Breadfruit

by Malika Booker

Malika Booker is a writer, spoken word and multidisciplinary artist, whose work spans literature, education and cross-arts. She has appeared world-wide both independently and with the British Council. Founder of the international writer development collective, Malika's Kitchen, Malika was Hampton Court Palace writer in residence in 2004 and Poet in Residence for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2011. Breadfruit, her first pamphlet, was commended by the PBS Selectors in 2007.

Genres: Poetry

34 pages, Paperback

First published December 28, 2007

About the author

Malika Booker is a writer, spoken word and multidisciplinary artist, whose work spans literature, education and cross-arts. She was born in the UK to Guyanese and Grenadian parents.

She first began writing and performing poetry in 1989 while at Goldsmiths University, studying anthropology. During her last year there, she realized that her sole career goal was writing poetry.

She spent the first 13 years of her life in Guyana before returning to the UK with her parents. She now lives in South London.

Reviews

[leynes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Malika Booker is a British poet, performer and playwright of Grenadian and Guyanese heritage. Although Malika was born in the UK, she spent eleven years of her childhood living with her mother, father and two brothers in Guyana. This time ignited her love of storytelling.

In 2001, Malika founded Malika's Poetry Kitchen, a space designed to create a 'nourishing and encouraging community of writers' which runs a continuous series of bi-monthly surgeries designed to help aspiring poets perfect their craft. In 2016, Malika served as a Chair of Judges for the Forward Prizes for poetry, and she had some wonderful things to say:

This is an exciting time nationally and internationally for poetry. Last year we saw poets who are normally positioned at the margins taking centre stage. We saw traditional poets pushing against our rigid criteria of what constitutes a poem. Poets are experimenting, redefining and reconstructing their poetics. I have seen some amazing new collections hit the market place already and am therefore delighted to be able to read this year's poetic offerings whilst chairing such a distinguished and talented cohort of Forward Prizes judges.

Breadfruit is her first published pamphlet, consisting of 16 short poems, and I have to say that I am not the biggest fan. I know that one shouldn't judge debut collections too harshly, but this was very underwhelming.

I don't think that Malika's verses, so her language, are particularly beautiful. I think they're quite bland, average and they just don't pack an emotional punch. There is not one line in this collection that is memorable to me, and there is not one line that I actually want to learn by heart. Gaarrgh, I really didn't wanna be that harsh. *hides behind a bush*

Breadfruit is about family. The first poem Letting Go is about the fact that parents have to learn to let go of their children. If a parent really loves their child, clinging to it and taking away its liberties is not the way to go. It's a beautiful and true message, that I certainly agree with, but the way it was expressed was just too in your face. Honestly, in most of these poems I felt like Malika was trying to shove her personal interpretation in my face, as if I as a reader am not intelligent enough to get it. And thus her first poem ends with the lines: I remember us telling her only yesterday to leave us to live our own lives; I think I know what she is talking about. Well, I think I do, too, and I really didn't need that reminder.

A lot of these poems focus on her mother, and what a beautiful woman Clara is and whilst I think that's sweet, Malika does it in such a personalized way, that these poems will probably only move her mother Clara and nobody else. You as a reader really weren't let into their relationship, and it didn't feel like a hymn on mothers in general, something that more people might relate to. I'm not saying that poetry shouldn't be personal (it should!) but when you publish your poetry, you have to keep the reader in mind, and you have to feed the reader something - whether that's raw and real emotion or brutually honest truths. I got none of that in Breadfruit.

I think my favorite poem in this collection is My Father's Letter due to the above mentioned fact - it is a universal poem.

Mum said my brothers got their letter,
but being boys they will not respond
until it is too late. They will speak
to gravestones of regrets.

I got the letter - nine folded A4
pages blaming yourself for slammed doors
and bad choices. Telling stories of your dad
playing silly games, shouting up drain pipes
Who's down there? and you would shout

Who's up there asking who's down here?
which you now know
were your dad's shy attempts
to create tender moments.

The second part of this collection, the so-called Garden Poems, fell completely flat for me. I think it was Malika's attempt at experimental poetry in a stream of consciousness style, so she basically sat down on park benches and described what she saw or wrote the thoughts down that popped into her head. It was way too jumbled for me, it lacked meaning. She tackled some imporant themes such as suicide, the loss of a beloved family member, cheating within relationships etc. - but she really couldn't woe me emotionally. I never stopped to take the beauty of the words in, or the honesty of the scene - because they simply didn't exist.

I know that poetry is very subjective, and so I think that there will be a lot of readers who will find more in Malika's work, and I will, by no means, write her off as a bad poet. If the chance arises, I will definitely check out her newer stuff and see if it works better for me.

[Jherane Patmore · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is nice, but her later collection, Pepper Seed, is much better. Read that one instead, or read this before Pepper Seed.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give this a 3 out of 5 stars. Breadfruit is considered a chapbook which is a short (10–30 poems) collection of poems with a uniform principle, theme, question, or experience. A chapbook can be a site for a poet's obsessions. It can be their calling card, connect them with others, grant them legitimacy, and even serve as a stepping stone to a full-length collection. (Which she has now completed) Although I had to look up a lot of the things and the places that were mentioned I still enjoyed reading several of them. Malika was a writer in residence at Hampton Court Palace in 2004 which is where I assumed she gained some of her inspiration for the pamphlet of poems. If I had to choose my favorite from the collection it would be...Letting Go...The Maze...The Angel of the Labyrinth and Clasped.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some rhythmic and fascinating poems in here, but the flow of the pamphlet is interrupted by some very boring ones. Mostly its the ones about Hampton Court Palace which are dull - she didn't seem to have her heart in them. I understand that she was getting paid to work for them, so I can see why that might be. But I felt her spirit and her passion much more in her poems about love and loss, and her family's background in Guyana. I wanted more of these, but even they weren't poems that leapt off the page at me particularly. A pleasant (and quick) read though.