Book Review…History and Culture define Poet’s Work

Mar 22, 2015 Book Review…, Features / Columnists

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Book: Another Crossing
Author: Khadijah Ibrahiim
Reviewer: Dr Glenville Ashby

‘Another Crossing’ presents a raw but well-crafted historical landscape that captures the joy and innocence of childhood; the adaptive challenges of adolescence, and the hard-nosed resistance of the awakened youth.

Khadijah Ibrahiim, born of Jamaican parentage, chronicles life of her immigrant family in Leeds, England, through multiple prisms. It is a moving tribute to her lineage, but it goes far deeper. From the warmth ‘back home’ to the unfamiliar spirit of a foreign soil, is in itself a rite of passage; an awakening of one’s identity, a test of strengths and weaknesses, as obstacles are strewn in one’s path.
Ibrahiim’s journey well encapsulates the immigrant experience.
She returns to her core, be it in spirit or body, to Africa. She later channels her sentiments of Jamaica, the birthplace of her parents.
‘Another Crossing’ is an ideal medium for soul recall, for that quintessential déjà vu experience and nostalgic musings. The prospective immigrant needs not look far, neither does one who welcomes ancestral discoveries. ‘Another Crossing’ is a literary crystal ball, a timepiece that records the past and could well chart the future.
Ibrahiim, sprinkles her delivery with Jamaican patois, just enough not to lose those unfamiliar with that lingua franca. She commands a diverse audience and proves a spirited and engaging griot.
Her opening salvo of life in Leeds is the defining moment of this compelling undertaking. It captures the unnerving reality of cultural assimilation and racism. With similar verve, it captures the spirit of survival identity and resistance.
Blackness unearths social and political uneasiness and this is played out by the spirit and letter in Leeds, circa 1970s; as it was in multiple cities where immigrants began changing the demographics.
There is a backlash at the most pedestrian level. Screws are tightened by the city and the state.
At school, racial epithets rain down: “Chocolate Drop, Nig Nog, Sambo, Jungle Bunny, Golly Wog, Kunta Kinte, Kizzy go home.”
Proud, progressive blacks are becoming unhinged by the atmospheric poison. “Mum always said she should have gone back home,” Ibrahiim pens in ‘Union Jack,’ but she stands her ground, declaring “Unoo barn hyah.” (I was born here.)
But the genie is out of the bottle and black pride will not be silenced. Ibrahiim’s voice is a celebration of that resistance, of that responsibility to self, culture and tradition.
In ‘Natty Dread Protest,’ she writes, “He’d been looking for a dream beyond the dust and bricks of Leeds, holding a belief in a King of Kings, an ever living god.’ Seeming moments of levity – music, fashion wear and hair styles – are also ammunition in this existential struggle.
As Afros give way to dreadlocks and the latter to baldness; as soulful sounds of Black America is trumped by rebel music of Jamaica, the struggle for justice never abates.
And there is that one Eureka moment where what appears as a curious but simple table is the sanctum for her grandparents’ mystical practices. As a child, it is beyond her comprehension. But now, “I began to imagine its purpose – to seek self-knowing as a secret to be kept, better not revealed.”
In ‘Bird of Africa,’ she’s at her poetic best. “Here I come again, like a bennu riding on the wind, crossing oceans to dock on river banks between the mangroves…I feel like yesterday, pulling back the curtain of the past to hear the griot singing for healing of five hundred broken years, twenty million or more stolen voices from the motherland.
And in ‘We Bury Our Dead,’ she wails for those that perish in the spasm of violence; she bemoans the plight of Jamaica. Her serrated words pierce our conscience: ‘My mother’s hands bound family ties, near and far, pick up a long distance call to bury our dead…I hear Jamaica cry, long distance call to bury our dead.”
Ibrahiim blares her message. Victory is only realisable within an unyielding family setting. Education, discipline, sound values, and a profound spiritual grounding characterise her Jamaican upbringing. These immutable attributes are imported from her native land, serving as the bulwark against intimidation, fear and culture shock. The old folks, our ancestors, have always been our compass through life. Alas, we fail to heed their counsel at our own peril.

Feedback: follow him on twitter@glenvilleashby or email: [email protected]
Another Crossing by Khadijah Ibrahiim 2014
Publisher: Peepal Tree, Leeds, UK
ISBN 13: 9781845232412
Available: amazon.com
Ratings: Recommended

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