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.
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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 […]
2013 might be the year of the short story
Fresh air: short story authors have garnered world attention this year, and made a mark in International Literature. January started with George Saunders’ “Tenth of December,” topping the list: “the best book you will read this year” a change from previous “best books” having been mostly novels. But btw: publishers will still insist that the […]
“Achebe, no father of African literature — Soyinka” [Vanguard]
So I’ve been working on a piece that I thought was going to be a simple blog article highlighting my own refusal to join voices that suggest African Literature can be categorized into two head branches: Achebe versus Soyinka. This is not only wrong but downright shallow, a reductive element that I believe has roots […]
When I think of Chinua Achebe
A lot has been said about Chinua Achebe and his commitment to African Literature, and I’m pleased that NorthEast Review asked me to add to the voices. Here’s my salute first published in NorthEast Review. Peace.
Poems walking in my head
Poems that have been walking in my head this month include Frank O’Hara’s My Heart, which only led me to return to Stephen Crane’s In the Desert, a title I always forget and think of as ‘The Heart.’ I attribute all this heart business to the fact that the past few weeks I’ve been trying […]
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MKB: Dear Nyakisa, Good news! "The Animals of My Earth...
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Nyakisa Beth: Will it be available in Uganda?...
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Wm Epes: Dr. Barya: Hope you are well. Enj...
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