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The Habitual Be

included in New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set (Nne)

Chimwemwe Undi

Akashic Books

Cover art by Ficre Ghebreyesus

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This collection’s urgency is firmly anchored in the mundane losses of our present moment. Undi knows our habits of attention . . . Undi’s poems transform desire into memory, andThe Habitual Be makes our living lovely over and over and over again . . . the every day of regular folk, made paramount.

Tsitsi Ella Jaji, from the preface

Listing (v.)

In dog years, I am dead. In Black years, alive,

so: exceptional, increasingly so. I ask strangers

for directions on pocket scraps & build myself

a map home as cohesive as a litany

I am having trouble remembering.


I am having trouble remembering.

There are too many bodies in this room built for bodies.

We are magic typecast as disappearing acts, history

whispered into memories.


& easier things:

1. the prime ministers in chronological order,

2. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos,

3. the angle at which the earth leans, shaking us off like water.


There is too much to say

for this mouth built for praying.

There are too many names to unhear

so I don’t have to remember

or truly, repeat to meaninglessness,

or truly, forget them,

outrage a poor mnemonic device.


I am having trouble remembering.

I am forgetting & that is the worst part.

I cannot hold a name long enough

to know it. Even the faces are growing statistical,

the write-ups into archives. I know guilt better

than grief, as well as a restlessness,

better than a Black body breathing still.
“Listing (v.),” by Chimwemwe Undi