Beyond Borders Scotland and Dove Tales, the Association of Scottish Writers for Peace, collaborated on the Beyond Writing Competition, aiming to facilitate dialogue and cultural exchange through the creative writing and storytelling.    

The competition consisted of three rounds; Inspirational Women, Creative Peace and Beyond Borders.  

This piece by Pnina Shinebourne won in Round I: Inspirational Women. The competition’s judge, Jean Rafferty of Dove Tales, described the piece: ‘Subtle, witty and exquisitely judged, this superb poem questions what it is to be a woman and celebrates the courage of a woman who dared to defy authority in order to do what she loved. It shimmers in the mind long after first reading. Unforgettable.’ 

Introduction

Jeanne Baret was the first woman to have completed a voyage of circumnavigation of the globe. She joined the French expedition led by admiral Louis-Antoine de Bougainville in 1766 as an assistant to the botanist Philibert Commerson. Since French naval regulations prohibited women being on board ship, she disguised herself as a man. Baret was Commerson’s lover, but was also an accomplished botanist in her own right. Commerson and Baret amassed over six thousand specimens that are incorporated into the French National Herbarium at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle.

Jeanne Baret Sails Around the World 

The first time I told my story

there was a chill on deck

rumours whizzed back and forth

in a flurry, the way fireflies light up

a weary evening with a blink

the sound of his voice

his beardless chin

never pissing with the lads

In this version of my story

I confess I am a eunuch

I tell of capture on high seas

the slave market in Algiers

a hot pepper-water bath

the swift blow of the scalpel.

An ocean of fear now

cascading on deck –

I watch sailors

glance at my thighs

the absence

down my groin.

*

I curl up in a hammock

swaying in motion

crammed between boxes –

optical instruments, a compass,

glass vials and a mesh net

to capture insects.

A furious sea advances

with gale force,

the wrench in my belly

moves to my throat

I am the peasant girl who never smelled the sea

I am the mother who lost her child

I am the woman who straps her breasts to pass as a man on board

In morning light I emerge

I am a herb-woman seduced by travel in search of new plants.

*
From the cabin’s window

I follow a stream

of air bubbles

quiver a moment

then disperse –

a sudden lunge of flippers

slaps the skin of the sea

plunges and rises.

A gleaming

spout of silvery spray

in the wind

stirs the cabin to a marvel –

how through a small window

I can see a most wondrous creature

surging out of the ocean.

*

The seashore this morning

intoxicating. High-flying swifts

lure the eye upwards.

I climb a steep track

covered in brushwood,

a path of untrodden stalks

into the forest,

a tumble of foliage –

slender/pointed/ palmate,

seedpods about to puff,

tree-fern fronds unfurling

over reddish/yellow

bleed of petals –

an outburst of plenty

opens fan-like to the light.

Specimen P 00169376: E Brasilia. 
Rio de janeiro & locis vicinis. Julio. 1767 Commerson. 
 
Botanital Name: Bougainvillea brasiliensis.
Shrubs or small trees, sometimes climbing. 
Leaves large and ovate. Rippling along the edges.
Bracts red, dark pink, or purple.  
Trumpet-shaped flowers, white or yellow-white.
Flowers hermaphrodite. Bisexual.

*

We hang the plants upside down

from our cabin’s overhead beams

I loosen clingy scraps of soil

prune a straggly weed

check for specks of mould.

Your fingers release an insect

tangled in a ruptured seed pod –

an iridescent butterfly

dazzled by the candlelight

takes off in a frenzy.

Dazzling candlelight. Remember

how you took off my clothes?

chemise, petticoat, garters,

scattered on the floor.

You watched me bind my breasts,

put on a sturdy linen shirt

and baggy striped trousers, pin

my hair under a woollen cap.

A splendid transformation,

you said, blowing out the candles.

We undressed each other in the dark.

*

The second time I told it,

I was summoned to the captain’s

grand cabin to clear doubts

overhanging from before –

about my beardless chin,

or why I was never pissing with the men?

While I groped for a story, tears flowing

down my face, the captain was a master of poise,

averting the jolts and bumps of my tale.

In this version I was an orphan girl

fallen into poverty. Disguised

in men’s clothes, I offered my service

as a valet to the botanist, thrilled

to embark on a voyage

around the world. I had to carry on

with the story, refine and embellish

until he had gone soft.

Louis-Antoine de Bougainville: 
How was it possible to discover the woman 
in the indefatigable Baré? 
Already an expert botanist who followed 
his master in all his botanical walks 
amid the frozen mountains of the straits
of Magalhaens, and had even on such
troublesome excursions, carried provisions,
arms and herbals with so much courage
and strength.

*

It is a question of woman, like:

how is it possible to discover

a woman? a robe à la française

perhaps, so daintily layered

with tiers of lace and silky ruffles,

or some gentle pastimes

like needlework or dancing,

or a charming conversation?

If still in doubt ask the natives

who, as the expert in Paris declared

have a highly developed sense of smell,

such that they can distinguish

a man from a woman by that alone.

Louis-Antoine de Bougainville: 
Natives on horseback alighted about fifty yards away. 
Stretched out their arms towards us. 
Seemed much rejoiced at our arrival. 
heir figure is not coarse or disagreeable.
Many are handsome. Left entirely to nature. 
Supplied with food abundant in nutritive juices. They 
piss in a crouched position.1

1 Is this the most natural way of passing water?
If so, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a very poor pisser 
in our style, should have adopted that way. 
He is so prompt to refer us back to Savage Man.

*

And then the story I did not tell:

I am on shore picking shells

at low tide

sailors gather on the beach

someone shouts

let’s inspect the evidence

This is the ravaging space.

Darkness pours on earth.

Louis-Antoine de Bougainville: 
On the 13th, an eclipse of the sun. 
Weather fair. Saw both the moment 
of immersion, and that of emersion.

If I could dive

deep into the ocean

I’d glimpse

a sealife of wonders –

anemones swaying

with the current,

ray-finned suckerfish

latching on turtles,

crabs and parrotfish

grazing on sponges –

finger-shaped /speckled/

crystal goblets/funnels.

I’d reach out my hand

to grasp the darkness,

the silence of water

broken only by the sound

of my breathing

rising and falling.

*
that reed-fringed pond

where wild orchids bloom

a flock of cuckooshrikes

snips the blue silk of space

with pointy wings.

Memory and dream

join at a horizon

freckled with reflected light.