Poetry as an Outlet from Difficult Childhood

Breaking away from her father’s strict religious mandates – including no hair cuts and food restrictions – wasn’t easy so she tried to establish her independence in small steps. Ultimately, she was barred from living at home due to her hairstyle choice, so she left to be able to make her own lifestyle decisions. 

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Safiya Sinclair (SS) was born and raised in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She is the oldest of four children, with two sisters and one brother. She has described her father, the lead singer in a reggae band, as a “militant Rasta man.” By his own description, her father felt “called to a branch known as the ‘Mansion of Myabinghi,’ the strictest and most radical sect of Rastafari. 

“Rasta is not a religion,” her father always said. “Rasta is a calling. A way of life.”

Her mother was a homemaker who practiced Rastafari for herself but never imposed its unbending tenets on her children.

The father’s career was marked by assuming God – Jah in the Rasta religion – would provide opportunities to earn a sufficient income to pay the expenses of an adequate lifestyle for himself, his wife, and children. But while hope remained unwavering, his financial earnings while playing reggae music for tourists were usually inadequate to pay for the family’s basic needs. 

(Editor’s note – Rastafari, sometimes called Rastafarianism, is a religion that developed on the Caribbean Island of Jamaica during the 1930s. There is no central authority in control of the movement and much diversity of Rastafari practice exists among its faithful. Rastafari beliefs are based on a specific interpretation of the Bible. Central to the religion is a monotheistic belief in a single God, referred to as Jah, who is deemed to partially reside within each individual. Rastafari is Afrocentric, focusing on the African diaspora (the spread of Africans from their original homeland), who are believed to be oppressed by evils such as capitalism, colonialism, and racism within Western society, called “Babylon.” Rastas emphasize what they regard as living “naturally”, adhering to “ital” dietary requirements, wearing their hair in dreadlocks – long, tight braids – and strict adherence to the father’s unilateral, unappealable control over the rest of the family.)

CHILDHOOD

In the Rastafari culture as practiced by SS’ father, he was the head of the family, authorized by religious tradition, to control all aspects of family life, especially how the children were to be raised. One of the most visible aspects of his control was the mandate that no one could ever have their hair cut. Hair for the Rastafari signified strength. Her father called his hair a crown, his locks a main, his beard a precept. “What grew from our heads was supposed to be the most holy.”

As a result of what SS describes as the “alienating” experience of Rastafari culture, she turned to reading and writing poetry. SS’s first poem was published when she was 16, in the Jamaican Observer.

Meals were prepared and served solely by SS’s mother. The family always kept to an Ital diet: no meat, no fish, no eggs, no dairy, no salt, no sugar, no black pepper, no MSD, no processed substances. “Our bodies were Jah’s temple” said SS, quoting one of her father’s comments, reflecting his own subservience. 

One time SS’ father, while trying to playfully run past SS, not intending any harm, accidentally bumped into her, causing her to partially fracture one of her front teeth. Her parents couldn’t afford to fix her tooth, so SS stopped smiling in public. At school, she sat clench-mouthed and held her hand across her mouth whenever she spoke.

EDUCATION WHILE COPING WITH FATHER’S HARSH DISCIPLINE AT HOME

When SS was first forced to have her hair braided into dreadlocks while in the middle of sixth grade, fellow students began taunting her about lice. “My cheeks stung in humiliation. For the first time, I was ashamed to be myself” although her brother with similar dreadlocks, advised her to “pay no mind. We are the conquerors.” SS assumed he was just trying to sound like a big man, talking like their father, who had told his children, “Your parents didn’t birth no ‘weakheart’. Always stand up for what you know is right.”

(Editor’s note – Ironically, SS was not allowed to disagree with her father about any subject for which she believed she was right.)

Toward the end of sixth grade, SS’ mother saw a newspaper ad announcing two scholarships for “gifted and underprivileged” students to attend a new private high school in Montego Bay, her hometown on the island of Jamaica. 

A scholarship would mean full tuition paid, uniforms made and one less child to worry about. Students had to apply and a chosen few would then be interviewed by the school’s founders. SS asked her parents whether pursuing this scholarship meant that the only way she could receive a good education in the future, was to earn scholarships? Her father was insulted by that question, telling her to “get outta my sight.” She hid in her bedroom for the rest of the day and wept.

After SS applied for the scholarship and her mother told her that she was one of the finalists, SS was not surprised. “I had alchemized my father’s rage into a resolve to be so excellent that my parents would never have to worry again.”

When SS appeared at the final interview to hopefully qualify for the scholarship, she stood before five men, most of them White, sitting behind a table in the center of a large, cold room. Each wore a large gold watch and a school ring with a large ruby insignia. “I had never been alone with so many White people before,” recalled SS. 

One of the men asked what SS did in her spare time. “I told them I loved to read and write poetry, and that my favorite poem was “The Tyger” by William Blake. Before they could ask another question, I began to recite it. I looked at each of them as I spoke. The words gave me electric power.”

“My God, you speak so well,” another White man said. “You speak so well,” they all repeated. “I was unsure how else I was supposed to speak.”

“The kindest White man at the table then asked me to tell him about something in the news. I stopped to think. I knew that everybody had been talking about the West Indian cricketer Brian Lara’s triumphant summer and that would be the most expected answer.” But I said, ‘I’ve been following the Donald Panton scandal.’ Two of the men looked up at me in surprise. Panton was a prominent Kingston businessman who had been under investigation for financial fraud.” (He was eventually cleared.)

When the interview was over, the committee came out with me, congratulating my mother and asking her what her secret was to raising children. ‘If I had a dime for every time somebody asked me that,’ she said. ‘I would be rich.’ “

As we left the interview building, my mother said, “Donald Panton?” What do you even know about that?” “Everything,” I said.

When SS enrolled in the school, during one of her first days, a teacher told her that she should not be wandering around the school grounds alone, before teachers arrive. “And can you please brush your hair,” the teacher added, her voice sharpening. “You can’t just be walking around here looking like a mop.”

I would not let her see me react. “Miss,” I calmly replied, “My father says I am not allowed to brush or cut my hair.”

FIRST ADULT JOB IS NEVER A BINDING CAREER COMMITMENT

Following her high school graduation, SS was scouted to be a model. When SS first appeared at the modeling agency headquarters, she was asked to “cut the dreads.”

“Sorry,” I said. “My father won’t allow me.” The modeling agent then explained to the modeling agency administrator that “It’s her religion. Her father is Rastafarian. Very strict.” But this became the tipping point in the relationship between SS and her father. SS knew that she could earn money toward her independence – and getting her tooth fixed – if she could be hired as a model. So, she told her mother that she was determined to have her hair cut. Her mother agreed and arranged to have it done while her father would be out of town for the day, but she also invited an adult female friend to participate while serving as a possible shield against her husband’s likely violent reaction if he happened to arrive home unexpectedly while SS’s dreads were being cut. 

When the father eventually saw SS without her dreadlocks – indeed, without almost any hair since most of it had to be removed so her scalp could heal from years of neglect and hair related disease – he barred SS from continuing to live at home. And, he added, “I’m so ashamed of you!”

So, SS had no other choice to continue her education but to move away – choosing to move far, far away from her father’s control. 

EDUCATION CONTINUES AFTER SHE IS EXILED FROM HER FAMILY HOME

SS moved to the U.S. to attend college, first earning her Bachelor of Arts degree from Bennington College in Vermont. She went on to obtain an MFA in Poetry from the University of Virginia and a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. 

POET

SS’s poems have been published in various journals including Poetry, The Kenyan Review, The New Yorker magazine and Granta. She wrote Catacombs, a chapbook of poems and essays during a one-year return to Jamaica following her college graduation – to visit her family but not reside with them. Later, she released her debut collection of poems, Cannibal. Her memoir, How to Say Babylon, is scheduled for publication release in late 2023. 

Cannibal opens with lines spoken by Caliban, an indigenous man enslaved by Prospero in Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest. In an essay for Poetry, SS explains that she first read The Tempest as a teenager in Jamaica and at that time identified with Miranda, daughter of the oppressive Prospero. In subsequent comments after she moved to the U.S., she began to liken her experience of exile to that of Caliban’s. 

In her memoir, SS charts her personal experience of exile from her strict upbringing in Jamaica through her immigration to the United States. Hers is an “exile at home, exile of being in America, exile of the female body, and the exile of the English language.” 

PROFESSOR OF CREATIVE WRITING

In addition to writing, SS is also a university-level educator. Prior to joining the English department at Arizona State University, SS was a postdoctoral research associate in the Literary Arts Department at Brown University. 

LIFE AND CAREER SATISFACTION

SS has received many awards and nominations for her writings, mostly poetry, including:

• Prairie Schooner Book Prize, Poetry
• Whiting Award, Poetry
• American Academy of Arts and Letters, Metcalf Award, Literature
• OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, Poetry
• Phyillis Wheatley Book Award, Poetry
• PEN USA Literary Award, finalist
• Dylan Thomas Prize, longlisted

While her professional recognition has been well earned and appreciated, SS is most proud of her decision to finally gain her self-independence when contradicting one of her father’s mandates by having her hair cut. She described the moment:

“When they (my mother and her friend) were finished, my neck and head were so light they swung unsteadily. The tethers had been cut from me, and I was new again, unburdened. Someone different, I told myself. A girl who could choose what happened next.”

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This career story has several sources: an article written by Safiya Sinclair, published in the 8/7/23 New Yorker Magazine plus internet research including Wikipedia.