Sad desperate and emotional. Lost and lonely. Also showed the growth of man fighting through hard struggle in hard war times. So much discrimination that everyone is fighting for and the people that are in it deep, on all the sides. It is very different kind of poetry. It will be a shock to some a tear jerker maybe and who knows maybe you could be offended by the topic chosen. But this author is brave for putting something like this out there. Its very forward. Inspirational and new.

New Carthaginians by Nick Makoha is a collection of poems. The book itself is separated into three main parts, „The Deep Space Quartet“ (which is, as the name already suggests, made of four parts), „Codex©“ and „Eroica“. The collections contains various forms of poems and also contains ekphrastic images.
Before reading the book, I would suggest looking into the hijacking of the Air France flight in 1976 and the Raid of Entebbe (also known as Operation Thunderbolt), that was launched as a counter-mission/attack to the hijacking. In addition to that, I’d also recommend looking up the famous Neo-Expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. The author doesn’t just incorporate Basquiat and his artworks into his collection of poems, but built this entire collection using Basquiat’s „Exploded Collage“ approach/technique as a „poetic device“ (p. 87).

The book is overall very thought-provoking. One of the main things I didn’t really like were the poems with footnotes. While the incorporation of footnotes is a very interesting idea, the poems also became a little hard to follow, since the switching between the poem itself and the footnotes broke my reading flow.

My personal favourite poems were:
„Icarus talks to the poet on Rodeo Drive about leaving“
„the poet as Cassius Clay 1982“
„The New Carthaginian“
„Icarus asks Basquiat to Paint Him“
„Codex©“ (p. 75)

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Press UK for giving me access to this ARC. :)

Makoha’s new collection, while poetically stunning at times, makes for a challenging read, leaving the reader lost at times in the layers of all Makoha wished to achieve.
An ‘exploded collage’ drawing upon the work of Basquiat, this four part collection explores the thoughts and experiences of a post-colonialist voice. With a particular focus on African diaspora, Uganda and the themes of power, submission and liberation.
Makoha takes the hijacking at Entebbe Airport in 1976 as his cornerstone - marking clearly how political and colonial desires continue to hamstring the people.
The main message I could gain from this was one of suffering - of how power is held by the few and the majority are oppressed.
But it was hard to find these meanings at times, particularly when once reaching the end, unless you are incredibly familiar with Basquiat’s work, you realise how many of the poems are Ekphrastic.
For some this will no doubt prompt a reread - the beauty of poetic and artistic expression being the layers of experience and exploration.
But for me, it felt too over its head in all Makoha chose as inspiration and this impacted how enjoyable it was to read.