Growing up, I thought the ultimate sign of intelligence was reading Shakespeare. Being able to quote English that was heightened enough to feel elevated from reality, but familiar enough to understand made me think I could actually have a place in conversations about art, theatre and literature.
I equated being “well-read” with reading colonial texts; I thought European Romanticism was the peak of all literature.
In my last year of high school, I was exposed to poetry from across the world through poetry seminars. Students were expected to choose a poet and analyze the political and cultural roots of their writing to better understand their work. It was here when I first sunk into Pablo Neruda’s imagery of love that flowed as beautifully and naturally as the blood in my veins. An article we studied described him as being “the Whitman of the South.” I wish it was rephrased as Whitman being the “Neruda of the North.”
His poetry seemed so foreign and obscure – like I had discovered something in the corner of an old bookstore, hidden under piles of Hemingway novels and three different versions of Jane Eyre. What I didn’t understand was that Neruda was an incredibly important voice of 20th Century poetry and the flesh and blood of Chilean verse, just without the recognition and limelight of white writers.
It was here that I started picking up on the deep effects of colonialism in the novels and excerpts we are exposed to in school. Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, which I read both in high school and in my first year at Queen’s, was another one of the pivotal texts that made me reconsider how we praise authors, and what stories we prioritize and gravitate towards reading. I find it intriguing that there have to be specific courses dedicated to Indigenous authors or black playwrights. On one hand, the entire course is centred around voices that have been marginalized and oppressed throughout history. On the other hand, why can’t we read more writing from coloured authors in regular English classes?
One of my drama courses here at Queen’s is doing an excellent job expanding my horizons to theatre written by playwrights of colour, as well as plays that directly address themes of race, colonialism, and uncomfortable Western history. I’m often left asking, “Can they really write that?” or, “Can that be put on stage?” There are so many brilliant writers who craft important works without a political agenda, but are inherently political and groundbreaking because of the transparency and honesty in their works.
After my exposure to avant-garde writing and deeply talented writers of colour, I’m choosing to decolonize my bookshelf as much as possible. I’m choosing to equate being “well-read” with reading literature from across the world. I’m choosing to read as much Eastern poetry as possible – not only because it’s stunning and its images are often richer than anything I’ve read in class – but because I refuse to root my pursuit of knowledge in solely what I know, and what I’m comfortable with.
1.The Prophet – Kahlil Gibran
2. A Mind Spread Out on the Ground – Alicia Elliott
3. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl – Harriet Jacobs
4. “Slave Play” – Jeremy O’Harris
5. “Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines” – Pablo Neruda
6. “You Foolish Men” – Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (probably the most badass feminist poem I’ve ever read)
7. Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
8. A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
9. “Our Death is Our Wedding” – Rumi
10. Islands of Decolonial Love – Leanne Betasamosake Simpson