Poem

Amanda Hammar

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Zimbabwe Lost

Zimbabwe Lost

Zimbabwe Lost

I

What kind of African.
My skin
the colour of colonisation.

II

Rooted baobab-deep.
Orphaned now
by the quarrels of history.

III

Moving
from an ache to an agony
flesh tears from bone
heart from home.

© 2002, Amanda Hammar

Amanda Hammar

Amanda Hammar

(Zimbabwe, 1959)

Amanda Hammar, who was born and educated in Zimbabwe, is now a Professor at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Copenhagen. Widely published as an academic, she is currently editing a volume entitled Displacement Economies in Africa: Paradoxes of Crisis and Creativity (forthcoming with Zed Press and Nordic Africa Institute). Amanda has, however, always written poetry, and her fi...

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Poems of Amanda Hammar

Just a Boy

Partitioned

Fidelity

CROSSING KUNGSGATAN

Abandoned

Exiles

Debris

FAITHFUL

a man is dying for a piece of bread

Zimbabwe Lost

Close

Zimbabwe Lost

I

What kind of African.
My skin
the colour of colonisation.

II

Rooted baobab-deep.
Orphaned now
by the quarrels of history.

III

Moving
from an ache to an agony
flesh tears from bone
heart from home.

Zimbabwe Lost

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