Unpacking Kayo Chingonyi’s “Broomhall”: Memory, Identity, and Belonging

Name: Broomhall by Kayo Chingonyi – Poetry Analysis (IGCSE Literature 0475)
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Description: Summary and key takeaways on Unpacking Kayo Chingonyi’s “Broomhall”: Memory, Identity, and Belonging, covering Introduction The poem Broomhall by

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Jan 15, 2026

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Introduction

The poem Broomhall by British‑Zambian poet Kayo Chingonyi is anchored in a specific place—Broomhall, a district of Sheffield where the poet lived as an undergraduate—and a specific moment outside a lone shop that sells Afro‑Caribbean staples. The speaker’s reflections weave together personal memory, cultural heritage, and the tension between authenticity and artificiality.

Context & Setting

Broomhall, Sheffield: A multicultural neighbourhood with a notable Somali community and a small family‑run shop that imports tamarind balls, Irish moss, and Supermalt.
The shop as a liminal space: The speaker stands outside the shop, creating a metaphorical in‑between that mirrors his sense of partial belonging.

Speaker, Persona, and the Name “Abdi”

The poem opens with the line “I’m Abdi outside the only shop…”.
Rather than a literal self‑identification, the declaration functions as a performative persona, allowing the speaker to experiment with identity.
“Abdi” is an Arabic‑derived name common in Somali communities; its use hints at the poet’s immersion in a Somali‑dominated neighbourhood and underscores the fluidity of Black British identities.

Food as Memory and Contrast

First stanza lists packaged, mass‑produced items (tamarind balls, Irish moss, Supermalt). Their capitalisation draws attention to commercial branding and a sense of artificiality.
Second stanza shifts to fresh, sensory memories: the smell of cassava roasting over coals, tilapia, kapenta, and “meats of questionable provenance”.
The contrast highlights a longing for authentic home‑grown flavors versus the substitutes available in diaspora.

Structural Devices

End‑stopped lines (stanzas 1 and 5) create pauses that emphasize isolation and finality.
Enjambment links stanzas 2‑4, producing a stream‑of‑consciousness flow that mirrors the speaker’s wandering thoughts.
Sound techniques: alliteration (barter and bluff), internal rhyme (bluff and rough), and assonance (stallholders glazed to a deep blue, shameless blackness) intensify emotional resonance.

Core Themes

Belonging vs. Exclusion – The speaker is physically outside the shop and metaphorically outside a “genuine” cultural identity.
Authenticity vs. Artificiality – Packaged imports versus freshly cooked meals illustrate the compromise immigrants make.
Provenance – The word forces readers to consider the origin of food, objects, and ultimately the speaker’s own identity.
Cultural Appropriation – The line about “middle‑class white boys in reggae bands” critiques the ease with which privileged groups adopt Black cultural symbols without bearing the associated struggles.
Grief and Acceptance – The poem’s emotional arc (longing, anger, bargaining, acceptance) loosely mirrors the Kübler‑Ross stages of grief, suggesting a mourning of a lost sense of home.

The Closing Cycle

The poem ends where it began: “I can be Abdi and this shop can be all the home I need.” The repetition of “Abdi” and the delayed appearance of the word “home” signal a tentative, perhaps temporary, resolution.
The cyclical structure invites readers to reflect on what has changed (the speaker’s awareness) and what remains unchanged (the persistent yearning for belonging).

Why the Poem Matters

Broomhall encapsulates the fragmented, multi‑layered experience of Black British diaspora communities. By anchoring abstract ideas of identity in concrete sensory details—food, colour, sound—the poem offers a vivid entry point for anyone grappling with questions of cultural heritage, migration, and the search for home.

Kayo Chingonyi’s Broomhall shows that belonging is never a simple destination; it is a continuous negotiation between memory, place, and the personas we adopt, leaving the reader with both a sense of hope and an awareness of the lingering ache of displacement.

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Why the Poem Matters

*Broomhall* encapsulates the fragmented, multi‑layered experience of Black British diaspora communities. By anchoring abstract ideas of identity in concrete sensory details—food, colour, sound—the poem offers a vivid entry point for anyone grappling with questions of cultural heritage, migration, and the search for home. Kayo Chingonyi’s *Broomhall* shows that belonging is never a simple destination; it is a continuous negotiation between memory, place, and the personas we adopt, leaving the reader with both a sense of hope and an awareness of the lingering ache of displacement.

Helpful resources related to this video

If you want to practice or explore the concepts discussed in the video, these commonly used tools may help.

African Diaspora Poetry Anthology Recommended

Provides a curated collection of poems that explore themes of migration, identity, and belonging, helping readers contextualize Chingonyi's work within a broader literary tradition

Amazon →

Caribbean And African Cooking Cookbook

Offers authentic recipes for dishes like cassava, tamarind balls, and kapenta, allowing readers to experience the flavors that anchor the poem's memories

Amazon →

Online Course On Postcolonial Literature

Teaches critical frameworks for analyzing cultural appropriation and provenance, deepening understanding of the poem's social commentary

Amazon →

Links may be affiliate links. We only include resources that are genuinely relevant to the topic.

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Full Transcript YouTube

So today we're looking at the poem Broomhall,
a poem by Kayo Chingonyi, which is located and
tied to a very specific place and indeed a very
specific time.
This is a great poem and it's one of those that
has really grown on me.
The more I read it, the more I found there to
be a very fascinating tension and complexity at
the heart of the poem, which has got no easy
resolution.
So to begin with, let's listen to the poet
himself reading the poem, performing the poem
and also providing some interesting context
about what inspired its creation.
I mentioned that I would go back a little bit.
And so this is me going back.
This is a poem called Broomhall. Broomhall is
an area of Sheffield where I lived as an
undergraduate in Sheffield, not Broomhall.
I lived very near to it. But Broomhall was fun
because it was where I would go to have
nostalgic moments, mostly around the purchasing
of certain kinds of food, which hadn't caught
on in other districts of Sheffield.
Particularly the student districts, which had
loads of organic vegetable shops, which were
great, but didn't have stuff I wanted, some of
which had never been involved in any natural
process.
I really love drinks that are purple and blehly.
Brumel. In light of what my aunt calls the
Arabic texture of my hair, an abdi outside the
only shop
selling tamarind balls, Irish moss, supermalt
in decent quantities. It is not enough to say I
miss
the smell of cassava roasted over open coals,
expeditions in want of tilapia, capenta,
assorted meats of questionable provenance. How
much, auntie? Barter and bluff and rough hands
of
stallholders glazed to a deep blue, shameless
blackness that is consigned now to another life
before this one of middle-class white boys in
reggae bands who loved roots and culture as if
their love
is enough to know the code that some of us live
and die by. At least these boys who call me abdi
seem to be fond of abdi. They ask why I then
come round no more, what it's like it needs.
And maybe today I can be abdi and this shop can
be all the home I need.
Okay, so let's look at the poem itself. Now, as
always, the purpose of this isn't to dissect it
and find every single poetic
technique. There's going to be a lot here that
I don't talk about. What we're trying to do is
develop an understanding of the poem and a
foundation on which you can build your own
interpretation. And as always, if you hear
something that you disagree with, feel free to
leave a comment and tell me how you understood
this poem differently because I think it's a
fascinating poem and it taps into lots of
different ideas. And I'm not going to suggest
that I'm an expert on them, on all of them, or
perhaps on any of them. So always feel free to
share your ideas.
Now, I think it will be easy to skip over how
this poem begins, but let's just pause on that
for one second. In light of what my aunt calls
the Arabic texture of my hair. So this is a
poem that's tied to a very specific time and
place, but it begins with something else. It
begins with an intimate moment of the poem.
A family shared memory. A family shared memory.
That sounds like perhaps some sort of teasing
or perhaps not even teasing, just something,
one of those comments that a family member
makes. I think this is really important for the
poem because it sort of sets a few ideas
instantly into action. It makes us think about
a few key themes. So the first one is the
question of family. An idea of belonging is the
first thing that we're told about. And secondly,
we have this question of his hair.
In previous videos, I've talked about hair and
how hair is something which is a key element of
racial identity. And especially when it comes
to black identity, one's hair is very important.
So these first couple of lines introduce the
idea of identity and the way that identity is
attributed to the quality of the speaker's hair.
Now, we also get this mention of the Arabic
texture and a connection to an Arabic identity.
And this is going to be really important. And
we'll talk more about that later. In light of
what my aunt calls the Arabic texture of my
hair, I'm Abdi outside the only shop selling.
And then we get a list of products at the shop
selling. Okay. So immediately here, we have the
poet saying, I'm Abdi. And this is worth pausing
on for a second.
Typically, with poetry, we have the poet who
wrote the poem and we have the speaker. And we
use the speaker as a sort of imagined persona
to separate the poet from what they've created.
And sometimes this is really necessary.
Now, in the case of this poem, as we're going
to see, there are a lot of details that
correlate with Kai-u Chingonyi's life. So we
may consider this poem to be somewhat autobiographical.
However, we now get him saying, I'm Abdi. Do we
think that this means that the speaker of the
poem is Abdi? Well, probably not, right?
Because when you are somebody, you don't feel
the need to declare that you are that person.
So something's happening with this line, I'm Abdi.
It feels somewhat performative. It reminds me
of perhaps when you're doing a small play or
role playing, you might assign characters and
say, well, I'm the knight and you're the
princess or whatever.
So in a way, we already get this idea that the
speaker of the poem is assuming the role of Abdi,
is assuming the position of Abdi.
And I think this performative quality of this
phrase, I'm Abdi, raises questions of, you know,
performance and identity and authenticity,
which, as the poem develops, become really
interesting.
So what does it mean to actually be who you are?
I think that's actually one of the key
questions that Chingonyi is asking with his
poem.
We'll discuss the name Abdi in a bit more
detail towards the end of the video.
But the poet is assuming the name Abdi and he
is standing outside the only shop selling tamarind
balls, Irish moss and supermalt in decent
quantities.
We get a selection of mass-produced products
that are associated with Afro-Caribbean
communities.
So tamarind balls, Irish moss and supermalt.
And it's interesting here to note how the
capitalization of the names Irish moss and
supermalt attracts our attention to the fact
that these are products.
These are mass-produced by companies.
And even the tamarind balls, I mean, perhaps
there's a suggestion that they're fresh, but
there seems to be this idea that they're pre-made.
Now, we're going to think about that as the
poem goes on and how that correlates or
contrasts with other foodstuffs that feature in
the poems.
But note here that the poet himself said that
he used to visit these shops because he had
very specific tastes.
As the poet himself says, there's something
artificial about them, which is part of their
appeal.
But this question of artificiality and, again,
authenticity is something to think about as we
go on.
So we're outside a shop that sells these
products, but where exactly are we?
Well, Chingonyi himself explains that we're
in Broomhall, as the title of the poem
suggests.
Broomhall is an area of Sheffield where Chingon
Yee studied at university, where he did his
undergraduate degree.
And in many ways, it is representative of a
number of communities, especially in the Midlands
and the north of England.
Broomhall moved here in the 92.
I remember a massive Jamaican community here,
really buzzing with life, really joyous moments.
Firstly, we'd go on, you know, Warncliffe Road
and then go into Brunswick Road, I think it is.
And then from there, we'd go to the Yasmin's
shop.
And then from Yasmin's, we'd go to Yafais and Yafais
to Broomhall Centre.
And then we're at Brunspring Lane, where the
phone box is, where some young people congregate.
There's a lot of love here, a lot of good
people here.
So, as that clip mentions, and that clip is a
reflection of an immigrant and his experience
as he moved to Brunswick Hall, it mentioned a
number of places where they would typically
spend their time.
And one of them was a food supermarket.
Now, if we go and look for global foods in the
area of Brunswick Hall, Sheffield, we arrive at
this exact place that the video mentions.
And as you can see here, the shop very proudly
declares that it's the first shop in Sheffield
owned by a Yemeni family.
And we can see the stickers in the window of
all the different flags, of all the different
cultures and communities that the shop caters
for.
But it's also worth noting that this is a small
shop, right?
This might be the exact shop that Kayo Chingonyi
is writing about.
And if it's not, it's probably one very similar
to it.
These are small establishments that essentially
import food products that are difficult or
impossible to get hold of in larger supermarkets,
or indeed in the sort of gentrified areas that
Chingonyi wittily refers to in his introduction
to the poem.
So we have a really good idea of where we are
in this first stanza.
But look and pay more attention here.
He's outside the only shop.
The only shop that sells these products in
decent quantities.
And then what we get is a full stop at the end
of the stanza.
Now, we refer to that as an end-stopped line.
And it creates a sort of finality.
Now, as we will see, this isn't the same for
all stanzas in the poem.
So it's something important and something that
we can analyse.
But what feelings do you get from this first stanza?
It's worth reflecting on because I certainly
feel like there is this sense that the poet
creates a sort of feeling of isolation.
The fact that he's outside the shop and not
inside it suggests that he's in this sort of in-between
space.
And that's really important, actually, as a
metaphor for what the poem explores.
And the fact it's the only shop that sells
these products in decent quantities.
It does give this sense of incompleteness.
There's this lacking in the poet's life.
And this is a place that, on the one hand,
allows him to buy these products.
But it also, I think, in this moment where the
poet is sort of stopping and thinking about
things, as we will see in the other stanzas, it
draws our attention to what is lacking.
Okay?
Because it's the only place that has them in
decent quantities.
So pay attention to the way that the poet
creates tone and atmosphere.
And I think he does that very effectively by
placing the character outside the shop and by
using this end-stopped line to give a real
sense of finality and pause for thought.
And indeed, there is a real pause for thought
because what happens next is we go from the
time and place of the moment and we seem to go
on a journey through the poet's memory and
through the poet's thoughts.
So the second stanza begins, it is not enough
to say I miss.
And then we get the things that the poet misses.
Now, that's a fascinating line and I think it's
really important.
Don't skip over that.
The poet here is saying it's not enough to say
that I miss these things.
And again, we get this feeling of incompleteness
and this feeling of dissatisfaction.
There is a longing here.
The poet longs for things and he realizes that
it's not enough to say that he longs for it.
It's not enough to say that he misses these
things.
That doesn't take away the possible pain that
he feels for this longing.
And also what perhaps this line does is refer
to the poem itself.
Perhaps he's almost being self-referential.
A poet can only ever say things.
That's the only tool that's available to the
poet.
And it's a very powerful one.
At its core, just saying he misses things doesn't
resolve anything.
And it's almost as if it's not possible to put
into words exactly what is being missed here.
So you can think that this line is quite self-referential
or it could just be expressed.
expressing the enormity of the feelings that he
has.
So what is it that the poet is missing so much?
Well, it's the smell of cassava roasted over
open coals.
Expeditions in want of tilapia, capenta and assorted
meats of questionable provenance.
So what we get here is another list of food, of
foodstuffs.
What do you notice about the food listed in stanza
two compared to the food listed in stanza one?
I think that's an interesting question.
First of all, what do we get?
We get fresh food.
Okay.
We get cassava or cassava roasting and we get
fish that are being actively sort of hunted or
fished for.
These are fresh items of food that have to go
and be caught or have to be prepared,
which contrasts with the pre-packaged, pre-made
products that are available for sale inside the
shop that he is outside of.
Notice here how the freshness of these items is
brought to life by the use of imagery.
We get the smell of cassava roasting over open
coals.
The details gives us this vivid image of what
it is he can remember.
And that's really important compared to the
somewhat cold listing of brand names of the
supermalt and of the Irish moss in the first stanza.
There is a big difference here between listing
brand names and listing the authentic words,
names that are used to describe these fish.
I mean, kapenta in particular, if you do some
research about kapenta, you will find that it's
a fish that's very commonly associated with Zambia.
So this is the poet really connecting with his
Zambian heritage.
And maybe these are memories that come from his
time being in Zambia.
And this is why I say that this poem is
somewhat, well, it seems to be very autobiographical
because we know that Kaio Chingoni himself is a
British Zambian.
These foods are connected to genuine memories
that he has of home.
And home is a complicated and complex word to
discuss.
And this poem definitely discusses that as well.
But these are specific food items that he
associates with memories and a specific Zambian
identity he has,
which again contrasts with the products that
are listed in stanza one, which are sort of, in
fact, they're more Caribbean than African, you
might say.
Okay, supermol is a sort of associated mostly
with Nigeria.
But it seems that in many ways, the food that
he buys at the shop is a sort of compromise to
what the authentic things that he really wants.
The actual objects of his longing.
These are just sort of substitutes in a way for
what he really wants.
And the idea of being a substitute is quite an
interesting one.
The idea of compromising is quite interesting.
Again, thinking about Abdi and the way that he's
substituting his identity for that of this name
of Abdi.
More of that to come.
What we get at the end of this stanza is the
use of enjamblement.
So instead of having an end-stopped line, like
in stanza one, we go straight into stanza three.
I think sometimes people struggle to talk about
this and analyse it in much detail.
And it does feel strange at first.
But I think it's important to think about why
the poet has written it in this way.
And I think each instant and each poet does it
for different reasons.
What I feel here is what we get is that stanzas
two, three and four seem to sort of blend
together into this journey through the poet's
memory.
What this one does in particular is it makes us
pause on this phrase, the meats of questionable
provenance.
The poet is obviously pointing out that perhaps
when he was in Zambia or when he was at home,
he would eat meats.
And this idea that instead of being prepackaged
and neat and like you'd buy Tesco's or whatever,
this is meat that is, you know, we're not
really sure where it comes from or if it's all
cut from the same animal.
And there's this sort of beautiful, chaotic,
organic energy going on here with these assorted
meats.
But notice how it makes us pause on the word
provenance, which is the beginning of the next
stanza.
And then we get that full stop, which is a form
of caesura.
We pause after the word provenance.
Why would the poet want us to think about this
word provenance?
What does the word provenance mean?
Well, really, it gets to the heart of the poem,
which is thinking about the origin, the source,
the history of ownership of a valued object or
work of art or literature.
And it seems to me that the poet wants us to
think about provenance because this is a poem
about essentially him thinking, where do I come
from?
Where do I belong?
And I think belonging is an even more evocative
idea in this sense.
So I think this use of the word provenance is
an opportunity for the poet to just very discreetly
draw our attention to what's actually going on
here.
Where do these things come from?
It's not just talking about the meat.
I think the poet himself is thinking about what
is my provenance and how does that have an
impact on my identity?
Our journey through the memories continues and
we get a sudden switch here, which is noted by
the use of italics when you see this published.
How much, auntie?
And it's this lovely transition into a sort of
another type of shopping experience.
And we seem to go to a sort of market
environment.
This phrase here, how much, auntie?
Who is this auntie?
Well, it's not the aunt that's mentioned in the
first line of the poem.
I'm fairly sure of that.
What this appears to be is the speaker
remembering how he would communicate with shopkeepers
and stallholders in these markets, asking how
much something costs.
How much, auntie?
And many cultures refer to strangers,
especially strangers who are older than you, as
uncle and auntie, even if you don't know them
at all.
If you look at this fantastic bit of research
that is done by Onar Solmaz on his blog, he's
looked at the world where people refer to non-relatives
as uncle and auntie.
And he's produced this map.
And as you can see, across Africa and Asia,
they're at what he refers to as level three,
which is when total strangers are referred to
as uncle and auntie.
So this is essentially a common term of endearment,
which is typical of where he is from, or at
least where he feels like his heritage is from.
And the use of colloquial language here really
adds something to the poem.
It adds a texture to his memory.
And it feels like what he's saying here is he's
not just missing the food itself.
It's everything that comes with the food.
It's also this feeling of intimacy and
belonging and closeness with the people who
sell the food to him.
How much does it contrast this how much auntie
and the images that it conjures with what we
see in the first stanza of the poet standing
outside a small shop?
Okay, one is sort of cold and screams of
isolation and incompleteness, while the other
one is about belonging and intimacy, the idea
of a complete stranger who is just selling you
some fish or some meat being family.
So food shopping becomes an act of community as
opposed to just a cold transaction.
So this mention of food and then this fragment
of dialogue from the act of shopping itself
takes us into another quite ambiguous but
beautiful moment of the poem.
And notice here how the poet begins to use some
sound devices, which perhaps reflects how impassioned
he is becoming on this topic.
We get the alliterative barter and bluff.
And then we get these sort of internal rhymes,
bluff and rough.
And then we get the assonance of stallholders
glazed to a deep blue, shameless blackness.
So these memories and these experiences via
these sound devices pull us into a sort of
stream of consciousness reflection on what this
represents.
Because this isn't just about food.
It's about what food represents in terms of
identity.
And this gets to, I think, the heart of this
poem.
Barter and bluff and rough hands of stallholders
glazed to a deep blue, shameless blackness.
Blackness.
Okay, so first of all, this seems to be a
recollection of the sort of marketplace
environment.
And notice that the image that's used by the
poet is off the rough hands of the stallholders.
Now, that's quite an interesting image to
choose because it's one that has connotations
of hard work and a difficult life.
The poet isn't trying to romanticize what he
sees as perhaps his home or perhaps another
place where he would feel more belonging.
He has a good idea of what life's like there.
But nevertheless, there's something raw and
authentic about it that he just hasn't got here.
And that's also reflected in this phrase, the
deep blue, shameless blackness.
Now, to me, this is a fascinating line of the
poem because it's somewhat ambiguous and
difficult to understand.
What we certainly get is this powerful two
words, which in many ways are parallels of each
other, the shameless blackness.
So his memories are of a place where his blackness
is also shameless.
But shameless is such a slippery word.
Shameless, obviously, on the one hand, means to
be without shame.
So a place where he hasn't got to feel ashamed
of his blackness.
But I also feel like shameless has an
implication that there should be shame, which
is why I find it such a difficult word to
understand in this context.
And I'd love to hear your ideas.
We often say someone is shameless when they don't
seem to be feeling shame, but they should be.
So what feeling exactly is Kai O Chingonyu
finding here in the heart of his memory of
perhaps Zambia, perhaps a marketplace in Zambia?
But it certainly feels like a certain place of
authenticity where he can be himself.
And I think that's the important thing to take
away here.
Another question we get is why the mention of
the color deep blue?
When I think of deep blue, and the first thing
that sprung to my mind, and I think this is
important, is the sort of color of tarpaulin
that you typically see at sort of street side
markets and food markets, especially in hot
countries where you have to really block out
the sun if you want to sell anything fresh.
So I think of that deep blue color, and I think
of tarpaulin, and I think of perhaps it's sort
of a fragment of a memory.
And I think the deepness of the blue is also
important, right?
It's as if this memory has some depth.
This place has some depth, and by implication,
his life in England, his life in Broomhall Sheffield,
perhaps is a sort of shallow existence.
So this is a really fascinating part of the
poem, and it's hard to understand because in
many ways the syntax breaks down.
So the syntax, meaning the way that the words
are organized to make sort of sense, to make
grammatical sense, or to make sense of the
situation, in this moment it does break down a
little bit.
Look, it says barter and bluff.
Okay, so barter and bluff, we could see a sort
of two verbs.
And then, and rough hands of stallholders.
Okay, so we've slipped there from verbs of bartering
and bluffing to an image, a noun of rough hands
of stallholders glazed to a deep blue shameless
blackness.
Okay, so are there the rough hands that are glazed?
The stallholders themselves are glazed?
And what does glazed mean here?
Is it their expression?
Does it refer to a physical quality they have?
Is it their appearance?
This moment in the poem raises a lot of
questions.
And I think that's intentional.
It feels like we're getting access to a memory
that the poet has that is almost made up of
these fragments and these images.
It seems to be breaking down a little bit
because it's not referring to one specific
moment.
It's referring to a sort of feeling or a
quality that life in Zambia has that is
certainly missing from his life in England.
And to really consolidate that, we get this
final line that all of this, all of these
memories, all of these images are now consigned
to another life.
Now, these words really carry emotional weight
because to consign something is so final.
There's something so certain about consigning.
And actually, when we think of consigned goods,
we think of things being moved or sent
somewhere else, like through the post or
shipped somewhere.
There are consignments, which is actually quite
ironic when you think about what we began with
was this discussion of food products that have
almost certainly been consigned from the
Caribbean or from Africa to England.
He's now thinking about how memories have been
consigned to another life somewhere else.
So the poet brings our attention to both the
geographical distance here, but also some other
distance between his current identity and a
seeming authentic identity, which is out there,
but just out of it.
Out of reach.
Now, in another video, I'm going to talk about
Kumukandha as a collection because this is all
about this feeling of not having access to a
part of one's identity.
So this is actually interacting with some of
the key themes of Kumukandha as a collection.
We get another use of enjamblement and we go
into stanza four, where we move from that
previous life, from another life in Africa,
perhaps in Zambia, to the current one.
And what do we find in this current life?
Well, we get this phrase here.
Middle class white boys in reggae bands.
Middle class white boys in reggae bands, I
think, brings up a conversation about cultural
appropriation.
And there's a lot, there's a lot on the
internet.
There's a lot of discussion about what cultural
appropriation is.
And I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on
this at all.
And I also think it's important when we're
discussing cultural appropriation that we
discuss it in the context of this poem.
But I think the cultural appropriation is
really obvious here.
The middle class white boys are enjoying a
certain part of immigrant culture.
In this case, reggae, which is hugely popular
in the UK and that was brought to the UK by
Caribbean communities that immigrated.
And, you know, we think about the Windrush
generation and there's lots of interesting
information available online about that.
But in the context of this poem, in the context
of what we've read so far, what we immediately
realize is that these middle class white boys
don't pay the same cost that immigrants pay.
We get these intimate feelings of the pain and
longing that the poet, the speaker, feels.
And then we're suddenly, we get this juxtaposition
with the middle class white boys playing reggae.
And we can see immediately that they don't
really pay the same cost that the people whose
culture that represents are paying.
And what it centers around is this idea of
roots and culture.
And Kayo Chingani has very intentionally chosen
this phrase here because roots and culture is
an allusion to Jamaican reggae culture.
This is something that comes up a lot.
And it's something that's mentioned by reggae
artists as a way of reminding people to stay
connected to where they come from, to stay
connected either to their roots in Jamaica or
stay connected to a sort of humble beginnings
and not lose contact of the culture.
So.
the next of feed you know remember your own fan
culture my brother remember your place of
shelter
don't forget the days of bread and water and
remember the days of hunger for you never miss
so we get two songs there one from mickey dread
and the other one from shabba ranks which both
in very
different ways talk about roots and culture
they're both entitled roots and culture and
they're both
about staying connected to where you come from
now just think of how jarring it must be to see
people
in this case middle class white boys but in
truth could be anyone talking about roots and
culture but
not actually having any roots or having any
connection to that culture other than a certain
love and appreciation for it and and this is
why i said it's important that we be careful
when we talk
about cultural appropriation because the poet
is not denying that they love this culture that
they
have a certain love for for playing reggae or
for for what jamaican culture has brought here
so this
isn't an attempt to gatekeep or say that some
people can't like or enjoy certain things he's
pointing out
the stark contrast between the difficulties of
belonging to an immigrant culture and how this
longing and pain can suddenly come to you in a
moment as banal as doing some shopping and when
given this
context we can appreciate how jarring it can be
for those who do not belong to this community
to come
and in many ways exploit this identity for
their own benefit in this case the phrase roots
and culture
literally being something that describes the
attempt to stay connected to the place where
you're from and
again thinking about the emotional journey that
this poem goes on we then here get some more
sound
devices we get internal rhymes or at least a
use of assonance love is enough to know the
code that some
of us live and die by so the use of internal
rhymes here adds a certain emotional weight to
these words
and you notice as well that with the exception
of enough these are all monosyllabic love is
enough to know
the code that some of us live and die by there
seems to be a real anger behind these words and
i think the
quality of them being monosyllabic makes them
feel like they're almost being spat out in disgust
to a
certain extent if not in disgust at least in
indignation so the emotional impact here is
actually within the
techniques being used by chinganyi not just
within the content of the words themselves and
finally we end
the stanza with an end stopped line which we
haven't seen since the first stanza and it
feels like this
is the end point of a series of thoughts that
he's had as he's standing outside the shop okay
so the first
stanza he's outside the shop and then stanzas
two three and four seem to be like i described
earlier
a stream of consciousness reflection on what
does this whole experience mean and why do i
suddenly have
these feelings of longing for something and why
am i feeling this way and this is all the
reasons we
get the memories the specific references to the
food the memories of the market and then the
anger that
comes with seeing how immigrant identities even
an identity that he doesn't belong to himself
remember
he as this poem suggests belongs to a sort of zambian
identity but he can see in the way that caribbean
and specifically jamaican reggae culture is
exploited a certain injustice and he feels a
sort of anger
which is an important part of the emotional
journey of this poem so the end point of this
stream of
consciousness of this of these thoughts and
memories is that he and others live and die by
this code
this feeling of longing it becomes part of who
they are they belong to a culture and yet they
have this
feeling of not belonging of disenvolvement
because it's always at a distance and it's
always somewhat
out of reach and now if i'm honest i think this
live and die by a code is somewhat cliched but
it's
definitely powerful at this part and and this
full stop really brings us back to the moment
we're back
almost outside the shop i can very easily
imagine how this poem could be imagined
visually as a sort of scene
or a short film as we then zoom back and we are
standing outside the shop in broom hall sheffield
and what's going on outside this shop well we
actually make a very interesting discovery here
because the poet tells us in the first stanza
that he is abdi but actually he's being called
abdi by a group
of boys these boys who call me abdi seem to be
fond of abdi so what's actually going on here
because this is
very different from what we originally thought
that was going on and the poet chose to not
tell us
immediately that he's being called abdi he told
us that at first he was calling himself abdi or
he was
assuming the role of abdi let's start with the
name itself abdi is an arabic name that
translates literally
to servant or even slave and i think for this
reason it's been the subject of some debate
within arabic
speaking communities in terms of its use as a
name although it is a very common name and it
is
particularly common within somali communities
now it should be pointed out that i have tried
to do my
research about this but there's not an awful
lot out there so if you have more information
please put
these things in the comments from what i found
is that particularly in somali communities the
name abdi is
very common so it can be commonly used men who
belong to the somali diaspora would refer to
each
other as abdi almost assumingly and furthermore
broom hall is actually a place that has a very
large
somali community so that would actually make
sense so when the final stanza begins at least
these boys
who call me abdi seem to be fond of abdi i
think what's happening here is these are somali
boys who
see the poet as sort of one of them or a member
of their community and so extend the name abdi
to him
which would make sense because they seem to be
fond of abdi of course or alternatively these
are boys
from different cultures and different
communities who are wrongly identifying the
poet to also being
somali either way the poet makes it clear to us
that he's not abdi but he doesn't mind this too
much
seemingly doesn't mind this too much notice
that the word these does quite a lot of heavy
lifting here
these is a demonstrative adjective now this
experience seems to be a friendly one but by
specifying these
boys it draws our attention to perhaps other
boys or other people who use names in a much
much more menacing
and destructive way it also draws our attention
back to the middle class white boys i mean the
word
boys itself gets repeated so we inevitably draw
a comparison with the middle class white boys
in the
reggae band in the earlier stanza chingony is
delicately pointing to the racism present in
society
but instead of it being front and center it
feels like it's constantly there in the
background
these boys seem to be fond of abdi there are
others who aren't as much at all but they're
not spoken
about and they're not actually the subject of
this poem although it is important to think why
the poet
included that feature so the poet is happy to
be abdi because these people seem to like abdi
but just notice there's a really sad irony
going on there that he is happy to be liked for
someone who he isn't
okay this isn't who he is but he doesn't mind
continuing with this performance because it
gives him something
now what does the name abdi give the poet here
that perhaps he's lacking well within the name
abdi we get a sense of warmth and friendliness
and above all even a sense of belonging so abdi
is almost a persona that the speaker can
perform as and feel like he belongs
and notice something else here in this final stanza
that the speaker now lives in leeds and i
believe that chingony also did for a short
while live in leeds so this is another autobiographical
detail and the boys notice his absence
so in many ways again the poet is returning to
another life in this poem he's returning back
to Leeds somewhere where he no longer lives so
there are layers and layers of absence and
longing
going on in this poem Broomhall we know that he
no longer belongs to Broomhall the same way
perhaps
he no longer belongs to Zambia and this
temporary visit can only offer him a temporary
feeling of
belonging and the idea of belonging as you can
tell by how many times I've mentioned it is
really
key to this poem notice how Chingonni is
representing so many different black identities
and how many of
them are present in the poem we have the sort
of East African Somali presence through the
name Abdi
and possibly through these boys we also get the
Zambian traditions in his memories that
represent
sort of southern Africa and then we also have
the influence of Caribbean and the Jamaican
through
the reggae music through the products that are
on sale in the supermarket which also reference
as a more Afro-Caribbean or West African
identity there are so many different black
identities and
there's a certain slippage going on between all
of them and all these expressions of black
British
experience and identity are located and focused
in this place this humble food shop that sells
products
from around the world to these communities and
these identities are forced in many ways to
occupy
one space and so I think we can think of the
shop in Broomhall as a metaphor and it's a
metaphor for the
experience that Chingonni is trying to
communicate it's a feeling of not belonging but
also within this
shared experience of not belonging there is a
sort of identity that's being constructed
through that
and we see that in the camaraderie between
these boys and the name Abdi and the poet's
willingness to
sort of play along with that or to assume that
persona and this is one of the reasons why I
said
this poem really grew on me is because there's
actually something really complicated going on
here
about the question of identity and I think if
you approach this poem from the question of
where do you
think the poet feels like he belongs I think
that's a really complex question and it'll be
far too
simplistic to say this is just him going to the
shops and thinking about Zambia and thinking
about a memory
it's so much more than that and I think the
name Abdi and the use of the name Abdi and this
sort of
character persona that's being created is key
to unlocking that and we see that towards the
end of
the poem with this closing idea notice here
maybe today I can be Abdi so the use of commas
and again
caesura here it highlights a certain
uncertainty we can't read this without pausing
maybe today
and and the fact that it's the word today here
suggests that if this is a solution to his
problem
to his longing that he can pretend to be abdi
it's at best a solution that is temporary it's
only
going to really last the day and notice how chingony
reverts back to monosyllabic words for the
majority of the final two lines of the poem i
can be abdi and this shop can be all the home i
need
i think this is something that chingony does
very effectively is use quite plain and simple
words
to express more complex ideas it's almost this
final moment of the poem is breaking everything
down into
its most simplistic expression and notice here
how the word home is saved until the final line
of
the poem which is fascinating really because we're
thinking about identity we're thinking about
places and spaces and where we feel like we
belong home is naturally what we're talking
about but the
poet suppresses using that word until that
final line and we're told that he does need
home okay he does
feel like he needs a home the the structuring
of those final sentences does not make sense
unless the speaker
of the poem feels a need to have a home
somewhere so maybe the fact the word home comes
so late in the
poem suggests how this is a feeling that's
being suppressed or repressed by him and it's
only here
at the very end after having processed his
feelings that he can sort of accept that he
needs to feel home
somewhere it's something that's lacking in his
life so this return to abdi in the final stanza
after being the first thing
that we hear of at the beginning of the poem
again creates a sort of cyclical structure and
it's not
uncommon for poems to end up where they began
in a sort of cyclical structure. As I've
mentioned in
another video cyclical structures generally
tends to make us reflect on how much has
changed or how
much hasn't changed. So what do you think has
happened by the end of this poem by this return
to being Abdi and how much we've learned in the
meantime of what this really represents? Do you
think this is a hopeful ending? Do you think
this sense of camaraderie and friendliness is
actually a
possible outlet for him to construct a new
identity in which he feels safe and comfortable
and like he
belongs? Or does this whole interaction, does
this whole experience actually half conceal the
truth
that he feels he'll never be at home, that he'll
never truly belong? I think how you see the
ending
of this poem and whether you think it's a
hopeful and optimistic ending or one that's
quite pessimistic
will shape how you see the poem Broomhall as a
whole and if I'm perfectly honest I don't think
they're mutually exclusive. I think what's
wonderfully complex about this poem is that it
can be both
sort of hopeful whilst also expressing a deep
sadness and loss for something that he'll never
quite belong
to, something that is consigned to another life.
Okay so that's been my feelings of Broomhall as
a poem and
like I said it was quite light on poetic
techniques and quite heavy on meaning because I
think this is quite
a deep poem in many ways but it's also quite
gorgeous and the way that it discusses the
complexities of
immigrant identities through experiences and
through images is really fascinating. I also
find the slippage
or the blurring between different expressions
of black immigrant identities be really
fascinating and the humble
international food shop that you'll find in so
many towns and cities in the UK becomes a
symbol for where all these
complexities are brought into sharp focus. And
again I have to go back to it, this all happens
without him ever
stepping foot inside the shop. What kind of
poem would Broomhall be if he actually went
into the shop
instead of always standing at the periphery,
always standing in the margins, always standing
outside the shop. I love this metaphor of the
shop and space,
the symbolic space that it represents. So the
structure of the poem works really nicely and
the use of enjamblement and end-stopped lines
with stanzas needs to be noticed. The first and
last stanzas and how they're end-stopped really
capture this feeling of being isolated or
excluded from something, of being outside
something, whether it's outside a shop
or outside a more genuine or authentic identity,
like the one that's consigned to another life
in Zambia. And then the three stanzas in the
middle and how they flow together through the
use of enjamblement seem to create this stream
of consciousness experience.
And all these memories and ideas, they flow
into one another. And speaking of flowing into
one another, I think it's important to reflect
on how this poem is also an emotional journey.
We begin with just this very matter-of-fact
description of a trip to a shop.
And we go through all these different emotions,
whether it's longing, whether it's anger,
whether it's denial, and so on. And now this
may seem a little bit crazy, just an idea to
end on.
But there is a very influential theory on grief,
which is called the five stages of grief, or
the Kubler-Ross model. And it suggests that
when we lose someone, especially a loved one,
we go through five stages of grief.
We go through denial, anger, bargaining,
depression, and finally, acceptance. Now, some
of these align quite nicely with these,
especially stanza three being bargaining, and
we actually get a memory of him bargaining and
bluffing and bartering in a shop.
That seems to perhaps just be a coincidence,
but that seems to align quite nicely. And I'm
not suggesting that Chingon Yeh wrote this poem
to reflect the five stages of grief.
But it does make me think, and I find it quite
interesting to think about, is this poem a sort
of grief? Is he accepting that a certain part
of him has now died? Another way of thinking
about death is going on to another life.
And that's the exact terminology, that's the
exact phrasing that he used to discuss his life
in Zambia.
And the thing that he misses so much that he
can't put into words. So again, I'm not
suggesting that this poem is written to reflect
the Kubler-Ross model. If you want to believe
that, you can do. Perhaps it is just a
coincidence.
I'm only mentioning that here to reflect on the
emotional journey that Chingon Yeh has gone on
in Broomhall and to make us think about what
is being processed here. What is the poet
trying to work through in Broomhall?
There is something missing to his identity or
there's this feeling of longing or this feeling
of lacking. And that's what makes Broomhall
such a fantastic and rich poem.
And it speaks directly to what Kumukanda as a
collection is all about: cultural identity and
the question of belonging.
I hope you enjoyed Broomhall. Go back, read it
again. It's definitely worth the time to study.
More Kayo Chingon Yeh poetry to follow.