Kalakuta Republic

Chris Abani

• Publisher: Telegram Books
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780863568787
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

This powerful collection of poems details the harrowing experiences endured by Abani and other political prisoners at the hands of Nigeria's military regime in the late 1980s. Abani vividly describes the characters that peopled this dark world, from prison inmates such as John James, tortured to death at the age of fourteen, to the general overseers. First published after his release from jail in 1991, Kalakuta Republic remains a paean to those who suffered and to the indomitable human spirit. 'Reading Abani's poems is like being singed by a red hot iron.' Harold Pinter 'Abani's poetry resonates with a devastating beauty which cuts to the heart of human strength, survival and tyranny.' Pride Magazine 'Stunning poems... Abani conveys the experience in words shaped into art and made unforgettable by their quietness.' New Humanist 'A beautiful work of art... elevates art and humanity above meanness and inhumanity.' World Literature Today 'A brave and challenging book... I was moved as much by what the poems have achieved as by what they have rescued from that nightmare world. Reading, I found myself in tears.' Sunday Tribune 'An unheralded chunk of authentic literature' New Statesman 'Abani's...poems contain moments of grace, humanity and humor.' Susannah Tarbush, Diwaniya 'Chris has emerged with poems that are graceful pieces of art, almost ready to be hung in a gallery for others to come and enter them and rest in them and weep in them and admire them.' Kwame Dawes, professor of English literature, University of Columbia, South Carolina, USA

Roll Call

I remember rising one night

after midnight

and moving

through an impulse of loneliness

to try and find the stars.

Dennis Brutus

Letters to Martha

Job

1900

hours

cramped together: now

20 men in a cell built for 8.

Space is a closely fought ideal,

savagely defended prize.

Two men smoking:

‘If you die tonight can I have your shirt?’

‘Sure. If you do, I want your pencil.’

Job. Older than any of us

remembers

this prison run by British soldiers.

‘Let me die. Please let me die’, he cries.

No one replies. No one will console him.

Here death is courted. Welcomed.

Not in defeat. Or cowardice,

but as a statement

of our

Discontent

with this state of barbarism we

live

Under

the shade of a tree

executions are mercifully shielded

from the harsh sun.

Killing Time

1900

hours.

Killing time. 12. Anointed.

Blindfolded. Herded by seraphs

wings tinged rusty by innocent blood.

Stapled

to a pock-marked wall by fear

steel bolts, ratchet bullets.

Shots crack

like so many branches.

Of 12, 8 fall.

Shirt, pencil and all.

I know I am alive

because

terror drips down my legs.

Jeremiah

Jeremiah

was 6 feet, 9 inches the last

time we measured.

Face,

knotted against

sun-hard pain,

unravels.

Smiles, spread hemp

tendrils.

Often

fasting, he passes his food to

weaker, needier men.

He

stood between guards and a prone man,

helping him up

to

die on his feet, knees only slightly

buckled, eyes kissing the sun.

The Box

Wooden frame with skirt of sheet metal

6 foot by 3 foot by 3 foot.

Pin-pricks of air burn holes on the negative

of my body; choking on my own smell mingled

with scent of seared hair and skin,

I taste my pungent mortality.

One hour later:

Religion unfurls in desperate splendour.

Silently through old man’s mumbling lips

prayers tumble forth; spells to keep the

terror at bay; currency to buy salvation.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John

bless this bed that I lie on.

Before I lay my head to sleep

I beg thee Lord, my soul to keep.

Two hours later:

Fear cramps me into panic; hysterical

I beat frantically, futilely at the sides.

2 inches is inadequate leeway; I only

brand dull thumps onto taut knuckles.

Three hours later:

Counting out time on beads of sweat

to keep from going insane. Mental

arithmetic. 2678 divide by the pie of 7.

Nursery rhymes work also – except when tears

muffle memory.

Four hours later:

Blank face, blank black eyes stare; icy

dense darkness; free falling, nothing below

except inky space sucking me into maw.

These are some of my nameless terrors.

Five hours later:

Water is thrown over the metal to cool me.

Through burning steam I see

a man in dazzling robes; face, a thousand suns

coming towards me; leading to light . . .

Six hours later:

‘. . . J...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Author’s Note
• Introduction, by Kwame Dawes
• Portal
• Roll Call
• Still Dancing
• Postscripts – London
• Copyright