Bending the Bow

Bending the Bow is a new anthology of African love poetry, edited by the Malawian poet Frank Chipasula and published by Southern Illinois University Press. Here’s an excerpt from my blog post at Words Without Borders:

The earliest poems are among the best, and do much to undermine the idea that ancient Egypt was a gloomy place oppressed by pharaohs and preoccupied by death. “My love is back, let me shout out the news!” begins the first. “My arms swing to embrace her, / And heart pirouettes in its dark chamber / glad as a fish when night shades the pool.”

Naturally enough, many of the poems collected here are addressed from a young man to a young woman, or vice versa. These African lovers sometimes focus on different details from those a Western lover might. “My dark-brown girl is like a cow,” begins a traditional poem in the Aandonga language. Liyongo Fumo of Kenya praises a woman in these words: “Her matching eyebrows / are perfectly parallel / and neatly join at the root / as if they are knotted together.”