The New Carthaginians
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Summary
In The New Carthaginians, time – and with it the world – is out of joint. A hijacked plane lands at Entebbe International Airport in 1976, triggering the crisis that leads to Uganda becoming a pariah state and later to the young Makoha’s escape from the country.
Concerned throughout with flight and falling, the sample and the loop, The New Carthaginians is a poetry collection of staggering originality: a work by an author at the height of his powers, in which the familiar Western canons of art, history and philosophy are prised apart and reassembled in a new configuration. Drawing on Basquiat’s technique of the ‘exploded’ collage, Makoha’s triumvirate of characters – the Poet, a Black Icarus and a resurrected Jean-Michel Basquiat – embark on a heroes’ odyssey, gathering the symbols of a new mythos, through which the othering of Black life might be undone and the stage set for some fresh emergence, some transfigured understanding of myth and life. ‘Hold that note,’ writes the poet. ‘In this place you are no longer the chorus . . . In any future, remember you are a New Carthaginian.’
Concerned throughout with flight and falling, the sample and the loop, The New Carthaginians is a poetry collection of staggering originality: a work by an author at the height of his powers, in which the familiar Western canons of art, history and philosophy are prised apart and reassembled in a new configuration. Drawing on Basquiat’s technique of the ‘exploded’ collage, Makoha’s triumvirate of characters – the Poet, a Black Icarus and a resurrected Jean-Michel Basquiat – embark on a heroes’ odyssey, gathering the symbols of a new mythos, through which the othering of Black life might be undone and the stage set for some fresh emergence, some transfigured understanding of myth and life. ‘Hold that note,’ writes the poet. ‘In this place you are no longer the chorus . . . In any future, remember you are a New Carthaginian.’
Reviews
One of our most daring and original poets, Nick Makoha has channelled the wild energies of Basquiat’s art into this essential new collection. These are poems layered with potent coordinates from African and world history, alongside the sensations of a Black Icarus in headlong flight, to create a new mythology all their own. Churning with codes, enigmas, unforgettable images, this is poetry that resonates with an emotive power that lies beyond immediate comprehension
Sarah Howe, T.S. Eliot Prize-winning poet of Loop of Jade