Winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, Ethiopian American Mahtem Shiferraw’s Fuchsia examines conceptions of the displaced, disassembled, and nomadic self. Embedded in her poems are colors, elements, and sensations that evoke painful memories related to deep-seated remnants of trauma, war, and diaspora. Yet rooted in these losses and dangers also lie opportunities for mending and reflecting, evoking a distinct sense of hope. Elegant and traditional, the poems in Fuchsia examine what it means to both recall the past and continue onward with a richer understanding.
Winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, Ethiopian American Mahtem Shiferraw’s Fuchsia examines conceptions of the displaced, disassembled, and nomadic self. Embedded in her poems are colors, elements, and sensations that evoke painful memories related to deep-seated remnants of trauma, war, and diaspora. Yet rooted in these losses and dangers also lie opportunities for mending and reflecting, evoking a distinct sense of hope. Elegant and traditional, the poems in Fuchsia examine what it means to both recall the past and continue onward with a richer understanding.
Paperback
-
SHIP THIS ITEMTemporarily Out of Stock Online
-
PICK UP IN STORE
Your local store may have stock of this item.
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
Winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, Ethiopian American Mahtem Shiferraw’s Fuchsia examines conceptions of the displaced, disassembled, and nomadic self. Embedded in her poems are colors, elements, and sensations that evoke painful memories related to deep-seated remnants of trauma, war, and diaspora. Yet rooted in these losses and dangers also lie opportunities for mending and reflecting, evoking a distinct sense of hope. Elegant and traditional, the poems in Fuchsia examine what it means to both recall the past and continue onward with a richer understanding.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780803285569 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | UNP - Nebraska |
| Publication date: | 03/01/2016 |
| Series: | African Poetry Book |
| Pages: | 108 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.50(d) |
About the Author
Mahtem Shiferraw is a native of Ethiopia and Eritrea and now lives in Los Angeles, California. Her work has appeared in Mandala Journal, Callaloo, Luna Luna Magazine, Cactus Heart Press, Blast Furnace, and Mad Hatters' Review.
Read an Excerpt
Fuchsia
By Mahtem Shiferraw
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS
Copyright © 2016 Board of Regents of the University of NebraskaAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4962-0353-3
CHAPTER 1
Fuchsia
It's a deep purple thought;
once it unraveled prematurely
and its tail broke, leaving a faint trail
of rummaging words.
* * *
When I was little, growing up
in Addis Ababa, my father bought
the fattest sheep from street vendors
for the holidays. He would
pull its curled horns, part the wet
rubber lips to check the sharpness
of its teeth, grab its tail, separate
hairs in the thick bed of fur. Later, he will
bring it home, unsuspecting creature,
tie it to a pole in the garden, feed it the greenest
grass until its sides are swollen and heavy. It will be
slaughtered in the living room, kitchen knife
cutting in a precise angle through its neck,
the blood splattered on the blades of grass gently laid
by my mother on the cement floor, one last
comfort before its end. Come afternoon, it will
hang upside down, viscous wet smell emanating
from its insides, and knife slashing between slabs of organs,
all to be eaten differently — bones of the rib cage
deep fried, bleeding texture of kidneys minced
into bite-sized shapes and soaked in onion and pepper oil,
small blades of the stomach dutifully cut into long
strips and mashed with spiced butter and berbere. Even
the skin, bloodying fur, will be sold to passing vendors,
its head given away to neighbors who will use it for soup.
* * *
In September, the street shoulders of Addis Ababa
food with yellow daisies, creating patches of sunlight
in rainy days. But every so often, a mulberry daisy
is spotted, its head barbarous in a field of gold,
dirty purple in its becoming.
The first time I saw a plum, it was lying in a pool
of swollen mangoes and papayas at a local grocery store,
and I held it in my hand, wanting to pierce the luminous
nakedness of the skin with my nails and teeth.
* * *
If you ask how to say "burgundy" in Tigrinya, you will be told
it's the color of sheep blood, without the musty smell
of death attached to it. It's also the color of my hair, dipped
in fire. And the greasy texture of clotted arteries, and the folding
skin of pineapple lilies, and the sagging insides of decaying roses,
and the butterfly leaves of blooming perennials, and spongy
strawberries drowning in wine.
* * *
Right before dusk, when the skies are incised with a depression
of shades, oranges escaping from one end into the mouth of the horizon,
freckled clouds unclog suddenly, giving shape to the pelvis
of the sky, its sheep blood visible only for a second, then bursting
into flames of golden shadows. In days like these, when
the sun's tears are fat and swollen, descending obliquely into the city,
we say somewhere a hyena is giving birth, and perhaps it is.
And then, you ask, what is fuchsia — and there's a faint smile,
a sudden remembrance, an afterthought in hiding, forgotten smells
of wildflowers and days spent in hiding, in disarray. And mulberry
daisies carried by phosphorescent winds into the warm skin of sleeping
bodies; moments spent between here and there, pockets of emptiness —
without sound, without reckoning.
Origins & Intersections
East Africa, AD 1100
Dar al salam. The al najashi, al negusi.
Son of the king. Another king? Or a prince?
The fragranced cities of
Kilwa and Zelia.
Mogadishu in full havoc, al moqaddasi at court.
Pagan marketplaces,
fruit vendors.
Salt, nutmeg, cacao.
Salted air, chocolate coffee.
Women enfolded in vibrant narghile breaths, sweet mint tea and
red onion rings. Qadis in regal
strawberry marbles.
Jasmine-flavored dusks, rampant winters in
steaming diaries. Secretly married,
death in public. Stoned. Timbuktu
love letters, neguse neghestat.
King of kings.
What is that category? Beyond all kings? Not quite emperor?
The walashma torn between Islam
and the other.
Sultans in lethargic years.
Black, black, black Africa.
I don't mean the people.
The relics of futuh al-habesha.
Where do we come from?
Does it really matter?
Braided numbers, hairs, alphabets.
Circumcised wisdom.
Salaam aleikum
E is for Eden
It lasts a while. The bitter aftertaste of sorrow
and something sweet. Like honey waves soaked
in lemon juice, it creates hollow spaces between
moments of unabridged whiteness. Glance over
once and the skies have a different story to tell.
You were created with a purpose:
a land of all lands, neither heaven nor earth
suspended between the blue wings of oceans
and their unoccupied gaze.
Once there were creatures here, inhabiting
your luscious corners, and they prodded and swiveled
and flew to please you.
You were made in somebody's image,
but you have forgotten.
What remains now is the aftermath —
even that stripped of all its glory.
The eyes of men are saddened by the sudden
shadows unveiling in women's eyes. Your breath
was once dirt, ash, tangible, and ugly. Your face
did not exist. The contours that shape your smile,
your hairline, the timid dimple on the left cheek, they
were all ash. Here is what was: only the thought of
being loved and rejected, being loved and birthed,
being loved and destroyed. Your breath does not have
the apple's acrid taste; it smells of something wild and
unadorned, it says do not fear, it is I, it whispers at night
when you are cold and shivering and alone in this world.
This breath is not yours to take:
mend it and oceans will flow once again
How to Peel Cactus Fruit
Abayey used to pick the fruit
bloodied and plump, thorns
sticking out between her fingers
and squeeze it into fat drops
in a glass bowl. Then spoonful
of cold shoved down the throat.
Sometimes it softened the heat
created after the soreness of a
long, silent cry.
The fruit comes inside handwoven baskets,
in a cluttered circle, thorns of one poking blood-juice
from the other.
If you stab your teeth in, it tastes like
honey and caramelized autumn leaves; its
meat a little window into light.
This is how you peel cactus fruit:
cut the small thorns adorning its coat, or snatch
them right out of the skin — some get stuck
in the bellies of fingernails, others nest in the palms. Squeeze
the body of the fruit until it is strained; its juice or meat
squirting right out, until a small pool of blood
inhabits the endless carvings in the insides
of your hands. Then, finally, sink in the teeth
with eyes closed, and the tongue suddenly
tastes seasons, winter, rain, dust, flour, cold,
and the acrid winds of Dahlak deserts.
This is what cures war:
the taste of watery fruit
in your mouth of fire.
Something Sleeps in the Mud Beds of the Nile
It has been years since we last descended
into its fiery throat — clouds of smoke rose
like white ash into limpid air, only to disappear
under the vast green blue.
There are songs for this river, love songs, mournful songs,
children's songs. They say this is where it all began, where it all
ends; pride is only a bleak version of the soapy waters
and their wet aftermath.
It is birthed beneath the hiccups of Lake Tana —
one could see its point of origin
only in clear, early mornings.
Sometimes the chants of hermit monks
can be heard from small islands, their prayers traveling
only through pebbles and washed mud,
their prayers only for more water.
At night, its voice is raucous as a wounded lion —
it breathes in and out, life, leaves, unguarded children
and lovers.
When shepherds approach it with their herds
its waters recede just a little bit, changing their shade
from snowy to gray and something translucent;
the eyes of cows reflect into another dimension.
The smell of something wild and torn, dirt and splintering,
speed and light conquers its sides, winter coarse under its
feet, safe nest for corpses, untold stories, the thirsty,
the poor, and the grief-stricken.
And beneath it all, something sleeps, damp and forgotten
and cavernous in its roar — only those who drink its swelling
waters can hear it, and recount its secrets
Twenty Questions for Your Mother
When did you bleed for the first time?
She will say — it was when I was holding
the green skin of guava fruit, and its lilac
meat. The juice squirted out so quickly
I thought it was mine to take.
What did you notice then?
The sky had a solitary eye
on top of the mountain, where the horizon
line curved itself into the redundant nature
of tall trees; it was only noon, and yet
a fat tear was approaching fast.
Tell me about the time you fell in love.
I was angry. The harsh whiffs of
desert winds and the striking hands
of older brothers made the same sound,
like a wave of the Red Sea was cut from its
drooling origin and shoved into the unassuming
whiteness of salt dunes. But words filled my
mouth, and the taste was new, milky.
What happened to your hair?
It was the same color of my shadow; its
texture harrowing at night. When Mother
was jailed, it felt her absence, her sharp tone
and gentle eyes. It fell in mouthfuls at a time;
it was Autumn and even leaves were falling then.
What of your sisters?
I planted a seed for each of them, wished they
could come earlier. I knew them before they
were born. My cheeks bruise so their hair
won't fall.
And your brothers?
I loved each in separate corners of my abdomen;
S. at the center, G. in the right, M. on the left,
Y. spread thinly all over my body. When I think
of Father, each of their eyes emerge from nowhere,
and I am there again.
When armed men came, where did you hide?
I didn't. I was taught to stand. They were looking for
something in the dark, and I was the light. Even now,
their footsteps can be heard right before sunrise.
I see only morning lights.
What about your father?
He sits on a cloud. I grieve every day.
And your mother?
I woke up at dawn to wash clothes
and stretch them to dry. I cleaned,
cooked, and warmed the house. The mornings
were so quiet I could hear my heartbeat. And
merchants traveling from Karen. I hid behind
open doors to read and write. She was awake.
Tell me about your friends.
Some got lost in the fight. Some brought back
children not their own, others were promised
to men in silk suites and lovely pastries. We ate
ice cream and went to the cinema. We spoke
other languages. We rushed back home before
curfew and never questioned the strident noise
of bullets that came afterhours.
Who saved you?
God was always there.
What of your children?
I taught them how to read
so they didn't have to hide.
What about your only son?
He's still only a baby —
safe in the warmth of my belly
where armed men can't come after him
and beautiful women can't take him away
and spirits can't blacken his wings.
Tell me about your daughters.
This is what I tell them —
you are not women, or children,
you are kings among men
and kings excel at what they do
and kings do not cry
they do not bend
they do not run away
they do not hide
they do not surrender.
Kings excel even as they fall
Where is the earth that fed you?
I don't know. It belongs to those who
died. I have asked many times why the earth
keeps regurgitating me. I move away
and a faint trail follows me home. I belong —
and not.
What of Asmara?
My city is dead.
How did you cry?
In the quiet hours of the morning —
I didn't have enough in me for
wailing, but quiet tears find their
way down my cheeks, birthed
from my abdomen. They leave small
knots there, and years later, I am unable
to untie from myself.
Who did you kill?
Bones are lovely during winter;
their whiteness is tamed by corroded
pores and something empty. I am reminded
of Massawa, and the screams of neighbors
as the city was bombed. The Red Sea must
have been really bleeding then.
What did you listen to?
A long list of names, martyr heads.
A soundless prayer.
The laughter of Father.
Who are you?
I am free.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Fuchsia by Mahtem Shiferraw. Copyright © 2016 Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Kwame Dawes Acknowledgments Fuchsia Origins & Intersections E is for Eden How to Peel Cactus Fruit Something Sleeps in the Mud Beds of the Nile Twenty Questions for Your Mother While Weeping (Broadway & 5th) The Monster Talks about Race Sleeping with Hyenas She says they come at night . . . Water Polka Dot Dreams Blood Disparities Synesthesia Listro (Shoe-Shiner) Pilgrimage to the Nile Dinner with Uncles In the Lion’s Den Daisies & Death Something Familiar and Freezing A Dead Man’s List Dialectics of Death Being a Woman Rumors Visitor Broken Men Song of the Dead Awakening Statues Kalashnikovs The Language of Hair Small Tragedies 4AM Dear Abahagoy— Effervescence Ode to Things Torn Plot Line A Secret Lull