Poem

Tsitsi Jaji

Side by side

HOW I WRITE

Now, I see that
my wilderness
is our field,
and I call
my neighbor
to plough it
with me. Our
hoes dig deep.

Our harvest spills
over into something
an awful lot
like hope.

Tsitsi Jaji

(Zimbabwe, 1976)

Tsitsi Jaji was born at Nyadire Mission and raised in Harare. After completing her A-levels on a scholarship at Arundel, she moved to the U.S. to study piano and literature at Oberlin College. She earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell University.

Many of her poems are inspired by music and the experience of living in the diaspora. Jaji’s collection, Beating the Graves, was publ...

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Poems of Tsitsi Jaji

HOW I WRITE

Now, I see that
my wilderness
is our field,
and I call
my neighbor
to plough it
with me. Our
hoes dig deep.

Our harvest spills
over into something
an awful lot
like hope.