What spurned my career then is the same as now – word of mouth. I started reading in community centres and theatres around the country. Word of Mouth. In 1987, when I was twenty, my poetry was accepted by Bogle L’Ouverture Publications in London. They were the first to publish Linton Kwesi Johnson in Voices of the Living and the Dead (1974) and Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972). The publishers, Jessica and Eric Huntley, cared for me as parents would a rebellious child about to go off to university. Tender Fingers in a Clenched Fist was published and a certain kind of national recognition ensued.

‘Integrate is not a Northern Compliment: “’n’t ’e great.”’

Among others, the Caribbean poets in England laid the ground for me. Benjamin published his Pen Rhythm chapbook in 1980. Linton Kwesi Johnson, Benjamin Zephaniah, John Agard, Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, Grace Nichols, Valerie Bloom, James Berry, and more. Linton has always been a royal presence as a man and reggae artist. Benjamin has always been the mature prince. Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, the queen. I read with them throughout the country. They introduced me. They created space for me. In turn I brought many of them to Manchester.

In the 1980s most black poets had Caribbean accents. It would be some twenty years before second-generation African voices came through. I knew it then. The main Black British voices in poetry were Jackie Kay, Maud Sulter, Patience Agbabi, and myself. Is it a coincidence that three of them were either adopted or fostered and two of them were mixed race?

“I’m a poet.”
“But what does a poet do?” said the airhostess.
Saying “write” seemed churlish. “I do readings around the world,” I said.
She looked down at her palms.
“Will you read mine?” she said.’

In 1988, on publication of Tender Fingers, the Guardian ran a double-page article by Kate Muir: Lemn Sissay ‘has success printed across his forehead.’ But ‘Success’ was a spark in a match factory. I was relative to no one. What was success if I had no one to prove myself for or against?

Any ‘Success’ printed across my forehead would only compound the unfathomable depths of loss. I could not release myself from this conundrum. I wanted to. I realised I would have to wait years for my friends to understand the importance of what they naturally took for granted. I would have to wait for them to have children, or for them to lose someone, before they felt a morsel of what I did. Thankfully some of them remember me saying as much.

‘“Famous poet” is an oxymoron.’