John Agard - English Girl Eats Her First Mango

English Girl Eats Her First Mango by John Agard
Photo by Leticia Alaniz © 2016
Model Juliana Thompson Alaniz

John Agard meticulously mines the dark history of slavery and later indentured servitude that lies behind Caribbean cultures.  His writing is characteristically eloquent and his choice of words reveal lush stories with a mischievous brand of humor.  The Caribbean verse is brought to life thru a creole, audacious voice original to the vivid, colorful images that John Agard depicts. 

In his poem: ‘English Girl Eats Her First Mango’, Agard surprises his audience with a lyrical, sensual song about an English girl who has never before eaten a mango.  Its verses perfectly describe the colorful personality of the people of the Caribbean.  The language is in a creole, picaresque style reflecting the rhythm of the island dialects.   

In the poem, a boy offers an English girl a mango.  The young girl, who has never before eaten or seen one, asks what she’s supposed to do with it.  How can she begin to eat it?  Should she peel it?  The boy describes to her in vivid, musical words the manner in which the mango can be eaten; and he tells her not to forget the sweetest part of all, the heart.  At one point, the girl is compared to Eve and the apple in paradise.  The girl begins to eat the mango and at the end she is covered in sticky juice.  She asks him for a cloth with which to clean her fingers.  To which he tells her not be so fine, to simply lick her fingers, with which he concludes that what he has just done is “colonization in reverse” by introducing the girl to an important part of his culture thru the mango.  In this poem, it's  impossible not to see, smell, and taste the delicious fruit that comes to symbolize the exchange of cultures.   

          

John Agard

English Girl Eats Her First Mango

a kind of love poem

"If I did tell she

hold this gold

of sundizzy

tonguelicking juicy

mouthwater flow

ripe with love

from the tropics

she woulda tell me

trust you to be

melowdramatic

so I just say

taste this mango

and I watch she hold

the smooth cheeks

of the mango

blushing yellow

and a glow

rush to she own cheeks

and she ask me

what do I do now

just bite into it?

and I was tempted

to tell she

why not be a devil

and eat of the skin

of original sin

but she woulda tell me

trust you to be

mysterious

so I just say

it’s up to you

if you want to peel it

and I watch she feel it

as something precious

then she smile and say

looks delicious

and I tell she

don’t waste sweet words

when sweetness

in your hand

just bite it man

peel it with the teeth

that God give you

or better yet

do like me mother

used to do

and squeeze

till the flesh

turn syrup

nibble a hole

then suck the gold

like bubby

in child mouth

squeeze and tease out

every drop of spice

sounds nice

me friend tell me

and I remind she

that this ain’t

apple core

so don’t forget

the seed

suck that too

the sweetest part

the juice does run

down to your heart

man if you see

the English rose

she face was bliss

down to the pink

of she toes

and when she finish

she smile

and turn to me

lend me your hanky

my fingers

are all sticky

with mango juice

and I had to tell she

what hanky

you talking bout

you don’t know

when you eat mango

you hanky

is your tongue

man just lick

you finger

you call that

culture

lick your finger

you call that

culture

unless you prefer

to call it

colonisation

in reverse"

John Agard is an acclaimed poet, story writer, playwright, and performer born in 1949 in Georgetown, Guyana, an island nestled in the Carribean.  The Carribean islands are the paradise that was fought over by the British, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch colonizers.  European powers established a presence in the Caribbean and brought with them millions of slaves imported from Africa to support the tropical plantation system.  As a result of colonization, there was a mixture of people that were of indigenous, African, and European descent which has come to be known as Creolization.  

John Agard currently resides in The United Kingdom.  In 2012, he was honored with the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.  Other awards and accolades include Casa De las Américas Prize (Cuba) 1982, for Man to Pan, Paul Hamlyn Award for Poetry (1997), British Book Awards (2007) Decibel Writer of the Year (shortlist) for We Brits, among many others.  He has been celebrated for his world famous poem Half Caste, published in a collection in 2005, in which he criticizes the use of the term “half-caste”, a popular British term that affects black and mixed race individuals. 

Written by Leticia Alaniz © 2016 

English Girl Eats Her First Mango 

Published in The Heinemann Book of Caribbean Poetry 1992

Selected by Stewart Brown and Ian McDonald

Heinemann Educational Publishers