He’s not another squirrel
Ousted from your poplars,
It’s the endless cyclones,
Earthquakes, volcanoes,
Floods, mud and dust that
Drafted him here; define
Them warmly, how could
Your economic émigré queue
At your job centres day after
Day? If you must define us
Gently, how do you hope
To see the tales we bear
When you refuse to hear
The whispers we share? (203)“The Seashells of Bridlington North Beach” provides another remarkable illustration of
the implications of exile and its import with transnational discourse. It raises questions
about the contradictions and paradoxes that lie at the heart of such identity especially
when it is exponentially imposed on an individual by the establishment. The affirmation
of rights in the country of destination notwithstanding, the country of origin continues to
beckon for attention in a manner that puts lie to the attraction of dual or multiple
nationalities. It is at this point that the harrowing circumstances of that induced relocation
haunt the exile, and bring other pleasant reminders of home into an entangled
conjunction. Above all, it more often than not dawns on one that for all its hostility, the
country of origin as home remains particularly more important for the exile than the
benefits that the teleology of transnationalism can offer. Usually in such circumstances
Africa becomes a metaphor for an invaluable possession whose intimacy is lost and is
thus continually desired. Yet the process of that loss and the knowledge that the other
option against that loss was the readiness to lose one’s own life can be sobering.
To the activists and intellectuals who have suffered imprisonment for challenging the
repressive status quo foisted by the state, the tendency is to consider home after escaping
such alienation as a place that abnegates personal freedom. Any reminder of this
experience is swiftly protested as in the poem: “She hates anything caged, particularly,/
Fish caged in glass boxes, ponds, whatever;/ ‘, ‘Reminds me of prison and slavery,’ she
said”. Mercy Angela, the lady to whom the poem is dedicated displays child-like
excitement over the freedom found at Bridlington Beach, where she plays and allows “the