Monday, February 18, 2008
Whitman in Africa (2/17/2008)
Lately I have been reading Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, one of the many books I always meant to read before but somehow never found the time to. Whitman’s poetry is ecstatic, a roving paean to the soul of America. It feels rather strange to read it in Lesotho because it does not apply to this place. Southern Africa has its own beauty, separate and distinct and founded in a people, history, and land sometimes similar to the States but profoundly different at any level deeper than the superficial. If anyone can recommend a good poet who has captured its soul, I would appreciate the reference.
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2 comments:
I have started reading Wole Soyinka's edited volume Poems of Black Africa, which I picked up in a tiny shop in Banjul and which seems very good.
Not a poet, but Alexander McCall Smith's writing is incredibly evocative of Southern Africa (he focuses on Botswana). He wrote all of the Ladies' Detective Agency books...
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