Synopses & Reviews
Few of us have had the opportunity to visit Djibouti, the small crook of a country strategically located in the Horn of Africa, which makes
The Nomads, My Brothers, Go Out to Drink from the Big Dipper all the more seductive. In his first collection of poetry, the critically acclaimed writer Abdourahman A. Waberi writes passionately about his countrys landscape, drawing for us pictures of desert furrows of fire” and a yellow chameleon sky.” Waberis poems take us to unexpected spacesin exile, in the muezzins call, and where morning dew is sucked up by the eye of the sunblack often, pink from time to time.”
Translated by Nancy Naomi Carlson, Waberis voice is intelligent, at times ironic, and always appealing. His poems strongly condemn the civil wars that have plagued East Africa and advocate tolerance and peace. In this compact volume, such ideas live side by side as a rosary for the treasures of Timbuktu, destroyed by Islamic extremists, and a poem dedicated to Edmond Jabès, the Jewish writer and poet born in Cairo.
With Waberi, the juxtapositionssurprising, provocative, and originalform a good part of the thrill themselves.”Words Without Borders
Review
“Novelist Waberi, the best-known contemporary writer from the East African nation of Djibouti, evokes ‘an entire life in the echo of my tongue’ in his first collection of poems. His terse sequences incorporate the region’s recent troubles with civil wars and Islamic extremists along with ancient fable and history. The Koranic story of Bilal recurs as a myth of national origin; the poet asks us to ‘let nomadic words live,’ with ‘oral ancestors’ shadow/ resisting harsh winters.’ Sometimes Waberi returns to the landscape: ‘my tree the aloe/ my flower the crack in the cactus/ my river none in my land.’ But his verse, in its trim stanzas and its thin lists, insists on its modernity too.”
Synopsis
In this first collection of poetry by critically acclaimed writer Abdourahman A. Waberi, we the readers can drink in Djiboutis compelling landscapedesert furrows of fire, mute foliage of cactus, yellow chameleon skyto better understand this tiny country strategically located in the Horn of Africa. Waberis poems take us to spaces where nomadic words livein exile, in the muezzins call, in a place where morning dew is sucked up by the eye of the sunblack often, pink from time to time.
Waberis voice is intelligent as well as ironic, and always appealing. He strongly condemns the civil wars that have plagued the East African region. His is a message of tolerance, and we find in this compact volume, living side by side, a rosary for the treasures of Timbuktu, destroyed by Islamic extremists, and a poem dedicated to Edmond Jabès, the Jewish writer and poet born in Cairo.
About the Author
Abdourahman A. Waberi is a novelist, essayist, poet, and professor of literature at George Washington University. He is the author of The Land without Shadows, In the United States of Africa, and Passage of Tears, the last also published by Seagull Books.Nancy Naomi Carlson is an award-winning author and translator.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements The Way of Simplicity
Engravings
Caravan of Words
Here Is
Litany
Wind is a Calligrapher
Equipment
Ouabain
Miniatures
Brief Discourse in the Style of Edmond Jabés
Ink Drawings
Sketch I
Sketch II
Canvas with Ochre and Foam
Night Collage
Untitled Canvas
Time
Predawn
Every Desire
Desires
Caress
Truce
Untitled
Postcards
The Elixir of Exile
Landmark
After the Rain
Acacia
A Sky Chart
Coral Riffs
Lament of the Lame Herdsman
Infancy
There
Bilal
Anatomy (She-Camel)
By Night
Japanese Cherry Tree
Eight Faces
Yesterday’s Tales
Tombeau
Shattered Vision
Grieving Dawn
Elegy for a Fly
Ai-yai-yai
Dharma
White Thread, Black Thread
Rosary for Timbuktu
Notes