The Monthly talks to writer, poet and musician, Tifara Brown – Part 3 – Poetry and Peace-Building

How did you get involved in peacebuilding work in Northern Ireland?

My mentor, Mr. Floyd, he was the man who brought the leadership course to my home town. I met him in 2013 and that was around the same time I decided I wanted to be a writer. He had an organisation called “The Foundation for Justice and Peace”.

Over the course of our mentor-mentee working relationship his organisation had some projects with Limestone United in North Belfast, and I met Brian Caskey from that organisation in 2018. I had facilitated some poetry workshops over ZOOM with their Young Men’s Group at that time.

I have been working with young people in Northern Ireland, using poetry as part of peacebuilding, conflict resolution and creative expression for quite some time.

How did you find dealing with Belfast accents and language?

I grew up in a multicultural household and even in the rural south I was always surrounded by different types of people. Even in my work, working in Technology, I was working almost exclusively with people from India.

I spent a semester in Ghana after graduating college, and I worked at the African Studies Institute at the University of Georgia, so I have been used to being exposed to people from around the world and I think that lead me to train my ear to hear different accents, different dialects, and also hear the way different people use the English language.

I feel that I have had a global education and so when I encountered the people from Northern Ireland, of course I had to build a relationship with the young people and I had to train my ear for that very particular accent. But I think my exposure to people from all over the world, better equipped me to hear what they were saying.

How did you go about composing the poems?

I should say a couple of things first. I think there is a difference between Slam Poetry and Spoken Word. Slam Poetry is specifically for competition. Spoken Word is performance based more generally.

I thought for this project very few of the participants had been exposed to any type of poetry, not Slam not Spoken Word, and I just knew Slam style poetry wouldn’t fit this situation.

I took the approach to the poems of the young people in Belfast that I would take to my own work. I don’t know exactly how it feels or what it is to be a young person living in Northern Ireland, experiencing growing up in a sectarian society and dealing with the violence generated by religious differences and the history of that situation as well. I relied on them to tell me their story.

Poems for Peace

Northern Ireland Poetry for Peace Initiative

Shamrocks Blooming

I was running through the fields of my homeland,
Dusk looming on the horizon,
When I stumbled on a field of shamrocks.
Their green leaves were shy and closing,
Like a young girl embarrassed of herself.

I stopped and spoke to them,
“Bloom for me,
Show me your sea-green shine,
Before the sun sets.
Show me your sea-green shine,
For I am the best.”

The shamrocks spoke to me,
Their voice shimmered like the ocean
Under the winds,
“We bloom for all,
All people are worthy.”

My anger boiled,
I was blood red with the offense,
“I demand you bloom for me,
It makes the most sense.
My rosary sits close to my heart,
My lips are red with communion wine,

I pray to the Virgin, I am set apart,
Bloom for me, I am the finest.”

The shamrocks shook,
They stood up to me,
“We bloom for all,
All people are worthy.”
I changed my direction,
Sure, the shamrocks think forward,
“I am the Protestant’s dream,
I know my Bible, memorized in order,
I have a legacy and influence,
For me, you should give more.”

The shamrocks shook their stems,
Shook their clovers,
“We bloom for all,
All people are worthy.
They told me moreover.

I stomped and I yelled,
“You’re lying, you see,
That all glory and honour,
It should be given to me!
How dare you make us equal
How dare you say this here,
That all of my enemies,
Should be considered so dear!”
The shamrocks they opened,
And grew tall, full of spring,

They looked me in my eyes,
And began to sing,

“We bloom for all
Who has been lost,
For the children who felt
They had no hope,
We bloom for your classmate,
Whose home was destroyed,
For the boy who drowned
In alcohol,
We bloom for the sister,
Whose father is locked away,
Whose son can’t shake
The substance away,
We bloom for those
Whose hearts have been broken,
Whose lives have lost direction
We bloom for all
Whose blood pumps red
Whose eyes stream blue,
Those hearts are strong,
We bloom for love,
For hope
For faith
For you.”

How did that process develop?

I asked them to tell me what it was like to grow up Catholic and how they felt going through Protestant neighbourhoods and if they grew up in a Protestant area what was it like when they walked through a Catholic area. What about friends and family? How did that tension impact their friends and their families? How did they deal with violence? How did that situation make them feel?

They left everything on the table. They told me they had lost friends to suicide, that they had family members dealing with alcohol problems, they had had windows broken by having bricks thrown through them, and they were so young and to me they had dealt with so much.

I let those young people take the reins and after they told me the most difficult things, they also told me their hopes. What it was they wanted for the future. What was the message they wanted to convey which emerges out of their stories.

I helped shape their poems so that they reflected their lived experience but also that the poems offered their thoughts on how a better future might be created.

Will you work with young people here in the future?

Yes. I think this is going to be a continuing project. I am hoping that I will be involved in that especially if the young people feel comfortable sharing their experiences with me and that we can work together to produce poetry which accurately reflects those experiences. And it has to reflect their resilience as well.

I have to say that I found this work very inspiring and the attitudes of the young people inspiring also.

Where to now?

I am working on a second volume of poetry and I hope to publish that soon. I have written an opera with the Cincinnati Opera. It is an Afro Futuristic Opera set 400 years in the future.

For the past few years of my life, if I wasn’t writing poetry I have been writing this opera and it will debut next summer in 2026.

I am also rebranding Honeysuckle Poetry and will be looking to work with incarcerated youth and I am looking at raising funding for that. I will aiming to share art and poetry with them, and that will be my focus for the future.