Bitter Leaf: Sierra Leonean Foodways I
by Mariam Fofana
Grin Wata
green and bitter,
like rainwater trapped too long
in the pleats of a roof
pluck them from their stems
pile them high
a small hill of green
palm oil catches at their wrists
an amber
honey darkening toward rust
it gathers in the lines of their skin
settles beneath fingernails
the mortar sits low in the yard
its mouth worn smooth
from decades of receiving
smoke drifts from another fire
a baby cries somewhere beyond the fence
the first strike lands.
a wet sound
leaf against wood
fiber against fiber
again
the pestle rises.
again
the pestle falls.
again
thud.
the leaves turn a malevolent green slowly
the deep green of riverbanks,
of moss gripping stone,
the leaves soften
release their bitterness
release their shape
their edges disappear first
then their veins
the pile caves inward
gets denser
when the work is finished,
the leaves rest at the bottom of the mortar,
dark as wet earth,
holding the last light of day
Artist’s Statement for Sierra Leonean Foodways Poetry Collection:
Foodways, a term coined by folklorist John W. Bennett in 1942, describes the cultural, social, and historical practices through which food is produced, prepared, shared, and remembered. I approach foodways as a repository of knowledge through which histories of labor are taken from one generation to the next. In this decadent poetry collection, I use poetry to investigate four Sierra Leonean dishes—bitter leaf, groundnut soup, fry fry, and jollof rice—as distinct epistemologies. The culinary process of each dish thus determines the formal architecture of the poem itself. I attend to the distinct practice of remembering, where the movements of the hand, the sounds of the kitchen, and the textures of ingredients preserve forms of knowledge that evade written form. In whisking together Krio and English alongside experimental typography and audio, the project expands the poem beyond the page and constructs a multimodal experience by which sound, voice, and food are intertwined.
Mariam Fofana is a Sierra Leonean & junior at Northwestern University studying Anthropology, History, and Chinese. Her research work zeroes in on West African diasporic life, with a particular focus on migration, memory, and the ways people rebuild belonging across borders. She is especially interested in using storytelling as an archive of the experiences that comprise the Black experience. The Sierra Leonean Foodways Poetry Collection is her Poda-Poda Stories Internship Capstone Project.
Groundnut Soup: Sierra Leonean Foodways II
by Mariam Fofana
Insay Mata Odo Bɛlɛ
Before the basket opened
before daylight split the weave apart
before her fingers descended among us
smelling faintly of smoke and onions
we felt her footsteps.
Inside the sack
the old granat warned us constantly.
Do not trust soft hands.
The mortar forgets every name it eats.
Still, when the basket opened
we rolled toward the light instinctively.
This is the terrible thing:
we wanted to become useful.
The chosen were gathered in her lappa
against the slope of her stomach.
We listened to the unchosen exhale below us
with something dangerously close to relief.
Outside, the kitchen had already begun its ruckus.
Pepper waiting in a chipped blue bowl.
Fish split open along the spine.
Palm oil shining sinisterly in afternoon heat.
The mortar was wider than we imagined.
Its bowl, haunted by the ghosts of green leaves,
pepper seeds tucked into its grain,
the fine ochre dust
of granat who had already learned
what we were about to transform into.
The first blow did not hurt.
We were stunned.
Then commenced the splitting.
Bodies opening.
Skins tearing away from flesh.
Around me
my people collapsed into fragments.
Some prayed.
Some cursed the woman.
One granat beside me kept repeating:
we were meant for planting
we were meant for planting
we were,
until the pestle interrupted him permanently.
After a while
even grief became difficult to organize.
We entered one another.
Oil bled from us slowly.
The woman added water.
We loosened.
The last stubborn pieces of ourselves
drifting apart.
Then pepper
red heat searching every fracture,
finding us where the pestle had left us open
Then salt.
There went our certainty.
We spread ourselves
through broth,
through spoon
The children ate us
without ever knowing.
Artist’s Statement for Sierra Leonean Foodways Poetry Collection:
Foodways, a term coined by folklorist John W. Bennett in 1942, describes the cultural, social, and historical practices through which food is produced, prepared, shared, and remembered. I approach foodways as a repository of knowledge through which histories of labor are taken from one generation to the next. In this decadent poetry collection, I use poetry to investigate four Sierra Leonean dishes—bitter leaf, groundnut soup, fry fry, and jollof rice—as distinct epistemologies. The culinary process of each dish thus determines the formal architecture of the poem itself. I attend to the distinct practice of remembering, where the movements of the hand, the sounds of the kitchen, and the textures of ingredients preserve forms of knowledge that evade written form. In whisking together Krio and English alongside experimental typography and audio, the project expands the poem beyond the page and constructs a multimodal experience by which sound, voice, and food are intertwined.
Mariam Fofana is a Sierra Leonean & junior at Northwestern University studying Anthropology, History, and Chinese. Her research work zeroes in on West African diasporic life, with a particular focus on migration, memory, and the ways people rebuild belonging across borders. She is especially interested in using storytelling as an archive of the experiences that comprise the Black experience. The Sierra Leonean Foodways Poetry Collection is her Poda-Poda Stories Internship Capstone Project.
Fry Fry: Sierra Leonean Foodways III
by Mariam Fofana
Smɔl Mɔni
ssssssssssss
tch
skin tightening instantly
krrk
krrsh
oil climbing scales
in violent syllables
Plantain next
Soft yellow crescent moons
Plunk
cha
chhha
cha
their sweetness darkening by degrees
Knife knocking board
tk–tk–tk–
clink
click
clink
Somebody sucking salt
from thumbprint.
Traffic coughing loose down the road
PAH
brrrr
skkkk
And still
the oil keeps talking
ssssssssssssssssssssssss
through basin
through the child hovering nearby
mm
ah
hot
ah
fishbone cracking
between molars
krk.
Plantain collapsing on the tongue
shhhh
grease glossing every vowel
smolmɔni
smolmɔni
smɔl
Smoke gathers low
Voices braid
saltvoice
coinvoice
pressing
crowding dusk
into something chewable.
krrsh
tk
ssssss
through the crackle–crackle–crackle
of fishskin
until even the air
holds its breath
over the oil's long
metallic
ssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
waiting
to hear
what hunger
sounds like
when it begins
to brown
Artist’s Statement for Sierra Leonean Foodways Poetry Collection:
Foodways, a term coined by folklorist John W. Bennett in 1942, describes the cultural, social, and historical practices through which food is produced, prepared, shared, and remembered. I approach foodways as a repository of knowledge through which histories of labor are taken from one generation to the next. In this decadent poetry collection, I use poetry to investigate four Sierra Leonean dishes—bitter leaf, groundnut soup, fry fry, and jollof rice—as distinct epistemologies. The culinary process of each dish thus determines the formal architecture of the poem itself. I attend to the distinct practice of remembering, where the movements of the hand, the sounds of the kitchen, and the textures of ingredients preserve forms of knowledge that evade written form. In whisking together Krio and English alongside experimental typography and audio, the project expands the poem beyond the page and constructs a multimodal experience by which sound, voice, and food are intertwined.
Mariam Fofana is a Sierra Leonean & junior at Northwestern University studying Anthropology, History, and Chinese. Her research work zeroes in on West African diasporic life, with a particular focus on migration, memory, and the ways people rebuild belonging across borders. She is especially interested in using storytelling as an archive of the experiences that comprise the Black experience. The Sierra Leonean Foodways Poetry Collection is her Poda-Poda Stories Internship Capstone Project.
Jollof Rice: Sierra Leonean Foodways IV
by Mariam Fofana
E De Kam Ɔp
the absorption of water by a seed
grain
grain
grain
water
enters
through a seam
too small
for the eye.
Not a crack.
Not yet.
An undoing
inside the hull.
A swelling.
Within the husk,
an embryo
no larger than a thumbnail clipping
waits
beside its inheritance
starch coating a future.
The water continues.
Persistent.
cell by cell
Nothing visible.
Still
everything changing.
endosperm
is sugar
is possibility
Then
splits.
Not dramatically.
The way coastlines split from maps.
The way daughters leave.
Silent enough
that only water notices.
radicle
first.
Root.
White as tendon.
White as scar tissue.
It turns downward.
Always downward.
Toward pressure.
one root hair
then another
another
another
touching soil
releasing
touching again
assembling a geography
through repeated contact.
By now
the grain has begun consuming itself.
The starch reserve shrinking.
Its inheritance metabolized
For distance.
The first blade appears.
Green.
Sharp enough
to divide earth from air.
Sharp enough
to insist on elsewhere.
And suddenly
a field.
Tens of thousands.
Root systems crossing invisibly beneath water.
Each grain descended
from another grain
that crossed.
River.
Border.
Ocean.
Steam gathers beneath a pot lid.
Tomatoes burst.
Pepper shrivels
The grains lengthen.
Separate.
Beside one another.
The way families gather photographs.
The way cities gather accents.
The way my mother, fixated on that green, white, and blue
washes rice three times
before cooking
because someone once showed her
how.
Water clouds.
Clear.
Then clouds again.
At the bottom of the bowl,
the grains gleam
like small sleeping futures
Artist’s Statement for Sierra Leonean Foodways Poetry Collection:
Foodways, a term coined by folklorist John W. Bennett in 1942, describes the cultural, social, and historical practices through which food is produced, prepared, shared, and remembered. I approach foodways as a repository of knowledge through which histories of labor are taken from one generation to the next. In this decadent poetry collection, I use poetry to investigate four Sierra Leonean dishes—bitter leaf, groundnut soup, fry fry, and jollof rice—as distinct epistemologies. The culinary process of each dish thus determines the formal architecture of the poem itself. I attend to the distinct practice of remembering, where the movements of the hand, the sounds of the kitchen, and the textures of ingredients preserve forms of knowledge that evade written form. In whisking together Krio and English alongside experimental typography and audio, the project expands the poem beyond the page and constructs a multimodal experience by which sound, voice, and food are intertwined.
Mariam Fofana is a Sierra Leonean & junior at Northwestern University studying Anthropology, History, and Chinese. Her research work zeroes in on West African diasporic life, with a particular focus on migration, memory, and the ways people rebuild belonging across borders. She is especially interested in using storytelling as an archive of the experiences that comprise the Black experience. The Sierra Leonean Foodways Poetry Collection is her Poda-Poda Stories Internship Capstone Project.
Mrs. Keru’s Sunday
by Nadia Maddy
The stillness of Sunday
smothers my light-heartedness.
One helper drifts in, for half a day.
Neighbours’ doors locked-tight.
From the kitchen, the compound yawns hollow.
The desolateness of Sunday deepens.
A deep South evangelist’s voice
Blares through the streets,
Singing of love and miracles.
My mother mumbles and curses.
Mrs. Keru’s Sunday has begun.
Broken sleep, restless,
The desolateness of Sunday thickens.
The smell of fried eggs and fresh bread
Forces the house to stir.
7 a.m. mass is finished,
8 a.m. mass begins,
9 a.m. mass awaits.
Breakfast determines the church visit.
Hymns drift through windows, infecting our urge to leave.
The desolateness of Sunday clings.
Grandpa sits, immaculate, at his spread.
Shirt and tie.
Bicycle haircut.
Cufflinks gleam.
Grandma sips her large tea, her plate cleared.
My four aunties’ clothes betray, if they’ve been to mass or will.
The desolateness of Sunday steadies.
Front seat, white leather.
I watch church hats stare me down.
The Yellow Cadillac shimmers in the sun.
Billy Graham’s ‘He died for me’ fades,
Drowned by freshly starched colourful dresses,
suits, shiny shoes ambling to
Catholic and Methodist heaven.
My purgatory confusion.
The priest drones, hollow with gloom.
At communion I watch heels and hats bounce,
Humility on display.
I wonder if my wicked soul stands a chance.
The desolateness of Sunday steadies.
Mrs. Kerus’ house stands.
symmetrical on the long street.
I wonder how large her waist is, her headwraps colour.
Her secluded husband sits.
She saunters, humming, feeding him.
I sit in the veranda with Billy Graham’s melancholy.
Mundanity will leave my body.
My worthless soul will ignite tomorrow.
The streets will be filled with kerosene calls,
Women cursing men,
Traders banging the gate,
Neighbours bringing gossip,
Everyone demanding the dog be tied up.
I will laugh again.
Nadia Maddy is a London-based writer and producer of Sierra Leonean descent, renowned for her storytelling that bridges cultures and ignites imaginations. Her work spans novels, documentaries, and screenplays, reflecting a deep commitment to amplifying diverse voices and exploring the transformative power of storytelling.