Tinashe

The January Children is a thought-provoking and surprisingly humorous (but mostly serious) collection of poems that lives in the in-between spaces that so many people who are a member of a diaspora face. In her poems, Elhillo visits Sudan both as an insider and outsider, recognizing the complexities that come with the meaning of “home” for diasporic communities. This is pretty explicitly explored in the series of poems, “talking with an accent about home,” which are erasures of found text from interviews Elhillo conducted with members of the Sudanese diaspora that will give a lot to think about. In addition, Elhillo is also regularly in conversation with the late Egyptian singer Abdelhalim Hafez, which creates an interesting structure to her collection, as well as giving her opportunities to explore the Arabness and Africanness of Sudan.

These poems are tenderly crafted and explore big and complex topics that I not only found impactful but also informative, especially as someone who has little knowledge of Sudanese culture and history.

Some favorites: “to make use of water,” “origin stories,” “the lovers,” “first quarantine with abdelhalim hafez,” “alternate ending,” and “the part i keep forgetting”

“One reads poetry because he is a member of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion! Medicine, law, banking— these are necessary to sustain life. But poetry, romance, love, beauty? These are what we stay alive for!”

MOBI Fest ‘21 Cypher

Spirals unto itself as quickly as it opens wide

Sucking everything in its wake into the gaping void

Anxiety proffers for the taking.

My skin stretches and heart fragments

Each straining to contain the galaxies of feelings

Threatening to rip apart my seams with the very fibers that make me me.

I do not know how to tell you that the stars in my eyes that glow bright in the day

Shimmer with unbidden tears in the night

Or that the joy that bounces off my smile as I laugh

Turns so cold and brittle when that same smile melts from the contours of my face.

How can I explain that some days these highs have no rhythm

And the lows all seem to rhyme

Drawing all together into helpless poetry

"Don't become like sea foam for a hopeless love. Don't be like the Dutch siren who gave up her home and Father into arms that wouldn't catch her. Don't be like the lost mermaid who gave up God's gift to her for a man. All that will be waiting for you is the cold sea. When you pucker your lips, all that will come to meet you are the frigid waves and they'll drown you along with your naive dreams. They'll pull you to the bottom of the ocean in their indifferent embrace. Years from now when you are turned to stone along with your heart by the constant rough caress of currents, men will drag you up again in their fishing nets.

They'll peel off the barnacles which served you as armor and pull out your hair which they mistook for seaweed. They'll gamble their liquor for your limbs before trading them at coastlines. They'll fondle your breasts for luck before mounting what's left of your torso on the front of their ships, to break the severity of the winds that meet them. Winds the Lord sends in His anger at your folly and man's; winds the Lord sends in return for your heathen sacrifice of His love for a man's.

And when those same men deem you shipshape no longer, too old and no longer fair in their eyes, they’ll replace you with another idol and cast you coldly to the sea once more. Like in Ezekiel’s Faithless Bride, perhaps the Lord will have pity and take you back again as the “Daughters of the Air” did for the lost sea maiden of years long past. Perhaps He’ll take mercy on your folly. Perhaps He will, but let this be a reminder to you and your daughters, and your daughters’ daughters: don't be like the Dutch siren."

- Excerpt from the "Lost Fabulas" by Kamille Alexandra

There was this tight triangle in the sky tonight: Saturn for old age, Jupiter for jollity, and a new sharp Moon for poets to hang their shreds of love and longing.

Or the space ‘tween sleep and awake as I reach across the bed

First thing in the morning when the wrong alarm sounds late

Or when I turn to share something and laugh as I go about my day

These little moments where you belong catch inside my soul

Pockets of wishes and memories twinned around my heart

Leaving softly aching whispers these days we are apart.

The stars shine less brightly when not worshipped in your space

The kitchen warms much differently without the laughter we emanate

Time flew on around the infinite bubble we created

Where love bloomed freely, dreams ran rampant and souls rubbed against each other as if to say

“Welcome home, where have you been these past, empty years?”

But you are still here

In the hint of smoke, in the half slumber, in the memories, in the brightly lit stream of hopes;

You live in the spaces inside me

The only face I can see when I close my eyes

The heart that sets mine aflame, burning unchecked

The body I want to explore until my fingers have memorized its topography

The soul I could get lost in for lifetimes to come and never find an end to its marvels.

Untitled | Self-portrait .// I tasted the colors again

I’ve come to realise that life isn’t about the end point,

so much as dancing is about finishing

or making music is about the end composition

but the doing and making. 

I’ve also realised that meditation isn’t a tool for self-improvement

but rather an awareness of the moment becoming the point.

That the future does not exist nor are we defined by the past,

the only certainty is now. And time is always in the now.

That I am more space than matter,

a god organism in a world of conventions,

people riddled by fear. Crippled by their own potential.

* deeper *

I whisper

into the hollow portions

of you

breathing fragile kisses

into the sacred unfelt corners

starry trembles

encase the darkness

with moonlit awakenings

slowly piercing fearful barriers

pulling me in

just a tad bit

deeper

Pic credit - Pinterest

Make a list of your favorite songs. Pick three and write about your connection to them. Where and when did you first hear these songs? What memories and emotions do you associate with them? Are there any connections between the songs you chose?