Louise McStravick is a writer, teacher, and proud Brummie. She is a slam winning poet and performer who has headlined at events in London, Birmingham, and Amsterdam including London Literature Festival with Heaux Noire, Beans Rhymes & Life, Streetfest and Words at the Warehouse. She was also part of the very first Apples and Snakes Platform Poets writer development programme, 2020.
She was commissioned to write poems for the Words on Windrush anthology in 2019 with Empoword Slough. This project involved writing poetry based on oral history interviews. As a part of this she was asked read her poetry on BBC Berkshire.
Louise has been published in various places on and offline including, Dear Damsels, Porridge magazine, Tommyrot Zine, Lacuna Lit, Murmaration anthology and an exciting project with Trope publishing that incorporates poetry and photography from London, due to be released in Autumn 2020.
She uses writing to explore the nuances of her mixed-heritage, working-class identity.
How To Make Curry Goat by Louise McStravick is coming July 2020 - pre-orders soon!
Excerpt:
Tanned feet
This tan from Jamaica never washed off
it sticks on skin still salty from floating in warm waters
that hugged each part of this body
that found its way there.
The smell of citrus fruit, fried plantain and smoked wood
still fresh in nostrils that have been cleared of soot and grey air
for the first time
with every breath I smell lime.
This tongue tastes the tang tantalising, it salivates
as it rises to the call
‘hot sauce, sweet sauce’
and asks for both.
I hope that life is not too hard here.
Words formed through lips that have welcomed
guava picked with my father’s hand
straight from the tree they were birthed
and they speak of a different me.
This tan has not faded from feet
That discovered ground
That saw a 12-year-old boy run from a
grandfather who only spoke the language of pain,
whose grandmother’s strength was grown from salt earth,
enough to water a boy for more years than
a mother and a father combined,
Who waved that boy away with a salt-coloured flag.
These tanned feet have grown golden next to
the ghost of a mango tree
where children would meet,
bodies speak the language of freedom
run to catch shrimp in a river that
only runs now in black and white memories.
But my feet see them in colour
in the soft, brown warmth of a tan
nourished with coconut jelly
so it does not fade
that will be topped up again
One day.
Keep an eye out for pre-orders this May...