let us not think of them as barbarians

by Peter Midgley

Overview

Finalist for the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry at the 2020 Alberta Literary Awards!

Peter Midgley’s let us not think of them as barbarians is a bold narrative of love, migration, and war hewn from the stones of Namibia. Sensual and intimate, these evocative poems fold into each other to renew and undermine multiple poetic traditions. Gradually, the poems assemble an ombindi—an ancestral cairn—from a history of violent disruption. Underlying the intense language is an exploration of African philosophy and its potential for changing our view of the world. Even as the poems look to the past, they push the reader towards a future that is as relevant to contemporary Canada as it is to the Namibian earth that bled them.

Praise for let us not think of them as barbarians:

“These poems do double work: they challenge what we think we know about the relationship between history and the present and ask us to consider what else would be going on. The poems demand that we reflect on how we come to knowledge, especially that which is not hegemonic but is definitely central to another world.”
~ Juliane Okot Bitek, author of 100 Days

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781988732763
Publisher:	NeWest Publishers, Limited
Publication date:	08/31/2019
Series:	Crow Said Poetry
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	779 KB

About the Author

Peter Midgley is the author of several books of poetry, children’s literature, and plays. He lives in Edmonton.

Read an Excerpt

YOU CANNOT WRITE THESE THINGS DOWN

you cannot write these things down
you cannot write them down
you cannot write them down
says the singer of praises.

the warm draft of summer
the burn of stone on bare feet
the blood of my rivers—

you cannot write this down
you cannot create calligraphies of pain
says the singer of sorrows.

Table of Contents

Note 15

You cannot write these things down 19

An account of the herero 20

Let us not think of them as barbarians 24

Dragfoot finds a body 25

A heart should not beat like this 26

Words melt in his mouth 29

Beyond the breakers 30

In the morning 31

Sometimes words do not speak to him 32

Put a gun in my mouth 33

Her shoulders rise like the hills 34

Memory refuses to accept more faces 36

The weight of airmail 37

Things that get lost 38

The rain bulls of the khoekhoe 39

A man walks out of the mountain 41

Dragfoot dreams of joining the hunt 42

Song of the herero 43

His feet scarcely enveloped by his sandals 45

A history of dust 46

The bones become a refuge 48

The horses of hunger 50

The earth needs a pacemaker 51

The dragfoot man leaves the trail 52

Her heart is desert rose 53

The woman's heart is stone and stain 54

Press a hand in my gentled bed 55

Shark island 56

Christmas (building the railroad) 57

The germans need to sit down 58

Horses at garub 59

The crippled goose 61

Petrel at daybreak 62

You navigate the world differently 63

Yes, i sing your beauty 66

The woman of angra pequeña 67

After the dust settles 70

Acknowledgements 73

Afterword Juliane Okot Bitek 75

Reading Group Guide

YOU CANNOT WRITE THESE THINGS DOWN

you cannot write these things down
you cannot write them down
you cannot write them down
says the singer of praises.

the warm draft of summer
the burn of stone on bare feet
the blood of my rivers—

you cannot write this down
you cannot create calligraphies of pain
says the singer of sorrows.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for let us not think of them as barbarians:

"This book offers a necessary paean to an often-forgotten tragedy."
— Catherine Owen, Canadian Literature

“These poems do double work: they challenge what we think we know about the relationship between history and the present and ask us to consider what else would be going on. The poems demand that we reflect on how we come to knowledge, especially that which is not hegemonic but is definitely central to another world.”
— Juliane Okot Bitek, author of 100 Days

From the Publisher