This Isn’t The Life by Faith Arkorful
This Isn't The Life
Faith ArkorfulI ought to live. But it’s mine. I hold close this life, reach out and
grasp it as it flutters and press it close to my chest, my heart beating
alongside it, making a new rhythm. I suffer, yes. Yes, I suffer. And I still
love nothing like I love myself. My life, stained orange like the tangerines
I feed the dog. I accept this living, let a slice dissolve on my tongue,
hold both the acid and sweetness. This isn’t the life I sought out to live,
but I thank it, I’ll anoint the day in fragrance and oils, all parts of its soft
and delicate shell. I am here with you, says your life. With my woes,
with my woes, with my woes and all the other parts. If you’re reading
this, it don’t end here. If you’re reading this, it isn’t too late.
SELECTED BY SANNA WANI
Faith is a poet and peer in Toronto. I feel like I grew up as a poet with Faith. Our lives have moved in parallel in many ways and there is a tenderness that surrounds her and her work that is synonymous for me with poetry and community. The very first poetry reading I attended, Faith was reading and I still hold a soft spot in my heart not only for her poetry but for my sheer luck to encounter a poet like Faith in that moment. Her writing is both loving and honest, beautiful and true. This is the last poem of her first book, which I anticipated dearly, and it felt like arriving at the end of a journey together.
ABOUT SANNA WANI
Sanna Wani is a poet, translator and editor in Toronto. She is the author of My Grief, the Sun (House of Anansi Press, 2022) and the cohost and creator of the podcast, Poet Talk.
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SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in The Seventh Town of Ghosts by Faith Arkorful, published by McClelland & Stewart, 2024. (Available direct from McClelland & Stewart • Also on: Amazon • Bookshop)
DESCRIPTION
“Trillium Book Award for Poetry, Finalist
Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, Shortlist
Pat Lowther Memorial Award, Shortlist
CBC Poetry Prize finalist and National Magazine Award honoree Faith Arkorful’s breathtaking, surpassingly thoughtful debut collection of poems.
Hauntings form the canopy of The Seventh Town of Ghosts. These titular towns, centred in yesterdays, tomorrows, and the ongoing, lead to a special kind of singing: songs to the reader who wrestles with existence, the unsure peace within family, and the often-tense interdependence of life.
Here, discernment is ever-present, guided by Faith Arkorful’s insights on not only the ravages of the state and the police upon the Black family and life at large, but also on a kaleidoscope of connections—sisterhood, daughterhood, kinship, solitude, death, romance—and how tenderness, chosen and repeated, can shield against life’s blows.
These towns also enchant, shape-lifting through humour, irony, and the small refractions of language where Arkorful guides us through the fault lines and the undertow, in the form of fruit, island volcanoes, Formula 1, and the expansive hum of life.
This poet-as-sojourner bears careful, caring witness, her attention reserved not only for her living and her dead but hyphenated two-fold by the fragile things and the lasting things. These poems remind us of what contours our mysterious and fleeting presence on Earth.” (Source)
ABOUT FAITH ARKORFUL
Faith Arkorful is a writer of Grenadian and Ghanaian descent. Her work has appeared in GUTS Magazine, Peach Mag, PRISM International, Hobart Pulp, and Canthius Magazine, amongst other places. In 2019 she was a semi-finalist in the 92Y Discovery Poetry Contest and shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. Faith was born in Toronto, where she still resides. (Source)
Read more poems by Faith Arkorful • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Website • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
- This is Day 55 of Poems We Carry, celebrating the 20th anniversary of Read A Little Poetry—a living archive I’ve nurtured for two decades. For this milestone series, I invited writers I deeply admire to share poems that have meant something to them over time.
- Explore other works in pursuit of: acceptance • survival • self love • Or browse the index
- If this work resonates with you, please consider supporting the archive. Thank you for reading.
