Ghost Letters

Baba Badji

Description

In Ghost Letters, one emigrates to America again, and again, and again, though one also never leaves Senegal, the country of one’s birth; one grows up in America, and attends university in America, though one also never leaves Senegal, the country of one’s birth; one wrestles with one’s American blackness in ways not possible in Senegal, though one never leaves Senegal, the country of one’s birth; and one sees more deeply into Americanness than any native-born American could. Ghost Letters is a 21st century Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, though it is a notebook of arrival and being in America. It is a major achievement.
—Shane McCrae

Sujets

• African
• African people
• General officer
• Poetry
• General
• Family

Informations

• Publié par: Parlor Press, LLC
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781643171975
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

BABA BADJI GHOST LETTERS PARLOR PRESS
Each of these brilliant epistolary poems is a surrealist landscape—blurred beginnings, sorrowful endings, archetypes
tangled in the roots of trees—where everything is held together by a speaker who is reading letters culled from a
just-opened time capsule. Each poem captures the complexity of the interwoven effects of distance, of loss, of the
intricate links to the never-ending African diaspora. And behind each is the Mother—as land, as bloodline, as birth,
as the lightning strike that indelibly scars the earth’s surface. Reading them is like seeing a forest on fre through an
unwavering lens: the splintering, the displacement, the metallic rasp of time as the trees are erased. The effect is
mesmerizing and lacerating: “There is no hymn, just history, history.” GHOST LETTERS —Mary Jo Bang
France’s colonial rule casts a long shadow over Senegal, where the offcial language of the state and educational
system remains French, despite the fact that only 20 percent of the male population regularly speak it, and as little
as 1 percent of the female. The poems in Ghost Letters, written partly in French, partly in Wolof (Senegal’s most
widely spoken language), and predominantly in English, both refect the poet’s multilinguistic background and, more
importantly, contend with the historical, cultural, racial, and personal traumas that inform that background. “I am
trying to recover from stings poisoning my tongue,” Badji writes, “I am trying to recover from a disease whitening
my black skin.” With its startlingly urgent, affect-laden verse and prose, Ghost Letters is a rare achievement—one
whose formal complexity demonstrates not only the poet’s remarkable technical skills, but survival skills as well.
—Timothy Donnelly
In Ghost Letters, one emigrates to America again, and again, and again, though one also never leaves Senegal, the
country of one’s birth; one grows up in America, and attends university in America, though one also never leaves
Senegal, the country of one’s birth; one wrestles with one’s American blackness in ways not possible in Senegal,
though one never leaves Senegal, the country of one’s birth; and one sees more deeply into Americanness than any
native-born American could. Ghost Letters is a 21st century Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, though it is a
notebook of arrival and being in America. It is a major achievement.
—Shane McCrae
BABA BADJI is a Senegalese-American poet, translator, researcher, and PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at
Washington University in St. Louis. He came to America when he was eleven years-old. He currently lives in St. Louis,
but his permanent home is Senegal, where his extended family remains, and New York City.
FREE VERSE EDITIONS
Series Editor: Jon Thompson
3015 Brackenberry Drive
Anderson, South Carolina 29621 BABA BADJI
http://www.parlorpress.com
S A N: 2 5 4 – 8 8 7 9
ISBN 978-1-64317-197-5
GHOST LETTERS is a 21st century Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, though it is a notebook
of arrival and being in America. It is a major achievement. —Shane McCraeFree Verse Editions
Edited by Jon ThompsonGHOST LETTERS
Baba Badji
Parlor Press
Anderson, South Carolina
www.parlorpress.comParlor Press LLC, Anderson, South Carolina, 29621
© 2021 by Parlor Press
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on File
Names: Badji, Baba, 1991- author.
Title: Ghost letters / Baba Badji.
Description: Anderson, South Carolina : Parlor Press, [2021] | Series: Free
verse editions | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: “Ghost
Letters creates a ghost mother who becomes a presiding presence in Baba
Badji’s frst collection of poems. His poetry explores what it means to
be Senegalese, American, and Black, as well as the bonds of Black people
across the Black diaspora”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifers: LCCN 2020046431 (print) | LCCN 2020046432 (ebook) |
ISBN
9781643171968 (paperback) | ISBN 9781643171975 (pdf) | ISBN
9781643171982 (epub)
Subjects: LCGFT: Poetry.
Classifcation: LCC PS3602.A3595 G48 2021 (print) | LCC PS3602.
A3595
(ebook) | DDC 811/.6--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020046431
LC ebook record avv/2020046432
978-1-64317-196-8 (paperback)
978-1-64317-197-5 (pdf)
978-1-64317-198-2 (ePub)
2 3 4 5
Cover art by Aurélia Zahedi.
Book design by David Blakesley.
Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles
in print and multimedia formats. Tis book is available in paperback and
ebook formats from Parlor Press on the World Wide Web at http://www.
parlorpress.com or through online and brick-and-mortar bookstores. For
submission information or to fnd out about Parlor Press publications,
write to Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, South Carolina,
29621, or email [e-mail]
3 / I
5 / Dear Momma,
6 / Dear Mariama,
9 / Grandma’s Timber Jug
10 / Dear Sibeth Nia Fatouma Ndiaye,
12 / Family Photograph
13 / Dear Fernanda Mbelezi Mabenze,
15 / Ghost Mother Return for Jesus
16 / Dear Aliyah Awa,
19 / Beaten Tongue
20 / Dear Yu Yan,
23 / Bush Boy’s Correspondence
24 / Dear Zamira Safétou Faye,
26 / Massamba a Shrine Keeper Is Trapped in Owl’s Nest
27 / Dear Destiny Kiara Khadija,
29 / Tapestry in Faith
30 / Dear Aline Sitoe Diatta,
32 / Reliquary
33 / Dear Hapsatou,
35 / Fragment
36 / Dear Yasmine Yafa Abu-Rabia,
39 / Ghost Mother & Papa
41 / Dear Aramata,
43 / Symptom
44 / Dear Seynabou,
46 / PROLOGUE TO A GHOST MOTHER’S EXILE NOTE VOLUME I
48 / Bush Boy’s Nationalized Hymn
49 / Dear Lubnâ,
vContents
51 / In Permanent Exile from Te Clock Unreachable Neck
52 / Dear Angela Ndioro Coumba,
54 / Biography of Events
55 / Dear Astou,
57 / Te Meaning of Restraint Revenge
58 / Dear Hafsa Binétou,
60 / Bush Boy’s Wooden Slate
61 / Dear Zainab Nafssatou,
63 / Dandelion in Verandah
64 / Dear Houriyya,
66 / Milkman’s Widow
67 / Dear Yandé Codou Sène,
69 / Decolonized Machine
71 / Dear Issa Ndèye Coumba,
73 / Dear Momma,
74 / Abattoir Near Rice Farms
75 / Dear Laylâ,
77 / Ghost Mother’s Note
78 / Dear Christiane Mame-Ngoné,
80 / Dear Momma,
81 / Dear Khartoum,
83 / Multinational Self
84 / Dear Mame Fatou Kiné,
86 / IN SHRINE
87 / Dear Momma,
89 / II
91 / Gratitude and Acknowledgments
93 / A Glossary: Notes on Ghost Letters
103 / References
105 / About the Author
107 / Free Verse Editions
viGhost LettersI
3