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A Traditional Woman & Other Poems
Tolu Agbelusi
A Traditional Woman
In conversation with Edwige-Renée Dro on Nos Mamans D’avant
Because you only want to see me
better (you said), because I want
to make you happy, because
I don’t yet know how to choose
myself, don’t yet know this
as sole option, because, because…
I try when you tell me to be more
of a traditional woman.
Because I want to be thorough
a greater student than me doesn’t exist.
I reach into the past, where else
could I find her, them, these women
whose actions have calcified
into tradition, reference point.
I channelled the Nanas. Bought a flat
in Paris, thought of my yet unborn children,
committed to being aspirational—
I bought a Benz. My sisters did the same.
Shipped it back to Togo. And didn’t the State
come knocking when dignitaries visited.
Of course, we loaned our cars to the State.
Of course, we made them look good. Don’t I
make you look… He pursed his lips—prelude
to a warning you’d have heard before—
pride goes before a fall. The waiter assumed
for him the power he imagined for himself,
gave him the bill, I folded the notes into his palm
under the table, kept my face intact as she
praised him for taking care of his woman.
She left and I held him momentarily
hostage with eyes that read aren’t I lucky,
lips that moved in for a kiss then whispered
pride does go before a fall.
Be humble you scoffed. The question
in my raised brow pulling apposition
from your mouth—nurturing you said
like our mothers’ mothers for whom blood
was mere detail. Is a woman from the 20’s
ancient enough to use as template?
I channelled Madame St Clair. Skipped
the mink (sometimes), I was trying on humility
after all. Full page ads in the paper on the regular
—told my people which chains to break, which ones
were already open like a door
unlocked when you were sleeping, which you assume
is still barricaded, like so much is for my people.
Him and her and them is the enemy I said, teaching them
how to build an armoury of knowledge. I was Elijah,
my people brought all the jars they could find
and the oil from my hands never stopped flowing.
If you find one I turned away, dare them to make it known.
I paid big. But isn’t mothering sacrifice?
What sacrifice is free? And after all this,
why are you not satisfied? why do I overhear you say
une femme qui n’est pas mariée est un être incomplète?
My attempts to be more traditional plus x equals your growing
discontent. I try to resolve the unknown
variable. Because foolishness is not my portion.
Because the audacious nerve of my foremothers
(some part of it) is becoming my own. I slowly remove
the possibility of an error on my part from consideration.
What have you demanded that I haven’t done, only
to wake to the possibility that you created a fantasy
mother and asked me to become the impossible.
Because I am not averse to being kept. Because
women in the time of our mothers’ mothers
in Cote D’Ivoire demanded les trois ‘V’ as prerequisite
from men who thought themselves worthy suitors.
I too ask for voiture, villa, virement. You try
to throw purported failure in my face but I have been
a good student. I know now, who I am. Be as specific
as you weren’t when you talked about the women of old
I tell him. I stop trying to find sense in ramblings
crafted to make me doubt my right to irreverence.
I give the kindness of a final utterance—I can be old school
if you can. But how
do you plan to be head of a home
propped on the pedestal of my money?
Precision Matters
On 4 November 2018, a Black woman in Georgia, USA, was found dead in the backyard of the home where she had been attending a slumber party with other "football moms" the night before. She was the only woman of colour in attendance.
Take the word beat
give it an entourage
Watch its meaning change
They beat me down as in to strike
I was beat as in to be exhausted
They stared the body down and laughed
we’ll beat this as in to overcome
Your husband did not like those girls
He told you they did not like you
my spirit don’t tek em You insisted
he was wrong didn’t understand
On 4 Nov 2018 when the news reports
began you were bound
to become a lesson for Black girls
be careful who you cling to
Take diacritics in Yoruba
Not a loud friend like an English
homonym but a presence
a shapeshifter I write oko
as in bush or did I mean ọkọ
as in husband or ọkọ́ as in hoe
or òkò as in stone Three of these
could kill One would hide the corpse
What it Means (On Coups)
If you must answer 'Your Excellency', then the process through which you emerge must be excellent - Peter Obi
Until a word is undressed
in the light of lived experience
who really knows what it means
When the President of a democratic
State addresses a spate of coups
across West Africa as “disruption
to democratic process” Says
“it undermines continental stability”
He wants you to believe this
is about military takeover
Straining your eyes
through a View-Master
he pre-loads and provides he says
see Niger see Gabon
and you do You do But do you
also see that beyond the reel
a father passed presidential
office to his son like a pair of cufflinks
56 years of this borrowed treasure
and the only interest to speak
of is the common man’s poverty
If this is not a coup what
do you call a kingmaker
who now wants to be a king
Tells you power is not going
to be served in a restaurant
You must grab it Snatch it
Fight for it Run away with it
At all costs And when the ballot
Boxes grow legs and the vote
counting machines perform Jesus
miracles after the fact
crowning him president select
is this too not a coup
or must he first wear military fatigues
In cotton agbada or khaki a thief
is a thief is a thief are we not tired
of dancing for men who make music
with our pain and call our pain freedom
Tolu Agbelusi is a Nigerian British poet, playwright, artist and lawyer. Author of Locating Strongwoman (2020), Agbelusi’s play, Ilé La Wà, opened to a sold-out audience in 2016 and toured the UK between 2018 – 2019. She has performed internationally, including at Cheltenham Lit Festival, Stanza International Poetry Festival, Lagos International Poetry Festival, Poetry Africa & Manchester Literature Festival. Her work has been published widely including in Aké Review, White Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Brittle Paper and Wildness Journal. A lecturer in Writing & Dramaturgy at London Southbank University, she teaches workshops and guest lectures regularly and has worked collaborated with academics at King’s College University London & Birkbeck University on artistic approaches to understanding academia. Films produced/directed by Agbelusi screened at Toronto Food Film Festival (2022), New York Museum of Food and Drink and Forecast International Festival (2021), and the Zebra Poetry Film Festival (2016).