Bernard Farai Matambo

Stray by Bernard Farai Matambo is the winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. Matambo, born and raised in Zimbabwe, is visiting assistant professor creative writing at Oberlin College. He received his BA from Oberlin and an MFA from Brown University, where his writing received both the Beth Lisa Feldman Award for Fiction and the Matthew Assatly Award.

Stray is prose formed poetry. The words bring complex images and feelings from youth through adulthood. Growing up in Zimbabwe, the poet has a strong connection to Christianity. It is a child's version but plays an important role in his youth. Although the book may be the same there is something fresh in the belief. It seems new compared to the established Western views. But, later he makes a discovery in his minister's Bible ("Holy Ghost"). Religion then drifts into adolescence ("Catechism"):

Remind me again, dear love, of that time when the world was as young as we were and I was lit bright with urges, light as the shroud Christ yielded when he gave up his tomb, sick of sleeping alone and dreading the eternity of it, when he sought himself some company. Of this no poetry shall come.

There is an inclusion of a poem of a man mentioned by Matambo's father. Ota Benga was a Congolese man who became a human zoo exhibit in St. Louis and the Bronx Zoo. There is much on the meaning of identity and freedom -- exile and return. In the poet's Preamble to the section Stray he writes:

We forgot the rooted scent of our dreams. And because we forgot the rooted scent of our dreams, we forgot they could flower. No, not anymore; no longer could everyone read the coming air for the rain.

Later works reflect on turmoil in Africa. The ghettos and the hardships are expressed in his poetry. In one poem the death of youth is reflected on and in another, leaders are mentioned by name. "Requiem: In the Case Regarding My Brother" is a powerful and moving poem of internal struggle.

The forward of this collection is provided by Kwame Dawes and provides extra insight into the poems and their meanings in proper context. A well-done collection of poetry that may not fit into the mold of traditional Western poetry, but is vividly written poetry, nonetheless.
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