British History is Black: The Queen Turned Black
Below is the last of the four new poems by Jenny Mitchell to mark Black History Month. For some background to the poem, see here and here.
The Queen Turned Black
by Jenny Mitchell
When granny dies, her skin transforms,
not limb by limb but all at once –
dark brown becomes red, white and blue.
Her hair has lost its kink, becomes a stately crown.
I’m not surprised. She loved Great Britain
even when in ’56 a turd slipped
through her letterbox. Neighbours called police
in ’58 to say her bible class – loud prayers
to a blond-haired Jesus – sent them mad.
More than once in ’63, the local press reported
that her house became a den of vice – Black
Madame Must Be Stopped!
She used the settlements to build a large extension.
Most recently, the man next door, caped
in a Union Jack, ordered her to go back home
with the other immigrants. Home was called
the Mother Country where the Queen
once welcomed her, waving from a balcony.
Now ever since she died, the Queen has been
transformed, her skin turned black,
her hair a tall, soft afro. She lies
next to my granny in a special plot, white
roses planted close. Are they holding
hands, having shared so much?
Jenny Mitchell
Jenny Mitchell is a winner of the Bread and Roses Poetry Award, the Poetry Book Awards 2021 and a joint winner of the Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize 2019. She also won the inaugural Ironbridge Prize, the Bedford Prize and the Gloucester Poetry Society Open Competition. The best-selling debut collection, Her Lost Language, is one of 44 Poetry Books for 2019 (Poetry Wales), and a second collection, Map of a Plantation, is an Irish Independent ‘Literary Find’ and on the syllabus at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her latest collection is called Resurrection of a Black Man.