Let us not think of them as barbarians

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  • Author: Midgley, Peter
    Summary:

    Peter Midgley’s let us not think of them as barbarians is a bold narrative of love, migration, and war hewn from the stones of Namibia. Sensual and intimate, these evocative poems fold into each other to renew and undermine multiple poetic traditions. Gradually, the poems assemble an ombindi—an ancestral cairn—from a history of violent disruption. Underlying the intense language is an exploration of African philosophy and its potential for changing our view of the world. Even as the poems look to the past, they push the reader towards a future that is as relevant to contemporary Canada as it is to the Namibian earth that bled them.

    Contents:
    • His Feet Scarcely Enveloped By His SandalsA History of Dust; The Bones Become a Refuge; The Horses of Hunger; The Earth Needs a Pacemaker; The dragfoot Man Leaves the Trail; Her Heart Is Desert Rose; The Woman's Heart Is Stone and Stain; Press a Hand In My Gentled Bed; Shark Island; Christmas (Building the Railroad); The Germans Need to Sit Down; Horses At garub; This Crippled Goose; Petrel At Daybreak; You Navigate the World Differently; Yes, I Sing Your Beauty; The Woman of angra pequeña; After the Dust Settles; Acknowledgements; Afterword: How to Read Calligraphies of Sorrow Intro; Title Page; Copyright Page; Contents; Note; You Cannot Write These Things Down; An Account of the Herero; Let Us Not Think of Them As Barbarians; Dragfoot Finds a Body; A Heart Should Not Beat Like This; Words Melt In His Mouth; Beyond the Breakers; In the Morning; Sometimes Words Do Not Speak to Him; Put a Gun In My Mouth; Her Shoulders Rise Like the Hills; Memory Refuses to Accept More Faces; The Weight of Airmail; Things That Get Lost; The Rain Bulls of the khoekhoe; A Man Walks Out of the Mountain; Dragfoot Dreams of Joining the Hunt; Song of the Herero
    Genre: Canadian poetry
    Original Publisher: Edmonton, Alberta , NeWest Press
    Language(s): English

Details

Abstract

Peter Midgley’s let us not think of them as barbarians is a bold narrative of love, migration, and war hewn from the stones of Namibia. Sensual and intimate, these evocative poems fold into each other to renew and undermine multiple poetic traditions. Gradually, the poems assemble an ombindi—an ancestral cairn—from a history of violent disruption. Underlying the intense language is an exploration of African philosophy and its potential for changing our view of the world. Even as the poems look to the past, they push the reader towards a future that is as relevant to contemporary Canada as it is to the Namibian earth that bled them.

Genre
Canadian poetry
Publisher (Source)

Edmonton, Alberta

NeWest Press

Not specified

Record