Kingdom of Gravity

Overview

In direct narrative terms the poems in this collection relate to the horrors of the civil war that ousted the brutal tyranny of Idi Amin in Uganda, a war of liberation that brought its own barbarous atrocities. In political terms the poems chart the impact of imperialism and neo-colonialism that lay behind those traumas in the life of the nation. In personal terms, the poems are framed between the contrary pulls of attachment and flight, exile and longing. At their heart is an unwavering curiosity about how people behave in extreme situations, and what this reveals about our common human capacities to indulge grandiose visions, betray them, dissemble, seek revenge and kill.

Reviews

"I find the terrains of his thinking and feeling breathtaking. Kingdom Of Gravity is truly an amazing debut." —Terrance Hayes, educator and poet, Lighthead 2010 National Book Award Winner

"His poetry is full of telling lines and images that capture the uneasy synthesis of the clear and the contradictory, the menacing and the promising, the ugly and the beautiful, but images that burn long into memory of the reader." —Ngugi wa Thiong'o, writer

Author Biography

Nick Makoha is the winner of the Brunel University African Poetry Prize 2015. His second pamphlet, The Second Republic, was published in the African Poetry Book Fund's Seven New Generation African Poets series. He toured the UK with his solo show My Father & Other Superheroes. Nick Makoha fled Uganda, because of the civil war during the Idi Amin dictatorship. He has lived in Kenya, Saudi Arabia and currently resides in London. He represented Uganda at Poetry Parnassus as part of the Cultural Olympiad held in London.