Click image for a larger viewThe Royal Albert Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter
Accession Number: 72/1964
Victoria Adukwei Bulley
Victoria Adukwei Bulley is a British-born poet, writer and filmmaker of Ghanaian heritage. Born and raised in Essex, England, she is an alumna of the Barbican Young Poets, Octavia Poetry Collective and The Complete Works. Also a filmmaker, Bulley directed MOTHER TONGUES, an intergenerational poetry, film and translation project exploring the indigenous linguistic heritages of poets of colour. She is the winner of an Eric Gregory award and has held residencies internationally in the US and Brazil. Her debut poetry collection, Quiet, published by Faber in 2022, circles around ideas of black interiority, intimacy and selfhood, and has been described as a ‘poetics of balance’. The book is set for North American release in 2023 with Knopf.
Sugar Tongues
Light work, sweet work, ours is.
Monogrammed, polished to a gloss
finish. All we do is pick and drop.
925 is our hallmark, branded.
We have never seen tarnation
have never known famishment. Forgive us
these astonishments, the fineries we keep.
Our provenance is assured. Our terroir
is insured. Our terror guaranteed, and
should ever our pretty penny drop,
our compensation will be granted.
How treacle, how cocoa, how cream tea of us.
The only thing we traffic in is the sweet life,
the business of good taste, which can’t be bought
but, thankfully, can be stolen.