New poetry from Blessing Musariri and Mamle Kabu

Blessing Musariri (shown here with with Binyavanga Wainaina in the Gambia in 2oo7) was in yesterday's UK Guardian, her poem that is. Here's a few lines from Mitu's Spice Tour:

Stop four – in single file we are baking in the sun.
Cloves cure diarrhoea and stomach-ache,
the neem is very bitter but better than malaria parasite.
Boil bark or leaves and drink tea for seven days.
Cures up to forty ailments.

Mitu's Spice Tour is taken from Sunflowers in Your Eyes: Four Zimbabwean Poets, edited by Menna Elfyn (Cinnamon Press).

Musariri will do a promotional tour of the UK in June (along with another poet in the anthology, Ethel Irene Kwabato), with appearances at the Hay Festival, Hay on Wye (6 June), Trinity Ffrinj Festival, Trinity University College in Carmathen, Wales (7 June) and at the Aberyswyth Arts Arts Centre, also in Wales (8 June).

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And here on the right is Mamle Kabu, reading at the CDC Caine/Kwani literary eventing in Nairobi on March 24. Kabu has new poetry online.

Orange Juice is published on Groundnut Soup World Writers Blog on the PEN America website.

A few lines...

My dying wish?
Orange juice
From oranges that are yellow
Not orange,
Oranges from the forests of Ghana
Grown wild in cool shade
And careless beauty

Laban Hill on the Groundnut Soup World Writers Blog

"Over the past year, I have been travelling around the world meeting writers on almost every continent. This blog is meant to celebrate not only these writers, but also all writers. Please feel free to submit a short piece of fiction or nonfiction or a poem along with a short bio to: labanhill@yahoo.com. I look forward to reading your work!"

• Blessing Musariri photo by MW/Mamle Kabu photo courtesy MO