I found a poem on Ginger Beer by Guyanese poet Dmitri Allicock. It inspired me to write a poem on the beer:
My background leads me to associate ginger beer with Christmas
In our household there was very strong ginger beer made from scratch at Christmastime
To enjoy with other food as a snack
The ginger beer was not alcoholic
But burned the mouth like pepper sauce.
I learned never to eat ginger beer with Guyanese black cake
For that combination leads to a lot of bathroom trips.
Now ginger beer is available as a carbonated beverage in stores
And the advertisements for the bottled ginger beer show the drink with black cake
The restriction to never eat with black cake no longer applies.
The commercial ginger beer is much weaker than homemade.
Inside Fahmeena Odetta's Head 
Leave a comment