Marvin Thompson is a British poet and Poets for the Planet member, born in Tottenham to Jamaican parents and now living in south Wales. His poetry is both peaceful and strident, straddling traditional European forms and African mythology. In 2019, Thompson’s poem “The Many Reincarnations of Gerald Oswald Archibald Thompson” was submitted for the Forward Prize for Best Poem.
Thompson recently gained attention when his amazing sestina “Triptych”, commenting on the installing of a plaque commemorating slave trader Thomas Phillips, was published by The Outposted Project (the plaque was shortly after torn down). Spanning generations of trauma across tightly woven stanzas, “Triptych” epitomises much of the skill Thompson shows in his debut collection Road Trip in his ability to thread his personal experiences of racism across the band of Britain’s post-war colonial legacy.
Of Road Trip–a Poetry Book Society Recommendation–much has been rightly praised of Thompson’s “generosity of creative energy” and his success in navigating the complex tensions of Black British familial life. However, there is always in the book a looming sense of the natural world: sometimes a foil to the overt racial tensions of a poem, sometimes bursting through a narrative poem, sometimes, unnatural–the Tottenham of Thompson’s youth against the woodlands his own children spend their youth in. I wanted to talk to Thompson about the ecopoetics of Road Trip and how this does, and doesn’t, interact with the other themes of his collection.
The environment is often an important background in your poetry whether it is used as a contrast to the narrative of the poem or adding an essential ground for the reader; but rarely do you tackle ecological issues directly. How influential is the environment–whether natural or urban–in your writing process?
As a lover of stories, I gain most pleasure from writing narrative poems. Learning from master storytellers such as Kwame Dawes and Bernardine Evaristo, I revel in descriptive detail. Such details help readers visualise my narratives. As you suggest, my descriptions of place add an essential grounding element to my poems. If the readers can visualise the setting, they can more easily become emotionally engaged with the content.
Although I spent the first 30 years of my life in London, I tend to set my narratives in natural environments. For example, my magical realist war poem, ‘The Many Reincarnations of Gerald Oswald Archibald Thompson’ is set in London. However, much of the action takes place in the woods of north London’s Alexandra Palace.
There is a Romantic notion of natural landscapes being spaces for spirituality, introspection and comfort. This has always held true for me.
Moreover, I am fond of trees. When I see a willow, I am transported back to Bruce Castle Park, Tottenham, riding my BMX with my dad and my brothers. In Road Trip, trees represent the Earth’s deep history and the colonial histories that we Brits seem so keen to forget.
Has writing on environmental themes or using your appreciation for the natural world in your poetry changed your feelings and understanding for the Earth’s ecology?
My friend and poet Zoë Brigley was the first person to make me aware that I was writing ecopoetry. I always thought ecopoems needed to explicitly mention depleted ozone layers, deforestation and other large-scale destruction. I was wrong. Now, I view ecopoetry as being closely aligned to nature poetry but perhaps with a more political intent. This has led me to seek out opportunities to add eco elements to my poems. In a similar way that writing about my Christain beliefs has helped me grow closer to God, my increased focus on ecological issues has helped me deepen my love of our natural world.
Some of your poems are dedicated to your children and I wondered if becoming a father has, like the previous question, changed your ideas around your own poetry and your reaction to the destruction of the Earth’s climate.
My children and step-children are the most important people in my world. As such, I want them to grow up in an ecosystem that can sustain their presence. More and more, I am focusing on the natural world as a central aspect of my poetics.
I loved “Whilst Searching For Anansi with My Mixed Race Children in the Blaen Bran Community Woodland”. In it you use the image of a dying fox to talk about the shooting of Mark Duggan and more generally the treatment of Black people in Britain. Do you see your involvement in climate activism as being hand in hand with your anti-racist activism? Do you find that your appreciation of the environment has expanded or changed your understanding of the nature of racial oppression?
‘Whilst Searching for Anansi…’ has proved to be one of my most popular poems. As such, I think it is worth having a deep dive into some of the ideas I was exploring when writing it.
The poem’s title signifies the melding of two cultures: Welsh and Jamaican. The woodland in question is a favourite south Wales destination for myself and my children. Anansi (the West African folk hero and trickster) is a familiar character from my own childhood and my children’s.
Anansi stories sailed with enslaved Africans during the transatlantic slave trade. As such, ‘Whilst Search for Anansi…’ is also a search for history and identity as well as a celebration of my Jamaican and African heritage.
I chose to write this poem as an adapted villanelle. The lines are iambic pentameters. My aim, as a Black British poet, is to master the structures and forms of the English poetic cannon and use them for my own artistic ends. As a descendant of colonial subjects, I view this as a revolutionary act. Besides, traditional English forms are perfect for commenting on the death of Mark Duggan and the fiery, English protests that ensued.
Mark Duggan symbolises two Tottenham policing protests: 1985 and 2011. Both are associated with the Broadwater Farm housing estate. I have fond memories of this community. The primary school that my brothers and I attended was across the road from Broadwater Farm’s high-rise homes.
I often contemplate the injustices many Black people in Tottenham and other parts of Britain have endured and still endure. During these moments, I often feel, ‘my ancestors’ rage jumping in my blood.’
Furthermore, the poem’s dying fox is my attempt to fill readers’ hearts with sadness: ‘I watch an ant / crawl through its ear fur.’ My hope is that readers will transfer this sadness to thoughts of our dying ecosystems.
In one of the poem’s quieter moments, the narrator’s ‘eyes moisten / as though a gospel singer’s voice / is rising from the fox’s lungs.’ This image links environmental preservation and the present-day effects of racism to a Christian spirituality. In my mind, anti-racist activism, climate activism and my Christian beliefs are interlinked. However, in many ways, writing about race is less about activism and more about describing my lived experiences with honesty.
Ultimately, in writing, ‘Whilst Searching for Anansi…’, I have learnt that past colonial crimes committed against humans with brown skin are a part of me. They are in the memories of bedtime Anansi stories that my mother told me in her Jamaican patios. They are in my surname – Thompson would have likely been the surname of my forebears’ slave master. These crimes fuel the ancestral anger ‘jumping in my blood’ and my need to turn that anger into art. In a similar way, the crimes that have been committed against our environment are part of our daily lives.
Your poems often tackle issues of racial and social justice such as your excellent sestina “Triptych” exploring the still lingering presence of slave trading and racial hierarchies in contemporary British society. To what extent, too, do you see that the fight against the climate crisis goes hand in hand with the fight against racism?
As we know, the British police do a difficult and vital job. However, on Sunday the 9th of August, 2020, Black MP, Dawn Butler was stopped in her car by London police officers. At the time of writing, there is no clear reason why she was stopped. Something to do with driving outside of the London Borough in which she resides? Or was it that the police officers first thought her car was registered in Yorkshire?
I would love to believe that Sir William Macpherson’s seminal 1999 report resulted in a massive effort to improve Britain’s policing systems. This report followed the racially motivated murder of Stephen Lawrence. In it, Macpherson concluded that London’s police force was institutionally racist.
When we fight against racism and climate change, we often face similar barriers. A lack of urgency from those with the real power to make positive institutional changes. However, what is encouraging is the way smaller organisations and individuals have come together to fight climate change and to fight racism.
Have you always written with ecology as the heart of your poetry, or has that changed over the years? If so how has using the environment shaped your ideas of the political and / or your understanding of the personal?
My early poems were appalling. However, I always enjoyed writing about trees and the sea. Images of both unlock feelings of freedom and childhood joy.
The more I centre my children and step-children in my poetics, the more I focus on the ecology of our planet. It is vital that Earth can sustain the futures of all our young people.
Furthermore, I now view environmental issues like a glue that binds my focus on race and my focus on my Christian spirituality. All three are at the heart of my poetry.
Next weekend you are hosting a work shop with Poetry Wales “Eco Poetry: the Political and the Personal”. Could you expand a bit on how in your own poetry, ecopoetics is involved with the political and the personal?
In reviewing my debut collection, Road Trip, the poet and essayist Martyn Crucefix commented on the, ‘disarming sense of autobiographical honesty.’ I developed this aspect of my poetics to draw readers into the complexities of being a Black father raising Dual Heritage children in predominantly White south Wales. As my late father taught me, my Black skin is both deeply personal and deeply political.
In addition, the semi-rural nature of where I live has moved me to write about the natural world with more vigour. As a result, Road Trip brims with descriptions of mountains, birches and circling buzzards. To my mind, in 2020, any literature that is fully focused on human interactions with our ecosystems is, by association, also highlighting issues of climate change.
One of the most eco-conscious narratives in Road Trip is ‘The Baboon Chronicles.’ In this sequence, baboons roam the streets of south Wales. In my imagination, the baboons have migrated to Wales after a future climate disaster. Even with these serious undertones, writing about baboons was a blast!
For people on the fence about taking part in a workshop like this, what do you hope you can bring to them by introducing ecopoetics to their poetry?
Before paying for a poetry workshop, you should ask yourself what you hope to get out of it. A few drafts of a few new poems, improved writing skills?
In my workshop, I aim for participants to enjoy all of these aspects. I also hope they will develop an even greater focus on ecopoetics. This might mean an added emphasis on the descriptions of nature. Equally, it could mean writing a series of post-climate disaster sonnets.
Of course, the most important thing is that participants have fun connecting with their writing and their inner selves.
You can purchase Marvin’s book here:
https://www.peepaltreepress.
Recordings of ‘Triptych’ in English and Welsh
https://www.youtube.com/
Three sestina poems – poems and recordings
https://www.iambapoet.com/
National Poetry Day – poems, recording and reading notes in English and Welsh
https://nationalpoetryday.co.
Twitter: @MarvinPoet