Poet, linguist and human rights activist, Mapanje has published about five poetry books and has poems in three anthologies of poetry from Africa. These include Of Chameleons and Gods (1981), The Chattering Wagtails of Mikuyu Prison (1993), Skipping Without Ropes (1998) The Last of the Sweet Bananas: New and Selected Poems (2004), and the recent Beasts of Nalunga (2007), which was recently shortlisted for the Forward Prize . He co-edited Oral Poetry from Africa: an anthology (1983), Summer Fires: New Poetry of Africa (1983) and The African Writers’ Handbook (1999). He also edited Gathering Seaweed: African Prison Writing (2002). Mapanje is the recipient of the Fonlon-Nichols Award for ‘his contribution to poetry and human rights’ and also received the Rotterdam Poetry International Award for his first book of poems. After political detention in 1987, while he was Department Head of English Studies at the University of Malawi, he was subsequently released in 1991. He has since lived outside Malawi with his family and currently teaches at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in England.

Photo: Molara Wood.

She hated anything caged, fish particularly,
Fish caged in glass boxes, ponds, whatever;

‘Reminds me of prisons and slavery,’ she said;
So, when first she caught the vast green view

of Bridlington North Beach shimmering that
English Summer day, she greeted the sight like

A Sahara girl on parched feet, cupping, cupping,
Cupping the water madly, laundering her palms,

Giggling and laughing, then rubbing the hands
On her skirt, she threw her bottom on the sandy

Beach and let the sea breathe in and out on her
As she relaxed her crossed legs – ‘Free at last!’

She announced to the beach crowds oblivious;
And as the seascape rallied and vanished at her

Feet, she mapped her world, ‘The Netherlands
We visited must be here; Norway, Sweden there;

Beyond that Russia!’ Then gathering more seashells
And selecting them one by one, she turned

To him, ‘Do you remember eating porridge from
Beach shells once?’ He nodded, smiling at another

Memory of the African lakes they were forced to
Abandon. ‘Someday, perhaps I’ll take that home

To celebrate!’ She said staring into the deep sea.
Today, her egg-like pebbles, her pearls of seashells

Still sparkle at the windowsill; her wishes still ring,
‘Change regularly the water in the receptacles to

Keep the pebbles and seashell shinning – you’ll
See, it’s a lot healthier than feeding caged fish!’

After Celebrating our Asylum Stories at
West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds

So, define her separately,
She is not just another
Castaway washed up your
Rough seas like driftwood,
It’s the nameless battles
Your sages burdened on her
People that broke her back;
Define him differently,
He is not another squirrel
Ousted from your poplars,
It’s the endless cyclones,
Earthquakes, volcanoes,
Floods, mud and dust that
Drafted him here; define
Them warmly, how could
Your economic émigré queue
At your job centres day after
Day? If you must define us
Gently, how do you hope
To see the tales we bear
When you refuse to hear
The whispers we share?

Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Pipe Still Puffing (Ten Years On)

Yesterday, I stopped at another
Shell petrol station and recalled how
you’d have loved to puff from your pipe
there, for your Ogoni people and land;
I did not, of course, stop to fill up with
petrol, definitely not! I stopped merely
to have a good pee, as promised I would
when they got you executed. Today, I
thought, well, why don’t we treasure
the moment we once shared?