Hottentot Speaks

Jenny Mitchell

Doctors stand on either side,
aim knives towards my face,
hold the eyelids back,
scoop out what they see as waste, 
throw it in a bowl.

Free of pain and now the weight of sight,
I sense strange insects on their breath,
the crick and crack uneven.
They skim dull instruments 
across my mouth, 

point down to my neck,
stamp across my chest,
plunge deep inside
to break protective bones,
gouge out veins. 

I hope it means they will not touch 
my breasts again, flopped hollow,
but a hand delves in 
to pluck my heart – once red
pulsating, full. 

The doctors sound confused 
to say it is a normal size.
Bend closer to their work,
keen to slit my gut,
knives clashing at the gentle mound.

They rip that softness out,
hold it to the light,
perplexed again to say my sex is 
Just the same as someone white.
The search begins to find this voice.

The Science

Sara ‘Saartije’ Baartman (ca. 1789 –1815) was an enslaved Southern African woman exhibited in European freak shows under the name Hottentot Venus. After living in poverty for most of her life, she was sold to an animal trainer. On Baartman’s death, her body was dissected by ‘scientists’ keen to validate racial stereotypes, and displayed in a Paris museum. Her brain, genitalia, and skeleton were not buried in her homeland until 2002.

The Poet

Jenny Mitchell is winner of the Aryamati Poetry Prize, the Segora Poetry Prize, a Bread and Roses Poetry Award, the Fosseway Poetry Prize, joint winner of the Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize 2019, and a 2 x Best of the Net Nominee. Published widely, a debut collection, Her Lost Language, is one of 44 Poetry Books for 2019 (Poetry Wales) and a Jhalak Prize #bookwelove Recommendation. A second collection, Map of a Plantation, will be published by Indigo Dreams in April 2021.

Next poem: How to Groom a Fox by Ginny Saunders