impepho press

Meet: Dr Danai Mupotsa

Danai Mupotsa was born in Harare, and

has lived in Botswana, the United States

and South Africa where she is now based.

She describes herself as a teacher and

writer. feeling and ugly, was largely written

between 2016 and 2018, although some

of the poems were written earlier or

previously published in some form.

The collection gathers the various

statuses and locations she moves across,

as daughter, mother, teacher, scholar and

writer. From these places, many of the

poems try to approach difficult feelings

about what it means to “do politics” from

an empathetic complexity. “I’m raging,

sometimes that makes me petty” is one

such example. The collection carries a

set of standpoints, or wilfulness about

pedagogy, politics and optimism. And

while she carries an attachment to a

non-reparative, or negative affect across

the collection,

she closes in

describing the

work, or all of

her work as love

poems. This

collection is a

long love letter

to those who

are wilful.

#WomxnMonthSho_case

Source: @CSofPoetry