[02/01/27] Mugarura, Jedidiah: Nyamuteza

University of Nebraska Press, paperback

Publication Date: February 1, 2027

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What does it mean for one to begin from the point of view of a Black thought? Nyamuteza, named for the planet Pluto in the East African Native language of Runyankore, opens with a Black dictionary definition of four of the brightest objects of the Kuiper Belt. The sonorous book-length poem is a love song that unravels the affective from the perspective of a village in rural Uganda devastated by the climate catastrophe of a hailstorm. The same population is tasked with producing food for the community. Jedidiah Mugarura uses incantation as a mode of expression with a novelistic attention to story. In Nyamuteza the hail is likened to stars and African Nkore ideology is infused with Black thought in seeking a language toward survivance.