This Body is an Empty Vessel: Poetry

Beaton Galafa

Description

Here is poetry that is personal yet spreading to have its tentacles struggling to grip into other equally slippery facets of life. In brief, Beaton writes his poetry to assuage his personal feelings yet in so doing he ends up massaging our shared experience - as Malawians, Africans and just as humans. Beaton has observed, learnt, and is growing in the Malawian poetry space. Thus, he also comes to the stage bearing the Malawian influence on his poetry.

Sujets

• African
• Poetry

Informations

• Publié par: Mwanaka Media and Publishing
• Date de parution: 02 septembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781779272607
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

This Body is an Empty Vessel

Poetry

Beaton Galafa

Edited by Tendai R. Mwanaka

Mwanaka Media and Publishing Pvt Ltd, Chitungwiza Zimbabwe * Creativity, Wisdom and Beauty



Publisher:Mmap Mwanaka Media and Publishing Pvt Ltd 24 Svosve Road, Zengeza 1 Chitungwiza Zimbabwe [e-mail] [e-mail] https://www.mmapublishing.org www.africanbookscollective.com/publishers/mwanaka-media-and-publishing https://facebook.com/MwanakaMediaAndPublishing/ Distributed in and outside N. America by African Books Collective [e-mail] www.africanbookscollective.com ISBN: 978-1-77925-572-3 EAN: 9781779255723 ©Beaton Galafa 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher DISCLAIMER All views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views ofMmap.



Dedication

For my father

Born: September 2, 1937

Passed on: March 13, 2021



Acknowledgements

Some versions of these poems appear in a number of publications as follows:

Caustic Frolic: Cacophony

Bloom: Lingering Thought, Migraines, Empty Bodies

Necro Magazine Justice Issue #3: Echoes, Weed on the Seaside, Peril of Emptiness, Forgotten.

Human/Kind Journal: Bending Ways

“I Can’t Breathe”: A Poetic Anthology of Fresh Air:Broken

Kitchen Sink Magazine: Tombstone

Walking the Battlefield:Alone in a Cabin, Lunar Eclipse

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Table of Contents

Foreword v

Inside a Dream

Rainbow

 1

 3

Hypertension

Blank Paper

Empty Bodies

 5

 7

 9

Footsteps 11

Reunion

Music

 13

 15

I sit on the Clouds 17

Cacophony 19

A Quake in a Glass

Weed on the Seaside

 20

 22

Forgotten 24

Mother

At sea

Father

Mists

 25

 27

 29

 31

LL

Out of Nothing

God

 33

 35

In the Stream

Empty Vessel

Broken Leg

Blown Away

 38

 40

 42

 44

Tombstone 46

Footsteps in the rains

 47

Lingering thought 48

Migraines 50

Napolo

 52

A Cup of Coffee

Memory

Revolt

 54

 55

 58

Wine & Whiskey

 62

I Despise Your Heroes

 65

Morgue Attendant 68

Dusted

 70

Bending Ways

 72

LLL

Broken

 74

Peril of Emptiness 76

Sun in the Desert 78

Locked Up 80

Prodigal

Fated

Woman

Echoes

 82

 83

 84

 86

Raindrops 89

Void

 91

On a Winter Morning

Heroes

 93

 94

Last moments

 96

Deception 98

Everyone to Their God

Alone in a cabin

Lunar Eclipse

 99

 101

 102

Mmap New African Poets Series 104

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Foreword

Mankhokwe Namusanya

There would be three things that have always sought to mark Malawian poetry across the ages. Firstly, it is the political acerbity. Then, it is its firm rootedness in mythology. Of late, it has been its focus on performance. For the very latter, it is an interesting aspect because one struggles to place its origins. Is it that Malawi poetry is borrowing from global trends on the rise of spoken word poetry; or, maybe, it is borrowing from its vernacular variation? I might think both.

In this collection, however, Beaton Galafa introduces yet another dimension of Malawian poetry that has been sheltered under the weight of the familiar patterns that I have discussed above. Here is poetry that is personal yet spreading to have its tentacles struggling to grip into other equally slippery facets of life. In brief, Beaton writes his poetry to assuage his personal feelings yet in so doing he ends up massaging our shared experience – as Malawians, Africans and just as humans.

Beaton writes about his father, and mother – mostly his father. However, the narratives thereof of the two are not in any way dissimilar to those of the average person. In writing about his parents, he writes of loss as well as dreams deferred and even abandoned. This position then transcends beyond the personal aspect of the conversation. It becomes his, mine and ours. His poetry becomes pregnant with metaphors in which the position of those two important people in his life is replaced by other important people and things in our lives.

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This collection opens with an abstract poem. It is, in a way, a foreshadow of what is to come through the entire collection. Much of the poetry that is served here is not built on the foundations of myths, stronger in their own regard. Rather, it is built on the strength of the human imagination. In one reading, this is the checked flow of a poet’s consciousness; yet in another reading, this collection is the midnight musings and thoughts of a poet that haunts when the world is quiet and life wears a new ambiguous meaning. In so doing, that space of the personal is invaded by the impersonal – the strong defining feature of this poetry.

InMists, he captures this reality as in a space of at least four lines; he blurs the lines between the personal and impersonal. In two lines, he writes of his father’s dreams and ambitions; yet before we settle on that and dismiss it as fond memories of a besotted son towards his father, he brings on the table other illusions that most of us can share in: of politics. If in the rest of the work he has been attempting to portray the poetry as personal, here that portrayal is shattered as is ‘therevolutionthat was branded a Swastika for the sole purpose ofplundering money’.

Beaton has observed, learnt, and is growing in the Malawian poetry space. Thus, he also comes to the stage bearing the Malawian influence on his poetry. From the first identified feature of poetry from the centres of the world that have shaped his poetry, that of political acerbity, some of the poems in this collection come breathing that. It might not be fighting or mocking dictatorship that his poetry does, which was the tendency of the early Malawian poetry that saw poets detained. However, in reminding office holders of their promises or awakening the masses that politicians

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