To read my review of Silence Would Be Treason: Last Writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa edited by Helen Fallon, Íde Corley and Laurence Cox, published jointly by CODESRIA and Daraja Press. Click this link African Writers Trust. Thank you.
About MKB
Mildred Kiconco Barya is a North Carolina-based writer, educator, and poet of East African descent. She teaches and lectures globally, and is the author of four full-length poetry collections, most recently "The Animals of My Earth School" released by Terrapin Books, 2023. Her prose, hybrids, and poems have appeared in Shenandoah, Joyland, The Cincinnati Review, Tin House, New England Review, and elsewhere. She’s now working on a collection of creative nonfiction, and her essay, “Being Here in This Body”, won the 2020 Linda Flowers Literary Award and was published in the North Carolina Literary Review. She serves on the boards of African Writers Trust, Story Parlor, and coordinates the Poetrio Reading events at Malaprop’s Independent Bookstore/Café. She blogs here: www.mildredbarya.com
Irki is for Homeland, Kadija Sesay’s first poetry book
Irki is one of the poetry books published in 2013 that one ought to read before the year ends. Reason, it takes the idea of knitting to a poetic level that becomes crucial in understanding how each individual poem threads into a collection of 53 poems structured under four parts. “Letting Go,” which is Part […]
Helene Johnson’s poem, “Bottled” its connection with the Nigerian movie (Nollywood) and Ugandan music
The concept of “Bottled” explored through poetry, music, and Nigerian movie. Is power and control the meat of this concept or there’s much more? Other than taking a simple and deductive approach, what might be hidden beneath? Is it enough to go with some of the joys of artistic expression–the ability to “speak of the […]
I shall wear purple poem
Recently my friend Jackee posted on facebook her picture in a beautiful purple dress and I couldn’t help but comment how wonderful she looked, how in fact, purple was her color. Jokingly, she quoted the poem by Jenny Joseph which I’m posting here, which I find a sweet read on a Thursday evening. With the […]
Kofi Awoonor: Dearly loved & missed. Tributes and more
Tributes and more tributes. I can’t help it when the best continue to die To read click this link and add to the thread.
Seamus Heaney: We keep stumbling behind you, tripping, falling, not going away.
Seamus Heaney’s going to the next world made me think that the good poets are dying but that’s not entirely true. We are “followers” and will not go away from them, and they’re not really gone from us although it appears so. I was doing my MFA in creative writing at Syracuse University when he […]
Margaret Atwood, Susan Kiguli, Raymond Carver: three poems about photographs
Three poems by three poets from three continents, presenting similar and varying perspectives of photographs. Margaret Atwood (born 1939) “This is a Photograph of Me” (Canada) Susan Kiguli (born 1969) “My Mother in Three Photographs” (Africa/Uganda) Raymond Carver (1938-1988) “Photograph of My Father in His Twenty-Second Year” (United States) Straight from Zócalo Poets
Trayvon, Did You Know…
I tend to be doing tributes nowadays. Issues like social justice, citizenship, truth and fairness continue to inspire my literary pursuits. This afternoon while I was starting my computer I heard the song, Mary, Did You Know, only the name wasn’t Mary but that of Trayvon Martin’s mother. I went ahead and wrote this poem […]
Mildred K. Barya compares Beverley Nambozo’s “At the graveyard” with Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy”
The first time I read Beverley Nambozo’s poem, “At the graveyard” I liked it very much but no comparison came to my mind. The second time I read it, which is recently, I was like whoa, how did I miss the Plath connection? How could I not have seen it? So I was glad when […]
Father poems that add to the love I feel for my father
I’ve had the honor and privilege to be “born of” a dad who seems to have known the right things to do when raising us. One could say as a child of 40’s, he was born in a culture and generation that loved and encouraged getting children. But men of those times, most of whom […]
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MKB: Thank you so much! I would love to read yours too ...
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Brenda C Wilson: Congratulations! I hope to get a chance to read yo...
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Kwasi opoku: Why did Nana usually say that Adjoa did not know t...
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