African Love Poetry

Received in the mail some books from old friend Frank Chipasula, Malawian poet and scholar, now happily enjoying an endowed professorship at Southern Illinois University. Frank and I met when I interviewed him many years ago, when he was a grad student at Brown and I was books editor at the Providence Journal. I reviewed his anthology When My Brothers Come Home - very nice book. We didn't stay in touch, but Frank called me when his new anthology, Bending the Bow, an anthology (the first) of African love poetry, came out from SIU Press. They send me a copy, and I've been poking around in it. I really recommend it to anyone interested in world literature, especially poetry. Many of these poems have never been available, definitely not in a single handsome edition. Frank also send me a few chapbooks from his own new press, Brown Turtle, which specializes in African poetry in translation. Haven't had a chance to read these yet, but they're very handsome books and worth checking out.

Here's a link to info about Bending the Bow:
http://www.siupress.com/catalog/productinfo.aspx?id=2809&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
And here's a link to info about Brown Turtle Press (Slow but determined!):
http://www.brownturtlepress.com/