Poem of the Week: ‘In a White Town’ by Daljit Nagra
3 June 2024
Our Poem of the Week is Daljit Nagra’s ‘In a White Town’, from his witty, intelligent and mischievous debut collection Look We Have Coming to Dover!
In a White Town
She never looked like other boys’ mums.
No one ever looked without looking again
at the pink kameez and balloon’d bottoms,
mustard oiled trail of hair, brocaded pink
sandals and the smell of curry. That’s why
I’d bin the letters about Parents’ Evenings,
why I’d police the noise of her holy songs,
check the net curtains were hugging the edges,
lavender spray the hallway when someone knocked,
pluck all the gold top milk from its crate
in case the mickey-takers would later disclose it,
never confessing my parents’ weird names
or the code of our address when I was licked
by Skin-heads (by a toilet seat)
desperate to flush out the enemy within.
I would have felt more at home had she hidden
that illiterate body, bumping noisily into women
at the market, bulging into its drama’d gossip,
for homework – in the public library with my mates,
she’d call, scratching on the windows. Scratching again
until later, her red face would be in my red face,
two of us alone, I’d strain on my poor Punjabi,
she’d laugh and say I was a gora, I’d only be freed
by a bride from India who would double as her saathi.
Nowadays, when I visit, when she hovers upward,
hobbling towards me to kiss my forehead
as she once used to, I wish I could fall forward.
Copyright © Daljit Nagra, 2007. Used by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd. All rights reserved.
‘In a White Town’ by Daljit Nagra is from Look We Have Coming to Dover!
About the Author
Daljit Nagra was born into a working class, Sikh family in London. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London, Chair of the Royal Society of Literature, on the Council of the Society of Authors, Advisor to Poetry By Heart, and presents the weekly Poetry Extra on Radio 4 Extra.
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