I Is a Long Memoried Woman

by Grace Nichols

I Is A Long Memoried Woman, a collection by Guyanese poetess Grace Nichols, was first published in 1983 and a winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Nichols’ work develops the story of an anonymous African-Caribbean woman as she recounts the cruelty of slavery and its crippling effects on body, mind, and spirit. The narrator’s story is told in a rich language, which compliments the form to result in a rhythmic musicality reminiscent of spiritual slave songs.

The collection of poems is divided into five sections, each an extended snapshot of the narrator’s life, and provides a view on slavery that cannot be delivered through a textbook, such as African compliance for the slave trade and being raped and impregnated by her slaveholder.

Genres: Poetry, Read For School, School, Classics, Fiction

87 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 1983

About the author

Grace Nichols was born in Georgetown, Guyana, in 1950 and grew up in a small country village on the Guyanese coast. She moved to the city with her family when she was eight, an experience central to her first novel, Whole of a Morning Sky (1986), set in 1960s Guyana in the middle of the country's struggle for independence.

She worked as a teacher and journalist and, as part of a Diploma in Communications at the University of Guyana, spent time in some of the most remote areas of Guyana, a period that influenced her writings and initiated a strong interest in Guyanese folk tales, Amerindian myths and the South American civilisations of the Aztec and Inca. She has lived in the UK since 1977.

Her first poetry collection, I is a Long-Memoried Woman, was published in 1983. The book won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize and a subsequent film adaptation of the book was awarded a gold medal at the International Film and Television Festival of New York. The book was also dramatised for radio by the BBC. Subsequent poetry collections include The Fat Black Woman's Poems (1984), Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman (1989), and Sunris (1996). She also writes books for children, inspired predominantly by Guyanese folklore and Amerindian legends, including Come on into My Tropical Garden (1988) and Give Yourself a Hug (1994). Everybody Got A Gift (2005) includes new and selected poems, and her collection, Startling the Flying Fish (2006), contains poems which tell the story of the Caribbean.



Her latest books are Picasso, I Want My Face Back (2009); and I Have Crossed an Ocean: Selected Poems (2010).


Grace Nichols lives in England with her partner, the poet John Agard.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very powerful set of poems written in the first person; a chronology of slavery from a woman’s perspective.

We the women who toil
unadorn
heads tie with chaep
cotton

We the women who cut
clear fetch dig sing

We the women making
something from this
ache-and-pain-a-me
back-o-hardness

Yet we the women
whose praises go unsung
whose voices go unheard
whose deaths they sweep
aside
as easy as dead leaves

It tells the tragic story of slavery in short and powerful poems with memories of rape, infanticide, the slave trade, European cruelty and complicity from other Africans. It follows the plantations and psychological abuse. Yet the pomes are sensual and there is a thread of strength and pride femininity and motherhood running through them with a tone of rebellion and reawakening; strength and dignity. I can only continue with a poem;

This Kingdom Will Not Live Forever
Cool winds blow softly

in brilliant sunshine
fruits pulse
flowers flame

mountains shade to
purple

the great House
with its palm and orange
groves
sturdy

and the sea encircling
all
is a spectrum of blue
jewels
shimmering and skirting

But Beware
Soft winds can turn
volatile
can merge with rains
can turn hurricane

Mountains can erupt
sulphur springs
bubbling quick
and hot

like bile spilling
from a witch’s cauldron
Swamps can send plagues
dysentery, fevers

plantations can perish

lands turn barren

And the white man
no longer at ease
with the faint drum/
beat

no longer indifferent
to the sweating sun/
heat

can leave exhausted
or
turn his thoughts
to death

And we
the rage growing
like the chiggers
in our feet

can wait
or
take our freedom
whatever happens

This Kingdom Will Not Reign Forever

These are great poems which powerfully depict the lives of women slaves with great poignancy.
Worth looking out for.

[Mary]

We could only read excerpts of this (for my Af-Am lit class) -- because it's out-of-print and there be laws of copyright. Short version of review: the fact that any book this good could be out of print helps underscore Everything That's Wrong With Society.

Chill-inducing: "No it isn't easy to forget / what we refuse to remember." -G. Nichols

[Kaela · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It isn’t privilege or pity
that I seek
It isn’t reverence or safety
quick happiness or purity

but
the power to be what I am/a woman
charting my own futures/ a woman
holding my beads in my hand”

[Caileigh Harrigan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tend not to enjoy poetry as much when read in an academic context (reading poetry is just such an intimate, personal experience to me); however, there is no discrediting how powerful these poems are. The anonymous voice creates a shared memory about slavery and the poems are rhythmic, rich in culture and history, and all about reclamation.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an excellent collection exploring the shared cultural memory of the slave trade, and it did it so well! Every poem was haunting, but I just kept comparing it to her other collections and just didn't like it quite as much as the others unfortunately, but still definitely worth a read, some lovely poems in the collection!

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for a women's lit course and was surprisingly won over. Simple, direct, and brutal poems which reward the researcher.

[Lauriel · Rating 5 out of 5]

brilliant collection of poems. best to be read over a short period of time or at least entire chapters at once to see the full picture Grace Nichols creates with her poetry.

[Rhiannon Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a book slightly older than I am, these poems still feel fresh and politically relevant. Nichols uses history, dialect and repetition deftly to create strong moments of connection with her poetic characters and narrators.

[Krysta B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow just wow
This was powerful

[Eleana Norton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very powerful collection of poems. I felt fully transported into a world of pain and strength.

[Jaiden]

“The truth is / my life has slipped out / of my possession”

[Charmaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

brilliant poetry collection. So creative and raw.

[aniqah khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

what a powerful collection of poems, beautiful read, my favourite is taint - enjoyed reading it with year 6s

[Hannah Belgrove · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful and heartbreaking and revealing. Eloquent evidence of language self serving as liberation and self-reverence.

[cielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

thoughtful and well written collection

[Sierra Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful poems about migration, identity, race, and generational memory.

['Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I adore Grace Nichols' poetry. She is deeply evocative of cultural tragedies, yet centered around the hopeful promising 'wind a change'.

This Kingdom Will Not Reign Forever

indeed.

[Nisha Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

The rhythms of the Caribbean are a particular thing. Stemming from a variety of different races and ethnic heritages, it's difficult to translate them to the written word, but poetry is the closest medium to this.

In this regard, Grace Nichols doesn't disappoint, producing a work of art that you can see and hear as clearly as you can read it on the page. The long-memoried woman is one who will stay with you, the reminder of her strength and resilience powerful enough to keep you rooted in your history and the reverberations across space and time.