologise for the mistake, keep the card with you at all time and enjoy you visit’. ‘Thanks’. Far end of the huge hall, a large number of suited and gowned folks, wine glasses tinkling, laughter tickling the air. BM and I were directed left and into another room. We grabbed drinks, looking over our shoulders for anyone else we knew. We spotted CB and TA from London’s Southbank centre. Every other face we knew was recognised from television or film doing their best, like us, to look like we fitted in.

Suddenly it was time to meet The Queen. A door I took to be a wall opened, we lined up and began marching towards that famous hand of hers, the one that waves. There were attendants flanking her and Prince Phillip who’d take the card from you, speak your name out loud so she’d say ‘How are you doing’ after, and you’d mutter something in response. I did not bow although my father advised me too, partly cause I feared I might head butt the lady, partly cause I didn’t think it necessary. She wore black gloves, I reached out for her hand trying to squeeze it lightly and she gripped mine with such force, I just about stifled my wince. ‘How do you?’ says The Queen. ‘Fine thank you, its good to meet you’ says I. That was it. We moved on. Through an even more elaborately decorated space, left, right and through to the performance room. It was massive, about 5 times the size of my house and garden. An orchestra in the far end, seats all around and the long rectangular stage in the middle. We sat and had to half-squint to make out other faces in the room. We stood up when The Queen came in, sat after she did then the show began.

It was quite clever actually. Sections of the story of Romeo and Juliet told through different stage arts: Ballet, Musical Theatre, Opera, Street Dance, R’n’B, Hip and Hop - all performed by young people. Good performers, alright music, crap sound and acoustics. At the end, we stood in utter silence for the Queen to leave, and the nervous quiet was broken by Helen Mirren, I imagine the only person who’d dare to, who whispered/spoke to the young performers waiting uncomfortably and statuesque on the stage ‘You were great by the way’. We filed out into another long space for the networking/drinks and little canapés/finger food bit. I made sure I used the loo just so I could say ‘I went to the palace and had a royal flush’. The most surreal moment of it all, was walking past Ellie Golding, who was chatting to Duffy, past Jamie Cullum who was talking to Jools Holland, to reach Speech DeBelle who I knew ages before she won the Mercury Prize. We talked for a few minutes and on the way back, saw Andrew Marr introducing Goldie to the Queen, with Kevin Spacey laughing in the background.

Anyway, they kicked us out at 8pm. KC and I had chosen sofas to sleep on till breakfast the next morning so reluctantly we left, down the stairs, collected our bags/jackets and crunched out towards the main gates. Someone kindly took a photo of us on YB’s phone, the only true evidence of the whole affair. I called my lady KL as soon as I left the palace grounds, and on the bus ride home one question nagged me, What was more expensive? Goldie’s gold teeth or the Queen’s outfit?

Inua x

The Rap Part #1 Playlist.

Hit play and listen! Breis King EPMD - headbanger Common - Resurrection

Charlie Dark Eric B - Eric B for president Tribe Called Quest- Electric Relaxation

Zena Edwards Grand Master Flash - The Message Queen Latifah - Ladies First

Jacob Sam La Rose The Roots f/ Common - Act Too (Love of My Life) Blackstar f/ Common - Respiration

Joshua Idehen Method Man Feat mary J Blige - All I need Dizzee Rascal - Fix up look Sharp

Musa OKwonga Jay-Z - So Ghettp Nas - The World Is Yours

Nii Ayikwei Parkes Eric B. & Rakim - What's On Mos Def - Ms Fat Booty

Polarbear Aesop Rock - Daylight Pharcyde - Runnin'

Kate WuTang: Triumph Mos Def: New World Water

Gemma Dead Prez - Hip Hop Public Enemy - Rebel without a pause

The Rap Part #2 Playlist.

Hit play and listen! Jay Bernard // Edan - I see colours 2Pac - Changes

Yemisi Blake // Mos Def - Umi Says Soweto Kinch - Intermission

Richard BLK // Nice & Smooth - Hip Hop Junkies London Possey - How’s Life in London

Malika Booker // Slick Rick & Doug E. Fresh - La Di Da Di A Tribe Called Quest - Scenario

Kayo Chingonyi // Nas - It ain’t hard to tell Jean Grae - Love Song

Hollie McNish Lauryn Hill - Doo Wop Dead Prez - hip hop

Roger Robinson // Freestyle Fellowship ft. Daddy-O - Innercity Boundaries Anti poop Consortium - disorientation

Nikesh Shukla // Respiration by Blackstar Eye Know by De La Soul

Ross Sutherland // Biz Markie - Make the music with your mouth Busta Rhymes - I make everything raw

Belinda K. Zhawi // Slum Village - Get Dis Money Black Star - Respiration

Inua Ellams // Common - The Light Lupe Fiasco - Superstar

Amsterdam

Edinburgh, 2009, I collect my award and sit back to watch the rest of the show. A lady called Camille O’Sullivan gets on stage and sings a song that floors me, rips my guts out and rises a lump to my throat. The song was written in french originally by Jacques Brel. Jacques' birthday was this week and I got on the tube to find the lyrics. It is pure poetry, the rhythm is tight, the words, the language so precise and powerful: In the port of Amsterdam There's a sailor who sings Of the dreams that he brings From the wide open sea

In the port of Amsterdam There's a sailor who sleeps While the riverbank weeps With the old willow tree

In the port of Amsterdam There's a sailor who dies Full of beer, full of cries In a drunken down fight

And in the port of Amsterdam There's a sailor who's born On a muggy hot morn By the dawn's early light

In the port of Amsterdam Where the sailors all meet There's a sailor who eats Only fishheads and tails

He will show you his teeth That have rotted too soon That can swallow the moon That can haul up the sails

And he yells to the cook With his arms open wide Bring me more fish Put it down by my side

Then he wants so to belch But he's too full to try So he gets up and laughs And he zips up his fly

In the port of Amsterdam You can see sailors dance Paunches bursting their pants Grinding women to paunch

They've forgotten the tune That their whiskey voice croaks Splitting the night with the Roar of their jokes

And they turn and they dance And they laugh and they lust Till the rancid sound of The accordion bursts

Then out to the night With their pride in their pants With the slut that they tow Underneath the street lamps

In the port of Amsterdam There's a sailor who drinks And he drinks and he drinks And he drinks once again

He drinks to the health Of the whores of Amsterdam Who have promised their love To a thousand other men

They've bargained their bodies And their virtue long gone For a few dirty coins And when he can't go on

He plants his nose in the sky And he wipes it up above And he pisses like I cry For an unfaithful love

In the port of Amsterdam In the port of Amsterdam

David Bowie covered the song to great acclaim, did this gentle man did a good job, But here is Camile’s which struck me:

Camille voice does the song justice, it is emotional, strong, she gives it everything... again the voice lifts poetry, combined they are greater than the sum of their parts. And Camille is Irish, yup, we run tings!

Old Covent Garden Blog #1

Written on 03/04/2010. // His name is Ben.

We haven’t been introduced; I haven’t said ‘Hi’ to the waist-coated, blue blazered, artful dodgerish man smashing a red suitcase to the grounds of the courtyard. He is of the tribe of street performers I will meet over the course of the day. This is my first as Covent Garden’s creative in residence, I have a chesterfieldesq chair parked on the side of the courtyard close to the Royal Opera House. On my right is the rich food market, which to my unbreakfasted self, is both pleasure and pain. Sophie, who I have introduced myself to behind the Laveli stall waves, I make towards her but hear Ben, raw and relentless demanding attention, confidence thick as Covent Garden’s history cracking off his shoulders. ‘This is the home of street theatre’ he declares, ‘Not that that matters to you...’

He starts his act this way - cute, condescending comments at passerbys, ‘This is my mother’, he says gesturing to an older lady, who blushes embarrassed, playfully strikes his arms, but poses for a photograph. Five minutes pass and he has charmed the streaming pedestrian into a small pool of an audience. He spends the next ten setting the props for his performance about the grounds. He asks randomly, ‘Where are you from?’. Answers come thick and fast in varying accents, Spain, Portugal, Oslo, Edinburgh. To the American he asks, ‘You a tourist or have to come to learn the language?’

He then mime’s instructions on how to applaud and leads the gathered audience on a clapping and screaming spree until anyone within earshot is drawn. Finally, Ben begins the show. He juggles pins then knives. After the applause dies, he throws the pins at selected men in the audience asking them to hold up the objects. Keiron from Ireland, Tom from London and one simply called ‘Ipswich’. ‘Ladies and genl’men, for my grand finale, I need three volunteers and as these men have their hands up, give ‘em a round of applause!’

My phone rings, I find a corner for the call and when I return, Tom and Ipswich are on either side of Keiron, and Ben, Ben is standing on Keiron’s shoulder; ‘Stand Still! Keiron! I am speaking English!’. He proceeds to juggle knives. As he berates his ‘volunteers’, Ben asks for money, encourages the audience to be generous, that he does this full time, that this is the most honest way to earn a living, please give what you can. This is the show’s climax, a relatively unimpressive trick, I think.

But in the crowd’s dispersal, in their reach for wallets, as the the walls of the street theatre created by their bodies crumble and disappear, I realise the real trick had little to do with knives or juggle pins. The real trick was the set up: Ben’s ability to pull the child like want for a spectacle out of an audience and make, in a world of iMAX cinemas, death defying stunts and special effects, make the idea of a man throwing and catching things, mean something more.

Wouldn’t it be Laveli? (for Sophie)

I stride purposefully, point at her sign scoffing at its stylised misspelling.

Her impish grin glistens like a young Oliver Twist’s. It’s a French bakery

Sophie says correcting my mistake. Name is combined from his family’s

daughter LA.ura, wife VE.ronica and LI.bor his name. Round the corner

Drury Lane boasts a classic musical. Coupled with tourist feet, a new one

from this cobbled street plays among the Italian cheese, Ethiopian coffee

and other stalls. Hoping for change in a pocket or two, wouldn’t it be Laveli?

Sticks and Stones

The last 24 hours have been good. I went to Leeds yesterday and read poems to the audience crammed into the upstairs space of a bar called Strawberry. The journey was long, 4 and a half hours of numb bum cheeks and uncomfortable sleeping positions all to arrive in a strange city where I had one friend. His name is Andy and he organised the gig, the show called 'Sticks and Stones'. We go way back. When I first started this work spoken word artists: Polarbear, John Berkavitch, Andy and I, bonded in a field in Glastonbury because we were called the urban poets. We formed a group called ‘The Urbanian Quarter’, did two gigs and essentially disbanded. They were really good gigs. Anywya, Andy told me to wait for him at a certain location, but I turned down the wrong street and stood opposite a car park, under a ventilator that blew warm air onto my cold neck. The air was pumped out of a kitchen, they were making kebabs. Think I inhaled a meal’s weight in aroma waiting there. Andy, pulled up coincidentally and I got into his car, drove to his to drop a few things and went for the show. It was good, I mean, you could hear a mouse fart - the audience was that attentive. A girl whose name I forget, but who had a dutch surname (don’t ask) stood up and read in a quiet, gorgeous, melancholic voice, poems about her grandmother. Another read a moving poem about a mancunian prostitute and another guy read about quitting smoking after seeing a male relative die of cancer. Then It was my turn.

I read for about 30 minutes and made only two mistakes. Quite proud of that. I sold books and at the end was handed a glasses-case full of the takings at the door. Enough for a couple meals, a couple tees, and the journey to and fro. For talking poems, that’s a good nights work I reckon. We rolled back to Andy’s and talked long into the night about Kevin Spacey, Milton Freidman, a cat that can fetch (video evidence) and the Tsunami in Japan.

On the ride back home to London, I sat beside an old man who had travelled the coach journey to Leeds from London and back again 6 times in as many days. He did not believe in TomToms or maps and was trying to learn the route so that when his wife was released from the hospital, he could drive her back home. He did not want to rely on coaches on trains which would not stop if anything went wrong or if she felt nauseous or unwell. So he’d spent a total of 52 hours, memorising the 200 mile journey, so his wife would be comfortable. The man was 67 and used to be a steel worker. Spent 40 years bending iron, probaby as tough as men come. And they say romance in dead ey?

Rubbish.

Bye Bye Covent Garden. Hello Tate Modern.

So, I am a writer in residence at the Tate modern. The Post began on the 1ts of January and will last for all of 2011. My previous residency was also for a year, posted at Covent Garden's Piazza to celebrate its 180th anniversary and this was written on the final day. 30th December 2011. My last day.

I arrive to find a street performer on his hands walking over and across four young boys lying flat on red carpets on the cobbled grounds. The crowd is united and clapping to the spectacle. Back on his feet, they fill his’s cap with five pound notes then dissolve into pedestrians. Another performer takes the stage wearing a kilt, holding a ladder and a wooden box, he begins to build the street magic again. I walk to the west side of the Piazza and there is a man bare chested save for suspenders, juggling a crystal ball with his elbows and a little girl is so swept into his performs she yells when her mother tries to feed her ice cream. There, I meet Davina and Jeanie biting hungrily into cornish pasties. They are from Little Hampton which they tell me is by the sea. Jeanie says her mum bought her an overnight stay in London for Christmas at a hotel just down the road. They arrived, dropped their bags and wandered up to the Piazza. They have not visited London in a year and a half. I suggest things to do and ask where in the piazza they had visited? Whittard, a shop round the corner. I follow their trail.

There, I meet Dunia who has worked here for five months. She is dark in complexion, open face, wide smile. She spells out her name, says it means ‘world’ in Arabic. She likes the atmosphere here, a great place to work but how sometimes, it does not seem a part of London. There is a queue building behind me, so I thank her for her time and follow a couple as they leave the shop, turn left and walk towards the pit where a string quartet strums the khan khan and has visitors dancing. The couple, Adam and Chloe from Derbyshire, came to see Ghost Stories at the Duke of York Theatre. Adam describes it as a really good show and deconstructs its structure: three short stories within a story. They come here once or twice a year for its atmosphere. Where else in the piazza had they visited? Regents Gifts. I follow their trail.

And it is a little shop of wonders winding out from a small staircase. It sells glass sculptures, hand-painted venetian masks with brass bells, scented candles, porcelain cats, leather jewel boxes, hip flasks and hand crafted cufflinks, there is something Aladdin-cave-like about it that counters Florence’s accent. She is French and speaks with the flourishes of her language. After introducing myself, we briefly talk about the Christmas period and her hopes for the New Year. A gentleman, older than I, buys a gift and I slip after him downstairs, back towards the pit where an opera singer has replaced the string quartet. I brush past a couple clenched and kissing, romanced by the tenor’s voice, turn left, left again and come against a crowd gaping at yet another street performer. This time it is a girl a pink leotard on stilts, juggling knives. There, I walk into Ludivine, introduce myself, but before I can speak to her, there is a sudden throng of human traffic and I am swept into an army of push chairs and laughing kids and hear snatches of conversation.

The lady immediately in front of me chats to her friend about a dress bought the night before. Two teenage girls discuss boyfriends. A man in grey slacks says to a boy in black jeans ‘do you know the nicest thing to do?... A young lady declares to an even younger one as the walk past, ‘you do not need anything, just masks, and you can tell stories’. A boy in bright yellow shoes shouts the word ‘sweet’. A man in a brown bowler hat points at the giant baubles dangling from the roof ‘look at these’. An older lady in a Russian ushanka says ‘I am not leaving yet, there’s so much to see’ and immediately to my right, a photographer captures the scene as I do: moments in time, snatches of life seized with his fingertips. There is still a lot to be seen here, over 300 languages are spoken in London, not counting the different inflections of English - from SouthLondon street-speak to East-End cockney, most pass through the piazza’s cobbled streets. Perhaps this is what Dunia means; It doesn’t seem like A part of London. It is ALL parts of London, all the time. I’ll miss this of the residency, these vistas of life, my vantage point to write and and the belief that strangers will share their lives. As I finish, a boy in a hooded sweater stops before me, asks what are you writing? I take down his name, where he’d come from, “this” I say, and thrust my notepad into his hands.

Inua x

ps, here are some shots from Covent Garden's Anniversary Celebrations. [nggallery id=22 template=inua]

Directions

Fresh off the boat!a poem heavily based on a poem of the same title by Billy Collins. This is his. // This is mine:

Directions - after Billy Collins

You know the wild bushes at the back of the flat, the ones that scrape the kitchen window the ones that struggle for soil or water, and fail where the train tracks scar the ground? And you know how if you leave the bush and walk the stunted land you come to crossroads, paved just weeks ago hot tar over the mangled roots of trees, and a squad of traffic lights, red-eyed now stiff against the soot stained fallen leaves?

And farther on, you know the dilapidated allotments with the broken sheds and if you go beyond that you hit the first block of St Thomas Street Estate? Well, if you enter and ascend, and you might need a running jump over dank puddles into the shaking lift that goes no further than the fourth floor, you will eventually come to a rough rise of stairs that climb without railings to the run-down roof as high as you can go and a good place to stop.

The best time is late evening when the moon fights through drifts of fumes as you are walking, and when you find an upturned bin to sit on, you will be able to see the smog pour across the city and blur the shapes and tones of things and you will be attacked by the symphony of tires, airplanes, sirens, screams, engines and if this is your day you might even catch a car chase or a hear a horde of biker boys thunder-cross a bridge.

But its tough to speak these things how tufts of smog enter the body and begins to wind us down how the city chokes us painfully against its chest made of secrets and fire how we, built of weaker things regard our sculpted landscape, water flowing through pipes, the clicks of satellites passing over clouds and the roofs where we stand in the shudder of progress giving ourselves to the vast outsides.

Still, text me before you set out. Call when you reach my door and I will walk you as far at the tracks with water for you travels and a hug. I will watch after you and not turn back to the flat till you merge with throngs of buses and cyclists, heading down toward the block, scuffing the ground with you feet.

Thanks Tweeting Day

To celebrate Thanks Giving Day on the 25th of November this year, I stayed up for 24 hours and every 15 mins tweeted something I was thankful for. See list below. #1. I have a warm bed I just woke up from. Most of the world do not. #thankstweetingday. #thanksgivingday

#2. My father is aggressively proud of me, and I write poems for a living. #thankstweetingday. #thanksgivingday

#3. Torch lights. They are modern day light sabers (the force is with me) #creepingtothekitchen #thankstweetingday. #thanksgivingday

#4 I'm thankful that people do the things that I'm not brave enough to: http://www.thepeopleivesleptwith.com / #ThanksTweetingGivingday

#5 I'm thankful for kungfu films. Jackie Chan for life! #ThanksTweetingGivingday

#6 I’m thankful for wifi, the interplay between my mac and miPhone is incestuously good. #ThanksTweetingGivingday

#7 #thankful that I am not an American. #controversial #thankstweetingday

#8 #thankful that there are always signposts to tell me i’m on the right path #thankstweetingday

#9 #thankful that there’s so much documented history to learn from. #thankstweetingday

#10 #thankful that things like this still happen: http://on.fb.me/eRI5Pn #thankstweetingday

#11 #thankful that rap music is so duplicitous, it shows life and vibrancy. #Tpainisstillcrap #thankstweetingday

#12 #thankful for auto tune! Otherwise, rappers would not be brave enough to show their soft sides. #thankstweetingday

#13 #thankful that the planet spins! imagine having sunlight all the time... #childofthenight #thankstweetingday

#14 #thankful that because of youtube, 1000 people have heard my poem today. Thanks Ben: http://bit.ly/dHz5P5 #thankstweetingday

#15 #thankful for apple juice. MMmmmmm #thankstweetingday

#16 #thankful for mature cheddar. MMmmm #thankstweetingday

#17 #thankful for Bob Geldof, despite the BS, his heart was in the right place. #thankstweetingday

#18 #thankful for Neil Gaiman’s novel ‘Anansi Boys’ it grounded my wild narrative thoughts. #thankstweetingday

#19 #I have lived where it is none existent, I am thankful for electricity. #thankstweetingday

#20 #thankful to the NHS for looking after my dad. America, don’t know what you are missing. #thankstweetingday

#21 #thankful for the men in pants who allow boys to dream. #superheroforlife #thankstweetingday

#22 #thankful to D’angelo. I have found myself in your albums many times over. #thankstweetingday

#23 #thankful that I was taught to build a catapult out of pen caps and elastic bands. #poetryweapons #thankstweetingday

#24 #thankful for all 5 elements: #thankstweetingday

#25 #thankful: wind #thankstweetingday

#26 #thankful: fire #thankstweetingday

#27 #thankful: earth #thankstweetingday

#28 #thankful: water #thankstweetingday

#29 #thankful: and the one that unites ‘em all: Thought! #thankstweetingday

#30 #thankful to Terry Pratchett and QBert for teaching me about the last tweet. #thankstweetingday

#31 #thankful that heard melodies are sweet, unheard sweeter still. #thankstweetingday

#32 #thankful for Councillor Troy, I became a man watching you on Star Trek. #thankstweetingday

#33 #thankful to the two Ms, I am because you were. #thankstweetingday

#34 #thankful that somethings are still free. #thankstweetingday

#35 #thankful I was not born in victorian times. #thankstweetingday

#36 #thankful that Kanye told Bush what time it was. #thankstweetingday

#37 #thankful that Salman Rushdie did not back down. #thankstweetingday

#38 #thankful for tea leaves, cocoabutta and the colour blue. #thankstweetingday

#39 #thankful for my mother’s sharp tongue. It is relentless with the truth. #thankstweetingday

#40 #thankful for those who carry bullets so I don’t have to. #thankstweetingday

#41 #thankful for lights and shadows, but the in-between is what counts. #thankstweetingday

#42 #thankful for *Soul Glow. I have built friendships with you. #thankstweetingday

#43 #thankful to Steve Biko, my cost is far far less, but I too write what I like. #thankstweetingday

#44 #thankful for Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car. I once sat in a park and cried listening to that. #thankstweetingday

#45 #thankful for Nolloywood. Stories are predominantly wack, but you are pushing Nigeria to new heights! #thankstweetingday

#46 #thankful to Jodie Foster, your movie First Contact changed me. #thankstweetingday

#47 #thankful to my twin sis from kicking me outta the womb first, been taking leaps of faith since! #thankstweetingday

#48 #thankful to my lil sis for standing up to me that day in Dublin. #thankstweetingday

#49 #thankful to my big sis for not busting my head all those times we fought, 5 yrs is no joke! #thankstweetingday

#50 #thankful to my lady, for showing me who I was already, and who I can be. #thankstweetingday

#51 #thankful to Mr Achebe and William Butler Yeats. Things do fall apart. #thankstweetingday

#52 #thankful to L.Hill. Your Miseducation changed music. #comeback #thankstweetingday

#53 #thankful for Gravity, we would look like upturned eggs with legs otherwise. #thankstweetingday

#54 #thankful to Occam’s razor. I use you to end arguments. #thankstweetingday

#55 #thankful for cold clean running water, I have lived where it is in short supply. #thankstweetingday

#56 #thankful for Luke Cage, essentially an AfricanAmerican Colossus. #superheroesagain #thankstweetingday

#57 #thankful for Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello & Leonardo. Aged 6, I wore a cardboard box & was a mutant turtle too. #thankstweetingday

#58 #thankful to Steve Urkel. I was you growing up, I WAS YOU. Watch: http://bit.ly/hzQYhK #thankstweetingday #fb

#59 #thankful to Voltron Force. (http://bit.ly/eRNDhJ) You taught me team work. #tvaintallbad #thankstweetingday

#60 #thankful to the Paul Robeson for paving the way. #thankstweetingday

#61 #thankful that the UN, Red Cross and MSF exist. #thankstweetingday

#62 #thankful to the Irish, they began my love of hip hop. #thankstweetingday

#63 #thankful to my editor for always going beyond the call of duty. #Ghanianareokaysometimes #thankstweetingday

#64 #thankful for the Yes Men. Google them! #thankstweetingday

#65 #thankful for Marvin Gaye, it is amazing but sad that ‘What’s going on’ is still a relevant song. #thankstweetingday

#66 #thankful for Fela Kuti - he who walks with death in his pouch! #thankstweetingday

#67 #thankful that my english teacher thought I was worth bullying to do homework. #thankstweetingday

#68 #thankful for pidgin english, de language fine sha e no be smol ting at all at all, no shaking! #thankstweetingday

#69 #thankful for the students protesting, please be level headed and do not rise to your provocateurs #thankstweetingday

#70 #thankful for The transport system in London. Have lived where the equivalent is ridiculous. #thankstweetingday

#71 #thankful for these at bus stops! Suspense is overated. #thankstweetingday http://twitpic.com/3a2qfg

#72 #thankful for all the chicken shops in South London! #morelysbrixton #thankstweetingday

#73 #thankful for all that the Marleys have sung and chanted. #thankstweetingday

#74 Thankful for the Welsh gentleman in front of me on the phone who just exclaimed 'Peckham IS nice!' #iliveinnunhead #thankstweetingday

#75 #thankful Hulk Hogan body slammed Yokozuna back in old wrestling days. Thought after that, anything was possible... #thankstweetingday

#76 #thankful for the tall French one - though he thinks he is English. #thankstweetingday

#77 #thankful for GREGGS and NANDOS! #yeahisaidit #thankstweetingday

#78 #thankful for Waterloo and Southbank. Fave place in London. #thankstweetingday

#79 #thankful for Christmas, yes tis commercial etc, but it brings people... #fact #thankstweetingday

#80 #thankful that my job tonight is to write about couples kissing in Covent Garden. Far worse things to do. #thankstweetingday

#81 #thankful for the kindness of strangers; it is always there. #thankstweetingday

#83 #thankful that I waltzed through the hospital club. No questions asked. #connections #thankstweetingday

#83 #thankful that I waltzed through the hospital club. No questions asked. #connections #thankstweetingday

#84 #thankful that I am among the Onetaste crew again. Good great people. #thankstweetingday

#85 #thankful that I am not a celebrity. WayneGate is still alive. #thankstweetingday

#86 #thankful for guitar and the naked raw voice. Nothing more soulful, nothing more stripped and powerful #thankstweetingday

#87 #thankful for Daniel. #thankstweetingday

#88 #thankful that poetry is not and will never be cool. #thankstweetingday

#89 #thankful for Magners Irish Cider, I don't drink much, but love apples... Mmmmmmmm #thankstweetingday

#90 #thankful for choirs and choir claps. Gonna O.D. this Christmas. #Thankstweetingday

#91 #thankful that Christmas carols have such beautiful melodies. #thankstweetingday

#91 #thankful for Guernica by Pablo Picasso, Groundbreaking, that all works of art be so powerful... #thankstweetingday

#92 #thankful for Guerilla Gardeners. Saints, all of you. #thankstweetingday

#93 #thankful that the world never halts in its capacity to amaze and bewilder. #thankstweetingday

#94 #thankful for all the variations of Tea, from Early Grey to mint, lemon and honey, herbal etc... Thaswassup! #thankstweetingday

#95 #thankful that something like Twitter actually exists and is free to use!! #thankstweetingday

#96 #thankful and finally thanks for following and reading my list guys! I'm off to sleep. Good night! #thankstweetingdayDONE!

The Night I grew up.

In ’05, 3 years after I started writing poetry, my first pamphlet, the Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales – published by mouthmark, a flipped eye publishing series that began with Nick Makoha’s The Lost Collection of an Invisible Man and will end with Warsan Shire’s teaching  mother how to give birth - came out. The Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales was written in my angry-young-black-man phase, where I’d gather what I thought to be ills of the world and throw my pen hard, knocking them down one by one. Three years before that, I had just returned to London after another three years spent in Dublin where an enthusiastic English teacher plied us with so much Shakespeare, Boland, Heaney and Keats, it split the class into two factions: lovers and haters of poetry. I was in the former camp, but I lived in the suburbs of Dublin and after school, friends and would gather round hi-fis chanting after 2Pac, Eminem, Snoop, Dre, swearing allegiance to House Of Pain, bouncing on the balls of our feet. Words from those rappers conjured so rich a world they’d sit comfortably on the Irish fields that surrounded us. I discovered the classics and hip hop simultaneously. So, when I began writing my voice was tinged with this. It was Hip Hop influenced as it was classic, as of the fields as it was of the city and as I studied Keats’ construction of sonnets, I’d deconstruct Mos Def.  Yet each creation of mine would sail softly into dustbins; I never considered it poetry, just fooling with words.

London 2002, and Jack, a close friend hands over an unlabelled CD with ‘you like poetry, check this out’. That night I pressed play and from the speakers came the Buddhist meditation chant ‘Ooooooohhhhhmmmmm’, followed by the words: ‘Through meditation I program my heart to be breakbeats and hum baselines and exhalations’ Those hypnotic seconds opened Saul Williams’ first album Amethyst Rockstar and in the half darkness of the South London summer night, between the thick, rhythmic, philosophy-inspired hip hop, drilled rock and rolling hymns of hope and hardship, I found the courage to consider myself a writer, perhaps even a poet.

The fire I wrote the Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales by was lit from Saul’s songs and it warmed everything I wrote until I turned 22 when, confident I had a voice, I took to other fires. The night I turned 22, the night I grew up, is one of the most memorable I have ever lived. My birthday in 2006 coincided with the official launch of the mouthmark series and after the reading we gathered at a Wagamama restaurant for dinner. Writers who had led me to new fires: Jacob Sam-La Rose, Roger Robinson, Malika Booker were there, as where a generous troupe of friends. After dinner, after all of Wagamama – staff and random diners sang happy birthday to me. Then we stood outside comfortable in boyish banter when a man walked by.

Jack pointed after him – That’s Saul, he said. – No dude, don’t be… huh ? – I studied the swagger disappearing into the night, ran, tapped his shoulder, stuttered, swallowed, then spoke: Hi Saul / Inua / remember me, I interviewed you a few months ago for flipped eye’s x magazine / You do?! / I’m cool. Today is my birthday / what are you doing here?

And Saul told a story of missing a flight to California and instead of staying in his hotel, something called him out. He’d just seen a film about an artist isolated and he did not want that tonight. – Cool / So what are you doing now? / You were just gonna walk the streets, well, wanna walk with us? / -

We left the Southbank Centre in London, walked through Waterloo, to Elephant and Castle, journeyed to Camberwell and in the basement of a moth-eaten, smoke-filled, low-lit student house, Saul and I sat swapping poems and stories till 3 in the morning. I was 22, and felt great. If Saul was Mr Miyagi, I was the Karate Kid and he had just told me my karate-chop was on point. After that, I became brash, careless and wrote some really horrid, artless poems; the master who cut me down to size after I strayed was Kwame Dawes. But that is another story.

A LITANY FOR SURVIVAL

Decades ago before the earthquake. Hatians were invited to the Dominican Republic as migrant workers for the sugar plantations there. Generations later and their offspring born in the Dominican republic are refused their birth certificates. This means they cannot go to university, in some cases, they cannot go to school at all, can’t read an write They cannot get married, buy property, leave the country, anything. Essentially, it is an attempt to build a race of menial workers, slaves. Dominican human rights lawyers are calling it racial genocide, something to that effect, and they expect it to explode. The poor against the rich. Monday the 31st August, I watched ‘I am a Slave’ on Channel 4, starring my friend Wunmi Mosaku. It was about a domestic helper brought into the country by a diplomat and treated appallingly. These helpers are paid poorly or not paid, are bullied, beaten, in some case tortured. There are tens of thousands of cases like this, in the UK and across the world. In Iraq, one ‘slave’ was so mistreated, so tortured with boiling water, the wounds so horrific that her employer was sentenced to death.

To live, progress and make way in a capitalist society, someone needs to be exploited and these are some of the extreme examples. I started writing because of reasons like this and over the next year I will immerse myself in these issues again. A lot of the time, I still feel like one of the disadvantaged many, there are some Fridays where I feel like trash. I read poems like the one below and it lifts my spirit.

A LITANY FOR SURVIVAL By Audrey Lourde

For those of us who live at the shoreline standing upon the constant edges of decision crucial and alone for those of us who cannot indulge the passing dreams of choice who love in doorways coming and going in the hours between dawns looking inward and outward at once before and after seeking a now that can breed futures like bread in our children's mouths so their dreams will not reflect the death of ours:

For those of us who were imprinted with fear like a faint line in the center of our foreheads learning to be afraid with our mother's milk for by this weapon this illusion of some safety to be found the heavy-footed hoped to silence us For all of us this instant and this triumph We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid it might not remain when the sun sets we are afraid it might not rise in the morning when our stomachs are full we are afraid of indigestion when our stomachs are empty we are afraid we may never eat again when we are loved we are afraid love will vanish when we are alone we are afraid love will never return and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid

So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive.

Tweet