About the Book
Named after the poet’s mother, ‘mamaseko is a collection of introspective lyrics and other poems dealing with the intersections of blood relationships and related identities. Thabile Makue questions what it means to be beings of blood—to relate by blood, to live by blood. In her poems Makue looks for traces of shared trauma and pain and asserts that wounds of the blood are healed by the same.
Author Bio
Thabile Makue is a South African healer, facilitator, and writer at AfroElle magazine. She was the 2016–17 Current State of Poetry National South African Slam champion. Her debut collection, i know how to fix myself, was released in 2017 by the African Poetry Book Fund as part of their New-Generation African Poets chapbook box set Nne. Her work has been included in multiple journals as well as 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent.
Praise
“The author’s focus on blood as both the root and the salve for violence is an ingenious metaphor employed throughout the book under numerous guises.”—Veronica Schorr, New York Journal of Books
Table of Contents
li teboho
mali
maseko
giving birth to my mother
unborn
inside
outside
the bondage
the daughter’s inheritance
her mother’s loss
the children’s right
giving birth to my father
grandmother’s womb
blood crowing
uncreation
‘mele
and these are eyes
and these are lips
and this is nose
and this is tongue
and these are ears
and this is heart
‘mele oa bobeli
root body
year body
blood body
time body
too many body
fight body
wound body
naha
not to die alone
refugee bones
mantsoe
before the next one
aragonda out of battle
secheso
passage
mollo
marriage distress signal
church womxn
the wailers
hush now baby
close
the handmaid’s psalm
popelo
gray mountain
sunset
sunrise
moonlight
starlet
to be wind
river border bosoms
the purge i
drought
the flood
the purge ii
bolokoe
peppermint girl
hungry belly universe
those hungry girls
pheko
aragonda
not to forget
grandmother’s marriage
to torch
apology to sara
the patch up
the rot the peace
where does love go
the hunger
not to love you
baleful heart
phupjane
april
phato
may wrists
wait
end ballade
roof top blue
end haunt
body over water
end year
li teboho
glossary
