HEROES: Ms Alabi

Ms Alabi of the English department produced a brilliant poem about her heroic grandmother. Check it out:

Woman on a motorbike

Whose motorbike is that? They think they know. Its owner is quite happy though. Full of joy and face aglow, She slowly smiles. A village show.

She gives her motorbike a shake, And laughs until her belly aches. The only other sound's the break, Of dusty wind and birds awake.

Pharisaic meerkats look in deep, But she has promises to keep, Ankara skirt hoisted, a sudden leap.

She demands applause with a loud beep.

Whose motorbike is that? They know her name.

Soaring through the air, a black-crowned crane.

She’s gone as quick as she came.

Unapologetic, wild and unashamed.

Ms Alabi had this to say about her work: This poem is about my grandma. She was born on the 17th August 1936 in a village in Nigeria. Her father said because she was a girl she couldn’t go to school but she was able to read and memorise the bible quicker than her brothers and so was able to convince her father to get an education. Because of her love of reading, she became an English teacher. In the 1960s, she got the rare opportunity to go to France and study French. At the time, she was already a mother to three children and had built her house by hand! When she came back she was able to afford a bicycle that was built for a man and after that she bought her first motorbike. It was very unusual to see a woman at that time ride a motorbike and she was actually the first!