Kingdom of Gravity

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. There is no presumption of innocence. There may be flight, but there is no standing aside. The narrator can dream (but is it a dream?) of a “dead man/who has been stung by the invisible bee of my bullet”

A talent at the beginning of a genuinely important road. — George Szirtes