Emilie’s Reviews > Part of a Story That Started Before Me: Poems about Black British History > Status Update
Emilie
is on page 160 of 272
Because on that day, in a beautiful and unspoken agreement, the men realised that sometimes the most beautiful thing you can do is turn rage into fireworks.
— Jun 11, 2025 03:33AM
2 likes · Like flag
Emilie’s Previous Updates
Emilie
is on page 170 of 272
I am the sugar at the bottom of the English cup of tea. I am the sweet tooth, the sugar plantations that rotted generations of English children's teeth.
- Stuart Hall
— Jun 11, 2025 03:34AM
- Stuart Hall
Emilie
is on page 138 of 272
any person who believes that rights, written down, really mean that people are free will not see why it will always be necessary to go beyond that which is written in black-and-white.
— Jun 07, 2025 11:32AM
Emilie
is on page 100 of 272
Ever since I first taste words, none as succulent as England, served between the heat-damp pages of my schoolbooks, held up like a looking-glass to hide the corrugated shacks pressed hard against Jamaican hills.
— Jun 07, 2025 11:32AM
Emilie
is on page 15 of 272
Dem tell me / Dem tell me wha dem want to tell me / But now I checking out me own history / I carving out me identity
— Jun 07, 2025 10:16AM
Emilie
is on page 71 of 272
His standing joke is that he went shopping for groceries and ended up buying himself from the slave market of this world.
Something twists in my heart to hear him say it, that he has to buy his freedom.
— Jun 07, 2025 10:15AM
Something twists in my heart to hear him say it, that he has to buy his freedom.
Emilie
is on page 15 of 272
In his 2019 book Back to Black, Professor Kehinde Andrews (founder of Europe's first Black Studies programme at Birmingham City University) commented that 'artists document the political moment; they do not create it'. Here he pinpointed the source of my awkwardness about Black poetry and art in general: we risk confusing the talk with the walk - when there is still a lot of walking to be done.
— Jun 03, 2025 10:30PM
Comments Showing 1-2 of 2 (2 new)
date
newest »
newest »
have bass in their voice, courage in their smile and conviction in their eyes.And then see what happens
when someone comes like a thief in the night, to try and take it away.
The media called them mobsters, but they weren't the ones in gear.
The politicians called it an act of war, tried to make a disappearing act out of men whose stories only existed in neighbourhood whispers.
But it was a community prayer.
It was unwavering love.
A year later
you'd see similar stories in Brixton, Toxteth
Handsworth, Chapeltown and Moss Side.
Because if you want to find the start of a revolution?
If you want to find the start of an avalanche?
Go to the spaces where people can have bass in their voice, courage in their smile and conviction in their eyes.
And then see what happens
when someone comes like a thief in the night, to try and take it away.