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Things We Lost in the Fire

included in Eight New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set

Vuyelwa Maluleke

Akashic Books

Cover art by Imo Nse Imeh

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Maluleke does not shy away from portraying loss and the pain and trauma that follow, often with a directness and candor that shifts effortlessly into lyricism. This collection suggests, however, that acknowledging and addressing them is a key step in the process of creating the conditions for change…This is art-for-life’s sake, a truly political poetry. In their representation of life’s multiple trials and challenges, they chart a new map for the poetic speaker’s and the readers’ self-awareness, liberation and resistance.

John Keene, from the preface

Too Heavy to Love

How much you hate yourself is muffled

by the lavender foam bath the shop assistant said

would make you feel like Paris arched herself into your tub.

You’d never been to a place whose skies

were bouquets and not smoke.

But even in the water you think:

I am too heavy to love

I am too heavy to love

I am too heavy to love
Vuyelwa Maluleke, “Too Heavy to Love”