Nourbese Philip's Poetry Seeks to Re-Balance the Exclusion from “history” the Black Female Voice, Body and Experience.

Nourbese Philip's Poetry Seeks to Re-Balance the Exclusion from “history” the Black Female Voice, Body and Experience.

M Nourbese Philip's poetry not only "seeks" to re-balance the exclusion from history the black female voice but powerfully demands this voice no longer be oppressed.

Philip writes from a "tumultuous" postcolonial present. She represents the black female voice previously oppressed by colonial conquest, by "history". She attempts to overcome historical stereotypes.

Her poetry gives a voice to women oppressed in a male dominated world and also to the "other" lost in Eurocentric dominance. Her poetry challenges the empire and patriarchal society and intertwines post-colonialism and feminism.

Eugene Delacroix's painting the "Algerian Women in their Chamber" is visual example of the patriarchal, Eurocentric gaze that can be seen throughout the history of literature. It is an example of the power of representation. In the painting the women are seductive yet passive they are there to be conquered. The non-European is also portrayed as lazy passive, childlike and if a male, he is portrayed as female.

Philips poetry challenges this gaze and forces the reader to view life at different angles and to experience different representations. Her poetry overcomes the barriers laid out by a patriarchal British Empire.

"The British Empire, it is plain to see was a man's world much more emphatically so than was Victorian patriarchal society back in Britain"3. Male dominance and further more white male dominance were embedded into the colonies. "The predominance of men at every level of imperial engagement, the definitive maleness of all that was done, cannot be ignored".4

To assure that the oppressed female black voice would be heard in this white male dominated world, her poetry needed to be powerful her "voice" strong and effective. "..black colonized women were as it called , doubly or triple marginalized"5

The poem "Discourse on the Logic of Language" from the collection "She Tries her Mother Tongue" is an example of Philip's powerful poetry. In this poem Philip not only demands her voice be heard, but that many different voices are heard simultaneously. One could suggest that this was an attempt to challenge the single voiced British Empire. She defies form and refuses straight narrative and the single lyric. In displacing the lyric voice, Philip suggests that there is more than one "correct" way of writing poetry, of reciting poetry. Perhaps she is suggesting that there is room for difference in the world, that there is more than one "correct" way of living, and that there is no need for colonization. She suggests poetry can be just as effective, as powerful and as beautiful when written in her own unique style and indeed in each individual's unique style.

That's it I thought, that's what I was doing –moving from the solo voice to the chorus. I realized too that the presence of the chorus meant that I had been successful in displacing the lyric voice. And maybe that's more familiar to women; maybe that's closer to the woman's way of being or even the African way of being, having that chorus rather than the solo voice which is the fount of everything including its own legitimacy. 6

It could be suggested that Philip contrasts this multi-vocal poetry with the other single lyric poetry of the time in order to celebrate the variety of the world's different culture and unify them against the single mindedness of the single lyric, the British Empire. She gives the black female a powerful voice that was previously silenced, and in doing so celebrates its difference.

The structure and language of this poem are very significant. The voice of the "educated" "Dr. Broca , on the right hand side of the page, uses formal language. This creates a sense of importance and authority. We tend to believe the information is fact because it is coming from "learned nineteenth century doctors" "Dr. Brocca" believed; "Caucasians race had larger brains than, and were therefore superior to women, blacks and other peoples of colour".

Philip doesn't merely suggest a world of inequality, of injustice, but spells it out in black and white in the "findings" of "Dr Broca".

This voice is in stark contrast with the third voice of the poem that of the black women over Philip's shoulder. The language used is that of oppression. The images however are vivid and overpower the previous voice. The image of a mother and her new born child "held close" is one of universal beauty. But this contrasts with the aggressive "licking" of the mothers tongue over her child. Until its "whimpering"