To Be A Man

Veon Ngugi, a Nairobi based blogger shares her thoughts on To Be A Man, a poetry anthology published by Kwani?

In 2007, Kwani Trust – a Kenyan based literary network dedicated to developing quality creative writing, ran a poetry competition. Later that same year, the judges of that competition: Garnette Oluoch-Oluoya, Muthoni Garland, Steve Partington and John Sibi Okumu came together to pick a winner. The poems in To Be A Man, are those that made it to the shortlist.

The poems in the anthology discuss masculinity and the space it occupies in the shared society. Gender is a little hard to define but in the time since these poems were written, a few things have become clearer, the discussions on gender, femininity and feminism now take centre stage… and yet poetry and gender are both often subjective topics. Reading through these poems, it’s a little hard not to cringe, also a little hard not to break into laughter; as some of them really are funny. Ng’ang’a Mbugua’s The Modern Man read to me like a prophecy of the ‘cheers baba’ movement, Poesiapoa Njeri’s Garanga’s Stream of Peace eulogised South Sudan’s John Garang so heavily that I had to go read up in the man!

Still as part of this anthology, Kwani Trust commissioned poetry on various aspects of gender, human rights and social justice. Which is something I am in awe of because, hardly any local literature on the subject(s) existed at that point in time.This section of the anthology was dubbed ‘Breaking through’

My favourite from this part of the anthology is Ngwatilo’s Hybrid Love, but I might be biased after reading her own poetry collection, Blue Mothertongue, I am convinced that Ngwatilo can do no wrong. Also included in Breaking Through are amongst other poems, three pieces by Sitawa Namwalie, finally it would be a disservice to talk about the anthology without mentioning Transparency by Marjorie Oludhe-McGoye, a beautiful poem that reminded me of Coming to Birth.

Veon Ngugi loves potatoes almost as much as she loves literature. She runs her own blog: www.theveon.co.ke

Kwani? Have their bookstore at The Elephant, on Number 3, Kanjata Rd where a plethora of African literature pieces can be found.
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