Ship Shape

by Dorothea Smartt

Focusing on a sense of duty—to record family history, to envision wholeness out of fragments, and to dissolve the differences that prejudice may interpose between private and public selves—this rich collection of poetry hinges upon a sequence of poems that excavate the missing history of Samboo, an African slave brought from the Caribbean to the city of Lancaster in Lancashire, England. Drawing connections between present-day <!--? prefix = st1 ns = "" /-->Lancaster and the foundations of its 18th-century prosperity in slave trading, the account places Samboo’s tragedy in the Lancaster landscape and text that offers a deeply personal response to the bicentennial of the abolition of the British slave trade. Contemporary poems provide both a counterpoint to the emptiness of Samboo’s too-soon curtailed life and echo a continuity of loss wrought by the fragmentation of Afro-Caribbean families through continuing migrations and death.<!--? prefix = o ns = "" /-->

Genres: Poetry

94 pages, Paperback

First published November 3, 2008

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75 stars rounded up
A well written and put together book of poetry. Dorothea Smartt has been dubbed as a “Brit-born Bajan International” and is a well-known poet and literary activist. She reworks narratives and historical events in a distinctive way. This collection started as a commission from Lancaster Litfest and concerns a black child who was brought to Lancaster at the height of the slave trade. Lancaster was one of the slave trade ports in the west of England. The child, who was named Samboo was given by a sea captain to his wife as a gift and he subsequently died very quickly and was buried locally. This is what Smartt says about the collection:
“I was commissioned by Lancaster LitFest to write a contemporary elegy for “Samboo’s” Grave, on Sunderland Point. I felt a strong obligation to use my craft to speak for someone who could not. I experienced a rollercoaster of emotions, including anger, resentment and despair. I was determined to give him a name, I’ve called him Bilal. I explored aspects of Bilal’s voyage – from the Caribbean up, and through the North Atlantic. I hope this will offer the reader a further understanding of the life-changing impact of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.”
Smartt sees this history as part of the unconscious of the modern city in a poem called Bringing it all Back Home:
“Here I lie. A hollow
Samboo. Filled with your tears

and regrets. The tick in the eye
of Lancaster pride. The stutter,

the pause, the dry cough, shifting
eyes that cannot meet a Black man’s

gaze. Questions, questions from either
side that foul us for answers. The how

and the why ultimately defeating us
with shame, with anger, with the defensive

voices of those who lived and enjoyed
the benefits, who did not question too

deeply the source that enriched
all of Lancaster life.

Who will heal and elevate to light
the souls of your ancestors if

you refuse to remember? If you
cover their incarnations with half-truths?

Grocer? You were a Slave Trader!
And everything has its price,

and denial is only debt
with interest to be paid.”
Smartt moves across the years and links the story to modern Black British experience weaving together memory and imagination with a great musicality which is based on the blues and has a blues rhythm to it. It is certainly better heard and spoken than read, but it is powerful and moving even when read;
99 Names of the Samboo
Bilal ibn beloved son brother husband father grandfather kin elder ancestor

Sold livestock cargo chattel property guinea-bird savage enslaved captive servant worker

Heathen cannibal beast blackamoor darkie nigger uncivilised wog fuzzy-wuzzy coon negro

Tamed eunuch pet uncle tom minstrel golliwog survivor mirror mask chameleon creole

Signified dehumanised damned vilified debased silenced invisible camouflaged trickster Caliban signifier threat animal oversexed terrorizer buck bull breeder raper lynched rhygin rebel

Warrior bussa cudjoe leader Toussaint revolutionary guerrilla Cimarron subversive cuffy duppy-conqueror

Outsider illegal other criminal refugee foreigner exile uprooted immigrant sojourner hyphenated

Prodigal son garveyite rasta Nubian Kushite nation Fulani blood progeny family Bilal

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first roughly 3/4 of this collection is inspired by the story of Lancaster's Samboo, an African slave brought by a sea captain to Lancaster (in the UK, not here in Pennsylvania) and abandoned. He lived in the attic of an inn for a while before dying. He was buried and the story became that he was so devoted to his master the sea captain that he starved to death out of despair at being abandoned.

Smartt is not having it. In these poems, she confronts Lancaster's legacy of slavery, including the incredible cruelty that went into building the town's wealth and prosperity, and she attacks the cynicism of the Quakers who made their money on human flesh while pretending to godliness. But she also imagines the inner life, memories, and desires of Bilal--the name (I believe) Smartt chose to represent Samboo as a West African man. She writes of his desire to return home, the horror and fear of working the plantations, the depths of his connect to his own culture, and the discomfort at being turned into a spectacle for Lancaster's citizens to come look at.
https://youtu.be/UTbwbWyhUHU