Poetry Friday - Chinua Achebe

I didn't even know that the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe had written poetry until this week, but his novel Things Fall Apart is one of my favorites.

Here's Achebe's poem "A Mother in a Refugee Camp."

No Madonna and Child could touch
Her tenderness for a son
She would soon have to forget...
The air was heavy with odors of diarrhea,
Of unwashed children with washed-out ribs
And dried-up bottoms waddling in labour steps
Behind blown-empty bellies.

You can read the rest of it here.



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