Nick Makoha Livres

Nick Makoha's poetic eye bulges out of this debut collection and refuses to be blinked away. The images line up like skittles but fall with the grace of leaves. Extract: from The Light The city clings like skin to the back of me,/ like summer sweat, my oils mixing/ with the humidity of the night./ Sleep the language I am speaking,/ every move mimicking death./ My body leaves a signature/ in the sheets. I rise; my feet touch the carpet’s canvas/ cooling me slightly. The window spilling moonlight/ into the room. Artificial light born from the TV mimics/ the light of the sky. Voices like my vision, blurred./ My hands snakes to the remote to mute the sound/ that brought me to sleep and in this moment awakens me.

Award-winning poet Nick Makoha presents a unique live literature experience that blends poetry with performance. This innovative approach invites audiences to engage deeply with the themes and emotions of his work, showcasing his talent in a dynamic format. Makoha's ability to connect with listeners through spoken word promises to create an unforgettable and immersive experience, highlighting the power of poetry in a contemporary setting.

Featuring a diverse array of voices, this anthology showcases the work of nine poets from the innovative mouthmark poetry pamphlet series, aimed at elevating non-mainstream talent. Conceived by Nii Ayikwei Parkes, the series was groundbreaking for its focused approach and finite nature, culminating in ten unique pamphlets. With contributions from acclaimed poets like Warsan Shire and Inua Ellams, the anthology highlights their rise to prominence and the series' lasting impact on contemporary poetry. This paperback edition invites new readers to explore their powerful works.

Exploring themes of flight and identity, this poetry collection delves into the aftermath of a hijacking in 1976 that transforms Uganda into a pariah state. Through a unique blend of art, history, and philosophy, the author presents a trio of characters—a Poet, a Black Icarus, and a resurrected Jean-Michel Basquiat—who embark on a transformative journey. Utilizing Basquiat's 'exploded' collage technique, the work seeks to reframe the narrative of Black life and create a new mythos, urging readers to embrace their identity as 'New Carthaginians.'

In direct narrative terms the poems in this collection relate to the horrors of the civil war that ousted the brutal tyranny of Idi Amin in Uganda, a war of liberation that brought its own barbarous atrocities. In political terms the poems chart the impact of imperialism and neo-colonialism that lay behind those traumas in the life of the nation. In personal terms, the poems are framed between the contrary pulls of attachment and flight, exile and longing. At their heart is an unwavering curiosity about how people behave in extreme situations, and what this reveals about our common human capacities to indulge grandiose visions, betray them, dissemble, seek revenge and kill.