let us send you a little sumpin' sumpin'...

I've floated this out on Facebook but figured it ought to be made "official": african poetry review (usa) would like to send you an African poetry postcard, just like the one to the right here. Pretty slick little picture and, on the reverse, a few of our favorite lines and probably a few colorful doodles by yours truly.

We'll ship anywhere!! Hell, it's a postcard; even I can afford that.

What do you have to do to get one of these beauties? Just email apr (usa) with your name and mailing address and we'll send it right out!!

Here's all I ask: if you're on Facebook post a picture of yourself with the postcard when it arrives on the apr (usa) Facebook page. If you're not on Facebook maybe you'd just email a picture to us? Get creative with it; invite your friends; have some fun. That's what we're all about here anyway.

But first: get your apr (usa) postcard today!!

the criticaster: "Back in the Benighted Kingdom" by Isobel Dixon

Let's start first with the verse...

"Back in the Benighted Kingdom"

I'm sorry to see
my mosquito bumps fade:
the love bites of a continent,
marks of its hot embrace.

If anything is dark
it's this damp island
with its sluggish days,
its quieter, subtler ways
of drawing blood.

 By Isobel Dixon [author's website]

From A Fold in the Map

Dixon's turn in the poem above is a deft one: conjuring the stereotypes of much of the world when it comes to ones Africa (because, really, does it matter what "Africa" is yours, historically and popularly leveled as it is?) and bouncing off them and into her own benighted kingdom. There's no disavowal, there's no protesting too much (who, after all would believe you? and why foreswear a reality for a fantasy, after all? it is not for the poet to construct a whole world but, instead, as wished, flash a vision); instead there's an embrace and a difference only in adjectives that stands to highlight an alternate reality, her other life, and a way for the poet to bridge two worlds. In this compression and conflation, in this most economical of equations, is real pleasure. And perhaps a glimmer of understanding.

An editorial aside about the criticaster: apr (usa) has been much more "news" than "views" of late, particularly with the move into Facebook. To begin to tip the balance back a bit I'll be publishing an occasional reflection on a recently read poem. Dixon's is the first. But won't be the last. And for those of you curious about the name, it's not accidental...

more "recent" reviews found elsewhere...

As I noted in an earlier similar post, the notion of "recent" is always a relative term...

Though I've drifted away from the blog a bit over the last... year or more (!!) -- spending much more time on our Facebook page (more on that to come shortly) --  I have continued to search for, track, and bookmark whatever reviews of African poetry collections I can find online.

To wit, a small sampling. Hopefully giving both the collections and the outlets that still see fit (thank god!!) to publish reviews of poetry a little bit more visibility.

• Bodyhood by Leon de Kock |  review by Rustum Kozein
• Burnt Offering by Joan Metelerkamp | review by Christy Weyer
• Comrade by Taiye Tuakli-Wosornu | review byTolu Ogunlesi
• Difficult to Explain by Finuala Dowling | review by Moira Richards
• For the Love of Flight by Lola Shoneyin | review by James Gibbs
• Fourth Child by Megan Hall | review by Grace Kim
• Golden Tribute by Femi Olaoba | review by Oyindamola Olofinlua
• Halfborn Woman by Colleen Higgs | review by Christy Weyer
• Heart Songs by Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo | review by Temitayo Olofinlua
• Holding Pattern: Poems and Drawings by Gus Ferguson | review by Moira Lovell
• I Am Memory by Jumoke Verissimo | review by Dami Ajayi
• Light and After by Kobus Moolman | review by Janet van Eeden
• Light and After by Kobus Moolman | review by Liesl Jobson
• Naked Soles by Gbemisola Adeoti | review by Oyindamola Olofinlua
• Non-Dog by Harry Owen | review by Janet van Eeden
• Notes from the Middle World by Breyten Breytenbach | review by Rustum Kozein
• Oorblyfsel / Voiceover by Breyten Breytenbach | review by Riaan Oppelt with Lisa Visser
• Pearls of the Mangrove by Obari Gomba | review by Arthur Anyaduba
• State of the Nations: Contemporary Zimbabwean Poetry by Tinashe Mushakavanhu & David Nettleingham (eds.) | review by Memory Chirere
• The Everyday Wife by Phillippa Yaa de Villiers | review by Janet van Eeden
• The Word Is an Egg by Niyi Osundare | review by Oyindamola Olofinlua
• These Are the Lies I Told You by Kerry Hammerton | review by Arja Salafranca

I have distressingly few of the above currently in queue to review but thanks to these reviews (and the mighty reviewers) I can, at the very least, pretend familiarity with them all.

Still, that's twenty-two reviews there and it ought to keep you busy for some time!!

By all means, link, read, comment (here and there, for that matter) and... if there are other reviews floating around do send them along so I can start compiling the next batch for posting.

this time, it's a kenyan call out...

The Kenya-based journal Kwani? just sent out a call for poetry submissions for it's sixth issue, around the theme "The Kenya I Know." Here's the call:

Following multiple conversations on "The Kenya We Want," and our recent "The Kenya I Live In" short story competition, Kwani Trust would like to invite writers to submit poems that explore the multiple realities we live in, the moments that define our public and personal lives, be they located in our parents, our childhood; high school and/or college, our adventures accessing and conquering (or not) workplaces, what parenthood begins to look like; the things that change, the things that remain the same.

We're looking for disarming poems written in song and dance, in colour or in black and white, in noise and silence, innocence or guilt – truths and lies as told by a new generation, spurred by new imaginations, revealed by new narratives and expressions.

Selected poems will appear in the upcoming Kwani? 06.

Submission Guidelines for poems on "The Kenya I Know."

• Up to 5 poems per submission
• Kwani? 06 is about a certain generation, and therefore only invites entries from writers born after September 12th, 1978
• The work can be in English, Kiswahili or Sheng. Kwani accepts submissions which have been previously published in magazines and other spaces, but not in a full-length book collection, unless solicited
• Do not make multiple submissions, or forward edits of your submission. Only shortlisted writers will be contacted
• Authors of accepted work will receive two thousand shillings
• Please send submissions by email, attached as a Word doc (not docx) to mypoetrykwani@gmail.com or by post as a typescript (no handwritten scripts please) to PO Box 2895-00100, Nairobi, Kenya

Formatting Guidelines

• On the coversheet: indicate the name of author, contact address, telephone number, date of birth and email address
• Use plain fonts (e.g. Times New Roman, Garamond, Arial, Calibri) at least 12 point
• Only one poem per page
• Include poem title, page number, and name of author on every page

Submission Deadline: 26 March 2010

The call is also posted on the Kwani website, as you might imagine...

This is a tremendous opportunity and more generally Kwani? is just one of those marvelous productions that's well worth reading and subscribing to (or otherwise supporting) even if you're now, officially, considered an old-fart by them.

chris abani on the big stage

The poet and novelist Chris Abani has given at least two TED talks which are, I think, worth watching. Little directly related to poetry in either -- though he concludes both with a reading/recitation (of a poem by Lucille Clifton in one and Yusef Komunkakaa in the other) -- but if we take all the world to be the stuff of poetry, then "relevance" is not an issue for us here...

These are interesting pieces by one of the younger, and in many respects, "anointed" voices. He reminds us that "there are no essential Africas," of the distinction between news and narrative, and, I think, that there is space and time and something worthwhile about listening. And reflection.

You also, I think, have to view these with an awareness of the audience he is addressing.

Like many, my first introduction to Abani was through his novel Graceland and only later (though not too much later) did I discover his poetry. It's a poetry I'm not entirely sure what to make of; perhaps because I've only read each volume once, and then in the heat and rush and bustle of the graduate school experience where I was very much a one man extractive industry.

I have to revisit the poetry. Though if pressed I would, for the moment, say that his novella, Becoming Abigal, is his strongest, most searing work.

Abani's website seems more focused on promotion than distribution, so I'd suggest looking elsewhere for his work. There's an entertaining interview on Poetix and an extended write-up on Abani and his work which includes links to a number of his poems on the Poetry Foundation website.