This is where we have to begin, [ ] renewal begins in the imagination (Chandler, 1990, p.70).
Ford-Smith introduced to my research a different way to look at stories. She refers to the historical, political and cultural aspect of the idea of embodiment, empowerment and resistance; advocating for the political and the imaginative aesthetics to come together. Her ideas offer a new and exciting dimension to my study in Creative Writing for Personal Development and my own practice in fictional-autobiographical writing. Ford Smith suggests that creating a space for imaginative expression is integral to the emancipatory process. Roger Bromley says that by placing narratives in an imaginative space it initiates ‘an attempt to produce an act of reinscribing, of revising and hybridising the settled hierarchies, by constructing a third space beyond existing, social and cultural binaries’ (Bromley, 2000, p.1). For Ford-Smith the tales
that continued to migrate across generations restores the: ‘centrality of imaginative expression and beauty to the human experience. It is to release the power contained in the images and to create a basis for political action’ (ibid, p.xvi).
Cooper argues that because of the ‘intervention’ of Ford-Smith the members of Sistren were denied the opportunity to delve into the imagination process and to tell their own stories. On the one hand I agree with Cooper that the methodological process of the stories of Lionheart Gal was susceptible to the ‘shaping’ of Ford-Smith being interviewer/editor; however, on the other hand, the collaborative process still enabled the women to connect to the feeling and emotions of their memories and experiences. In the view of Karina Smith the methodology applied by Ford-Smith ‘involved tapping into the lived experience of participants’ (Smith, 2008, p.239). Ford-Smith says: ‘Sometimes somebody speaking would get carried away and leave the parameters of the drawing, pursuing a conflict that she had defined for herself’ (Ford-Smith, 2005, p.xxvvii). The collective members attributed changes in their lives to their involvement in Sistren: ‘Ah learn to read and write…Acting help mefi
understand odder people… Ah play plenty of lead parts. Each one bring out a strength in me’ (ibid, p.215); ‘After we don talk ah get to feel dat di little day to day tings dat happen to we as women, is politics too’ (ibid, p.253); ‘I began to feel a part of the process that I could interfere in and act upon’ (ibid, p.191).
3.10 ‘Take Up’ Lionheart Gal
One of the critical differences between Sistren and my own project was that the participants in my research were able to write their own story and there was also more focus on the participants using fictional and poetic techniques to fictionalise their memories. In fact Everlyn O’Callaghan’s criticism of Lionheart Gal is that the
‘testimonies’ have ‘become to a large extent “fictonalized”’ (O’Callaghan, 1987, p.3). Although Ford-Smith writes extensively about the legacy of the Caribbean tales, which she says are a combination of the real and the imagined, it is more in her fiction and poetry published after Lionheart Gal that she is able to engage fully in this
creative process. Lionheart Gal was a grassroots activist theatre group and therefore the narratives, although not strictly testimonies because the stories changed for performance, were still testifying to something such as being beaten, raped or child labour. Ford-Smith also testifies to the difficulties she experienced growing up. The narratives were a part of a socio-political agenda; they had to work within a particular framework. It is in Ford-Smith’s book of poetry, My Mother’s Last Dance, that the readers are introduced to stories which have not had to ‘sit neatly’ because of ‘predetermined factors’, but have been allowed to ‘restore the centrality of the imaginative expression’ (Ford-Smith, 1986/2005, pp.xxvii, xvi). She connects to subtle feelings and emotions, which offers complexity to her exploration of memories and experiences, as shown in her poem, ‘Self Portrait’:
In the mirror a white woman peers back at me Droopy cheeks squeezing the corners of an old smile Skin loosened under the chin, jawline eroded…
After years of wishing them cuplike, firm and small Like the ones in soft porn American pin-ups
I’ve made peace with my heavy breasts….. Underneath I am nursing a crop of warts, medals from my forties
The stories of the participants in my research project were not necessarily testifying but were engaged with a creative process, which allows, in my view, for a broader exploration of personal memories and experiences, as the stories were not constrained by being part of an explicitly political agenda. However, placing my research in a hair salon/barbershop is drawing from Ford-Smith’s idea of dismantling the notion of ‘art and artist’ as somehow separate from ‘ordinary life’ (Ford-Smith, 1989, p.27). I did not want the participants to feel that creative writing was something unattainable or disconnected to their everyday realities. When Winnicott refers to the creative impulse and Ford-Smith the creative power of rebel consciousness, they are both connecting the process of creativity to the ability to engage with life itself.
I learnt from Sistren the necessity for writers to have another space of discourse that allows them to immerse themselves in the story they are writing, but also to be able to create a distance from their writing. Sistren’s reflexive part seems to belong to Ford- Smith because she is the one who writes the foreword and afterword in Lionheart Gal, and subsequent essays about the experience and process of the collective and
publication. Most of the individual narratives in the book are so caught up in the ordeals of the writers’ lives that there is not the luxury of reflection within the creative process itself. Not having the socio-political constraints of Ford-Smith, I was able to create a project which incorporated the voices and writings of the participants. The fictionalising of personal memories offered the writers a creative process which allowed them to explore their experiences from different perspectives. The workshops were a creative-critical space as I introduced ideas and concepts which helped them to understand and articulate their own creative process. Participants’ ideas were explored in their own creative writing and also in the semi-structured interviews. Similar to
Ford-Smith, the creative writing for the participants - and indeed my own work - provided an invaluable space where we were able to go beyond the limits of discourse, as unconscious material emerged that had previously been unavailable.
Another important influence of Sistren on my project relates to the question of how to facilitate a developmental writing group. An important dimension of Winnicott’s work, and also that of groups like Sistren that embark on the exploration of personal journeys, is the necessity of creating a ‘safe-enough’ space for creativity to take place. For Winnicott the ‘holding’ space is an essential condition both for creativity and for healthy self-development and therefore it is vital for the child or adult to have ‘a sense of trust and confidence’ in the mother or therapist who is facilitating the space
(Winnicott, 1971, pp.40, 138). Ford-Smith uses a maternal metaphor to refer to her own role as ‘facilitator’: ‘the daughter starts life merged with the mother and gradually separates’ (Ford-Smith, 1989, p.33). She equates the group dynamics of Sistren to a family, as their relationships deepen and members ‘replay painful issues based in early childhood’ (ibid). Although Winnicott’s ideas are located in a
therapeutic context, they are still pertinent to a group environment such as Sistren.
Ford-Smith’s commitment to creating a safe space was informative to my own project, as I also wanted to create a space in which the participants felt at ease to explore their memories and experiences. Ford-Smith speaks of the collaborative relationship within the collective, but also highlights her own more complex position within the group: the ‘facilitator must also prepare to withstand the emotional tensions and conflicts that emerge within individuals and groups’ (ibid). She points out that one of the main challenges she faced as the facilitator was the ‘actual reality of
working across racial and class differences, and the enormous commitment that this requires’ (Ford-Smith, 2005, p.297). The critics of Sistren held deep suspicions towards Ford-Smith based on racial and class factors. One of the significant
differences between the projects is that my research is based in a contemporary urban context in Britain, where there is considerably greater movement across
race/class/gender boundaries compared to Jamaica in the 1970s and 80s and therefore in regards to Ford-Smith own racial heritage there is more scope for its complexity to be recognised now than in the newly independent Jamaica.
3.11 Conclusion
Sistren/Lionheart Gal as a case study is pertinent to my research as it offers important insights into how exploring one’s own experience through fictional autobiography helps to challenge socio-political discourses and by doing so helps people to find a voice, in the sense of having a stronger sense of agency to act in the world. It also highlights the challenges of facilitating such a process. Cooper argues that Ford-Smith sustained the power relationships she had originally set out to challenge, but the fact that Cooper also upheld the hierarchical structures she accuses Ford-Smith of doing reflects the magnitude of the challenge to transcend authoritative discourses that define the way we see ourselves and others. In a Winnicottian sense the women’s collective provided a safe-enough holding framework where women could express their feelings about their lives in the context of the socio-political situation in which they found themselves in the new Jamaica. Sistren helped the women not only to find their individual voice but working collectively gave them a voice which could
Sistrenrepresents a movement that shaped and reflected the makings of a black British identity in the UK. It offers a framework that allows me to bring together and engage the various discourses that have shaped my own life-story and subsequently shaped this inquiry. I was able to transpose some of these ideas into my creative writing groups located in a hair salon/barbershop in contemporary Britain, which has a far more fluid crossing of boundaries of race, class, gender and sexuality than was possible in the highly race/class-divided society out of which Sistren grew.
Although at very different points on the spectrum of the postcolonial era, similarities are evident between the projects as both attempt to challenge fixed hegemonic ideals which continue to shape self-perceptions and identities. The decolonization process is not a narrative that was particular to the new independent nations such as Jamaica but a process that was intrinsic to the personal and political journey of a new generation of Britons; the same Britons who participate in my research project.
Ford Smith offers another way to think about my research, such as the role of the body within emancipatory processes. She also emphasises that for genuine change to take place the aesthetic imagination and the socio-political discourses have to come together, which has not been done before in a Creative Writing for Personal
Development context. The aims and aspirations of Sistren were often constricted by political and identity politics of that time, which were so embattled, but I am in the position to take her ideas forward in the context of Brighton 2014.