Bantam and Brontë

The poetry collection Bantam by Jackie Kay contains several Brontë-related poems:

Bantam
Jackie Kay
Pan MacMillan
ISBN: 9781509863174

Jackie Kay’s first collection as Scottish Makar is a book about the fighting spirit – one, the poet argues, that we need now more than ever. Bantam brings three generations into sharp focus – Kay’s own, her father’s, and his own father’s – to show us how the body holds its own story. Kay shows how old injuries can emerge years later; how we bear and absorb the loss of friends; how we celebrate and welcome new life; and how we how we embody our times, whether we want to or not.

Bantam crosses borders, from Rannoch Moor to the Somme, from Brexit to Brontë country. Who are we? Who might we want to be? These are poems that sing of what connects us, and lament what divides us; poems that send daylight into the dark that threatens to overwhelm us – and could not be more necessary to the times in which we live.

Includes the poems:

Mr. Brontë's Fear of Fire

Maybe Mr Brontë's fear of fire came earlier,
Before TB, night sweats, fever, blood-tinged sputum
Took his wife, entire kin, five daughters and a son,
Till near blind, like Rochester, and alone
He circled the table in the parlour: a lost prayer.
Perhaps Patrick Brontë could see himself like this:
Standing on the edge of a precipice,
Where a man loses everything he loves
And calls that fire, combustible destroyer, oxidizer,
No air for breath, chronic caugh, a fight for air.
(...)

Would Jane Eyre come to the Information Desk?

The speaker voice at Heathrow airport said.
I stood and waited for her to appear, Jane Eyre.
And when she was near, she was shouting:
My name is Bertha; my name is not Jane Eyre
I come from Kingston Jamaica. Look here.
Well, they’d placed handcuffs on her.
Ras! She shook her black hair and stamped
Her feet in anger: I have as much soul as you,
She was shouting to the immigration officer,
And full as much heart. My name is Bertha!
(...)