Mutabani & [ ]ther Poems

<h4><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Winner of an Eric Gregory Award 2024</span></h4><p></p><h5><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>if   I   die   here   in the marshes   de-melanated me will hunch up</strong></h5><h5><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>         my limbs   my body becoming traffic cone   bright</strong></h5><h5><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>    against tarmac noir   as if to say   <em>turn   lest you wish to become this</em></strong></h5><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(60 60 60 1)>In </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(60 60 60 1)>Mutabani & [ ]ther Poems</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(60 60 60 1)>-a new work full of clear-sighted love and deeply human warmth-Francis-Xavier Mukiibi explores what it means to belong to this world and to one another. Part of Little Betty 2025.</span></p><p></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(60 60 60 1)>'With its free and confident use of Luganda Francis-Xavier Mukiibi conjures a Bantu boyhood into a beautiful music that moves effortlessly from detail to a sense of the global. This is a new very rich sound in poetry and a memorable description of youth!' Gwyneth Lewis</strong></p><p></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(60 60 60 1)>'Reading each poem in this collection is akin to discovering a bidirectional loophole between worlds. I raised my head up and down like an agama lizard in a Bantu sunset admiring Francis-Xavier's talent for bringing the mundane to life.' Eric Ngalle Charles</strong></p><p></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(60 60 60 1)>'A glorious searing pamphlet. The poems leap from the page utterly alive with sound and with language with beauty and with storytelling with curiosity and with craft. This is a powerful voice and an expansive and atmospheric read.' Cecilia Knapp</strong></p><p></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(60 60 60 1)>'Poised surreal and unafraid of strangeness Mukiibi's vivid poetic eye has the ability to shape meaning from the most granular of images. <em>Mutabani & [ ]ther Poems</em> heralds the coming of a brilliant voice.' Victoria Adukwei Bulley</strong></p><p></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(60 60 60 1)>'Beneath the Sahara sun a new Ugandan poet is forged from the clay.' Nick Makoha</strong></p><p></p><p></p>