There is a tapestry of ideas in the telling of stories. This is true in oral tradition and in the colloquial sharing of ideals, in which many roads lead to a place. Which is to say that if anyone has anything important to tell you, they will likely do so in a story; because there is power in the narrative. Power to persuade, to entertain, and to teach. As is an old adage in our community, regardless of our familial experiences or cultural backgrounds, in general, the telling of stories is how we learn, share news, and communicate with the world around us. In some cases, telling stories can change the ways in which we revere objects, things that have become so common place, that their place in history is overshadowed by the ubiquitous.
While explaining the inspiration for Shrimp, my debut collection of poetry, I was challenged to explain its title and in doing so, found the threads for the listener that wove together the quilt that became the idea, the artifact or tool with which I told my story.
The book cover features the continent of Africa with a red push pin in the center of the Cameroonian flag, as one would see on a map of places travelled to. Therein the thread of place, one of my maternal ancestry, and thus, where the story, at least for me begins. My paternal ancestry traces to Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and Britain, which made visceral the history of how the Portuguese initiated the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Leading to the capture and shipping of my ancestor to the New World in chains directly from a place she would have called something completely different, but to the Portuguese, having traversed the Bight of Biafra, where they found large prawns up the Wouri River so named the region Camarão (Portuguese for large prawn or shrimp), better known now as Cameroon.
Shrimp comprises of poems that analyze identity in a post-colonial context, in other words, what I questioned about myself after reading history books and how society labeled me black, which only exists in contrast to white; my true identity having been lost to the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, or beat from the backs of my relatives, who I learned, were sold cheap, because they were prone to die by their owns hands rather than be slaves; therein lives the thread of discovery.
Shrimp are one of the scavengers of the ocean floor, but for me, they are protagonists in a story in which the hero picks up pieces of the past in an effort to put it all back together, to shed light on a darkness that looms, hovers, and is often the only brush used to paint blacks as a people without a cultural past. They’re value juxtaposed the good or bad in a society that’s always in opposition. One in which a child can choose between having angel food cake or devil food cake, the latter so chocolate, so full of brown goodness that to someone it had to bad, an implicit judgment on all those chocolate children who are judged before the world can even know their names.
Growing up there are things that stay with you, that often have a negative connotation and I would be remised if I didn’t admit that I was constantly bullied for being short; having among other things been called a shrimp. Even as an adult, its a weight I have to carry. And the moment I decide to put it down, I am labeled even still, with having a Napoleon complex. So to be real, as a brave African American man who chooses to stand up for himself, I am systematically given the namesake of someone who pillaged Africa for its value, its people, and so again, these things become so ubiquitous that they are left in the subconscious as no big deal, therein lives the thread of resilience.
And so, I use these tools to repaint the picture of who I am and where I come from and give new life to the proverbial. Creating something new from threads thrown to the wind that I kept in a pocket, to be studied again with fresh eyes. To walk in the new clothes of my own choosing.
Jason Vasser-Elong is a poet and essayist who was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, with maternal ancestral roots in Cameroon. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the University of Missouri – St. Louis.
