The Chongololo Club
by Graham Burchell
£8.99 (pub. 2012)

The Chongololo Club Reviews

"These poems have the virtues of close observation and personal engagement in their accounts of living and teaching in Africa. Flora, fauna, people, loneliness, culture-shock, compassion and humour all contribute to making this collection haunting and coherent. The poet sustains triumphantly the demands of his particular subject material."

Penelope Shuttle, poet

Crossing the Sahara

Night is a black drone in an aeroplane's throat,
hidden sand below, pricked with occasional orange stars.

There are things I've forsaken already.
This is the dream between being awake and being reawakened.

I slide down this continent, glass in one hand,
whisky gone, just a melting ice-cube cold against my teeth.

There are fires down there, remote, winking.
I dream but I cannot sleep.

(from The Chongololo Club)