Stop Talking About World Literature

There is a very healthy desire currently in English departments across the UK to introduce a wider and more diverse range of writers. There are lots of requests on Twitter for example for help and suggestions. Which poets could I include? Beyond the wonderful Malorie Blackman, what authors of colour could I choose as readers? Are there any good short stories by BAME authors out there?

How can I as a white, middle-class teacher make sure that my students encounter someone who looks like them, sounds like them in my classroom? 

How can I ensure that my curriculum is not packed with pale, male, stale authors?

But then I think we fall into a trap. We feel the need to signal the diversity. I don't think that this is "virtue signalling" necessarily -  that would be beyond cringy - it's more that teachers work in a world where we have to "prove" and "evidence" what we do.

So what do we do? 

We create a scheme of work and use labels like "World Poetry" or "Writers from Around the Globe".

It is good, and right and proper that we should explore poetry from different parts of the English speaking world. It is similarly right and proper that we should include a range of diverse voices.

But we need to do this without what is now called "othering" it.  

I am developing an aversion to the following labels when applied to the curriculum: World anything, BAME writers, Diverse, Different, Multi-cultural and "of colour". 

Why?

Because I am becoming uncomfortably aware that these labels - which I have happily used in the past - are a glaring reflection of my white privilege. 

The very fact that I need to put John Agard or Benjamin Zephaniah in a scheme of work with a special label screams to the world that I don't think they are in the same category as William Wordsworth and Charles Dickens. 

Consider for a moment (if you are long enough in the tooth to remember it) the Different Cultures poetry from the AQA which lumped poets from the Indian subcontinent, South Africa, the Caribbean the USA and Glasgow together. 

The poems were fantastic to teach but reflecting in it now, what were we saying with that phrase "Different Cultures"? 

I'm sure the intent was honorable, but it normalised white, middle-class culture and said, "Some people who are not like us write jolly good poems too."

It is tempting to think of the English Language as belonging to to England - we invented it so naturally our writers do it best: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Tyndale, Tennyson... 

English is, well, English isn't it?

Of course, the answer is no. Not any more - not since we took our language with us on the World Domination Tour and imposed it on the so-called British Empire. In places like America, India, Singapore and Nigeria English took root and flowered. These countries are now what we might call "norm-developing" which means that English there is distinct from British English. 

English is also full of words from different parts of the world: ketchup is Cantonese, orange is Spanish and pyjamas are from Hindi and Urdu. I could go on but these are everyday words.

English is a global language which belongs to the world. We need to stop placing ourselves at the centre of it. 

So I am making a plea. 

Let us please stop shuffling non-white, non-British, working class authors into a special place in our curriculum. Give them the respect they deserve by simply teaching them - and their context of course - as the brilliant, sparkling and inspiring wordsmiths that they are. 

Say "NO" to "World Poetry".