The Metic Experience of the Black British Writer - Challenging the Margins of African writing

The term 'Metic', a Greek word first used by T S Eliot, translates as foreigners or resident aliens whose allegiances are split between their homeland and their new country. I adapted/extended the term to BLACK METIC, to explain the phenomena experienced by black writers in the UK. It is a way of understanding my identity. 1: Is there a matrix (cultural, social, or political) in which the Black British Metics thrive? 2: How do Black British Metics compare to their American counterparts and what insights might be revealed through such comparisons? 3: What emergent poetics are created through the Black British Metics' autobiographical storytelling of fractured memories?
Methodology: 4 interlinked sections of research 1) I will write a manifesto and define the theory of Metics and compare it to current research on globalisation, mobility and migration studies. Good examples are Tim Cresswell's Mobility Theory, and Stuart Hall's Migration Politics. This is significant research because it builds on the concepts of cultural identity and identifies a new mode of identity where writers of African descent will be further studied in a new critical matrix.
2: Field-based research via Twenty Metic Interviews: I will focus on four Black poetry movements of the 21st century in the US and UK; Dark Room Collective, Dark Noise Collective, Malika's Kitchen and Cave Canem. This includes close readings and comparative analyses of primary texts, contextualised with historical and anthropological accounts, and interviews with the authors themselves. Interviews with five Metics from each collective will be digitally archived. Each poet will contribute three poems towards a Metics' Anthology comprising interviews and poems. I want this inquiry into the Black Metic Experience to disrupt the dominant story of the British canon. I will distinguish how they might may qualify as Metics, explore four areas to test the theory, devise a workshop offering creative strategies for artists to distinguish their unique Metic Experience and develop their contemporary creative practice.
3. Archival Methods: I must discuss Black British writing and think about its chronology, distinguishing between the above Black poetic movements and past movements in the US and UK during the 20th century. I will analyse these movements by accessing primary materials from the 1980s to the present. Some of these are held in London, such as Bogle L'Overture, the Caribbean Artists Movement, and Apples and Snakes.
4: New Poetry Collection exploring the 1976 Entebbe hijacking of Air France Flight 139. This event sets into motion my eventual exodus from Uganda. Airports factor in my work helping me to observe the ecology of waiting, acting as thresholds to a new life and a place where new worlds collide. It is a way to navigate the importance of time and points of departure. The terminal poems are a way of dealing with memory. My first airport ride took me into exile from Nairobi (NBO) to London (LHR). The source material is both personal and political.The 'Terminal poems' will use the international Air Transport Association (IATA) codes as titles: for example MBA (Mombasa International) and ATL (Atlanta International). Nasser Hussain's poetry collection SKY WRI TEI NGS is composed entirely of three- letter airport codes. Sam Anderson's New York Times review of Hussain's collection says that 'Airport codes - the three-letter, all-caps abbreviations we know from our boarding passes - are awkward little knuckles of language'. The Manifesto and interviews will be an online resource for academics, writers and the general in the form of a teaching anthology. To encourage public engagement I will hold a Metics symposium, publishing a critical paper on aspects of the Metic Experience. I will open up conversations around exile, creolization, liminality and fractured identity. Dr Howe's shares my interest in the poetics of race, identity foreignness/migration/belonging.