Quote by Grace Nichols: “My mouth is a mango. My tongue is a ripe plum.”

This vivid imagery uses fruit to describe the speaker's mouth and tongue, evoking sweetness, ripeness, and perhaps a sensual, flavorful way of speaking. It suggests a celebration of oral expression, possibly linked to Caribbean cultural traditions of storytelling and the richness of language and communication.

From 'The Fat Black Woman's Poems,' this quote epitomizes Nichols's use of vibrant, sensory language rooted in Caribbean experience. This era saw a flourishing of Black British and Caribbean literature, asserting unique cultural voices and challenging prevailing literary norms in the UK.

Guyanese-British poet who came to international attention with her 1983 debut collection I Is a Long-Memoried Woman, which won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Her work centres Caribbean women's experiences of the Middle Passage, slavery, migration, and belonging. She is one of the foremost Caribbean voices in British literature.