Message from Nur Al-Masri
Sharif El Gammal-Ortiz
In poems, you don’t force
a rubber tire filled with gasoline
around a person’s chest, and set them
on fire. Much less do you give
that person an ethnicity
and draw attention to the fact
your speaker is necklacing
a Nigerian. As a doctoral candidate
in Caribbean Literature
you should know better. Africa
is a place of origins, its peoples
our ancestors. Otherwise, you
come across as a racist shit—
a racist, intolerant shit—
and it’s in your best interests
not to come off as a racist,
intolerant shit because you’re studying
to become a Caribbeanist
and others are listening. Plus,
that’s not who you are. We are one.
I take you to task for the hatred
of that image. You argue the voice
in “Amaryllis Doing Laundry
at Her Mother’s and Whistling,”
the poem using the necklacing
as metaphor, doesn’t carry
the execution the whole way through.
Emanating from you, the speaker
only sets it up; the blowtorch
meant to light the Nigerian ablaze
never materializing. I quote: “I become
pregnant with a rubber tire
filled with gasoline and forced
around a Nigerian’s chest.
Before his ass is set on fire, I go
into labor. From the needle out comes
a hooked worm. It voices, Eat
all foods, but stay away from pork.
I unlock the Internet’s full potential
and find Allah by way of Africa.”
72
TCW