I Is A Long Memoried Woman, a collection by Guyanese poetess Grace Nichols, was first published in 1983 and a winner of the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Nichols’ work develops the story of an anonymous African-Caribbean woman as she recounts the cruelty of slavery and its crippling effects on body, mind, and spirit. The narrator’s story is told in a rich language, which compliments the form to result in a rhythmic musicality reminiscent of spiritual slave songs. The collection of poems is divided into five sections, each an extended snapshot of the narrator’s life, and provides a view on slavery that cannot be delivered through a textbook, such as African compliance for the slave trade and being raped and impregnated by her slaveholder.
Author
Grace Nichols was born in Georgetown, Guyana, in 1950 and grew up in a small country village on the Guyanese coast. She moved to the city with her family when she was eight, an experience central to her first novel, Whole of a Morning Sky (1986), set in 1960s Guyana in the middle of the country's struggle for independence. She worked as a teacher and journalist and, as part of a Diploma in Communications at the University of Guyana, spent time in some of the most remote areas of Guyana, a period that influenced her writings and initiated a strong interest in Guyanese folk tales, Amerindian myths and the South American civilisations of the Aztec and Inca. She has lived in the UK since 1977. Her first poetry collection, I is a Long-Memoried Woman, was published in 1983. The book won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize and a subsequent film adaptation of the book was awarded a gold medal at the International Film and Television Festival of New York. The book was also dramatised for radio by the BBC. Subsequent poetry collections include The Fat Black Woman's Poems (1984), Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman (1989), and Sunris (1996). She also writes books for children, inspired predominantly by Guyanese folklore and Amerindian legends, including Come on into My Tropical Garden (1988) and Give Yourself a Hug (1994). Everybody Got A Gift (2005) includes new and selected poems, and her collection, Startling the Flying Fish (2006), contains poems which tell the story of the Caribbean. Her latest books are Picasso, I Want My Face Back (2009); and I Have Crossed an Ocean: Selected Poems (2010). Grace Nichols lives in England with her partner, the poet John Agard.
