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Anthology tackles Uganda’s social issues head on

Saturday May 13 2017
poem

Sophie Nuwagira Bamwoyeraki and Jane Okot p’Bitek Langoya jointly published anthology A Poetic Duet.

Sophie Nuwagira Bamwoyeraki and Jane Okot p’Bitek Langoya have published a joint anthology titled A Poetic Duet in which they tackle a vast array of Ugandan’s poetic landscape, in relation to the subjects, themes, styles, language and mood.

In the anthology of 77 poems, Bamwoyeraki and Langoya address contemporary issues affecting Ugandan society such as endemic corruption in public office, national disaffection, the effects of war, peace, reconciliation, love, conservatism, domestic violence, absentee and single parenthood, broken homes and hopes, and environmental degradation, among others.

For example Bamwoyeraki’s poem Ensimirembe Village is about women giving birth in their farms, by the road side, or on the banks of sluggish streams. Of villages with the dispensaries that are ill-equipped, the healthcare providers untutored, children suffering from worms and others orphaned at birth; grandmothers have lost their sight to cataracts.

Langoya’s poem Too Clean Is Bad for Business indicts societal thinking where your character or conduct is perceived as anti-development and you are called a saboteur because you want them to follow the proper procedures with documentation, signatures and receipts when dealing with public funds. The poem reads in part:

She is too clean
That is bad for business.
This is a Government organisation
Run by the people, for the people
The money belongs to the Government
And therefore to the people
And we are the people,
‘Too Clean’ Is Bad for Business

The poets equally contribute nearly the same number of poems in each of the 12 sections of the 82-page anthology. The book was published by Fountain Publishers in 2016 and is available at major bookshops in Uganda at Ush20,000 ($5.4).

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Langoya is a lawyer by training and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administration (ICSA) UK. Her first verse publication, Song of Farewell (1994), was in the song tradition pioneered by her late father Okot p’Bitek, starting with his Song of Lawino.

Bamwoyeraki has taught in international schools for 20 years and is currently at the Kampala International School, where she heads the English and Literature Department. She is a writer of educational material and her poems appear in a number of anthologies published in Uganda and South Africa.

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