UGX20,000
“No speaking Vernacular was beautifully performed; humourous, witty, revealing. I thought the play clearly brought out the shortcomings of an education system that wholly demonizes the use of native languages in schools. No Speaking Vernacular pits Mr. Full stop, the John Speke High School Headteacher against Dambya, (Nsubuga Muhammad) a renegade vernacular speaker. Dambya’s sin is using the Luganda word ‘gwe’ which Mr Full stop considers an unforgivable breach of Article 23 of the school Regulations.
In punishment, Dambya suffers the minimum punishment prescribed by the regulations. He is caned. He is forced to wear old sisal sackcloth, a bone around his neck, and a placard bearing the words: “I am stupid. I speak Vernacular.”
– Herbert Okello Andrew, Lawyer, teacher.
Aha! It’s you Dambya
Today I have caught you!
Today you are not escaping me!
Dambya, I have heard you
Today I have heard you
With my own ears
You have said GWE
Get out, get out,
Get out of dorm!
Come outside here
You let him pass;
Come, come; come!
Every day, every single day,
They report to me
That you use vernacular
And every time I ask you
You deny, you say they lie,
And you can deny, Dambya-
You are so good at denying
But today I have caught you
With my own ears
Full Stop! Full?
I have heard you
Speaking vernacular.
Today, no denying!
Today no?
Kagayi Ngobi is a Ugandan performance poet and a Team Leader at Kitara Nation, a poetry company. He is also the author of THE (NEW) HEADLINE THAT MORNING, PUPU POEMS (2018, Kitara Nation) and FOR MY NEGATIVITY (2019, Kitara Nation). His works have featured in a number of theatre productions and have also appeared in a number of poetry anthologies. Kagayi enjoys performing poetry and plays and he lives in Kampala.
ISBN: 9-798654-861160
Format: Paperback & Kindle
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 44
Published: 2020
Publisher: Kitara Nation
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“The young writers have vehemently demonstrated their frustrations, puzzles and hopes in a society with adults swallowed in know-it-all snobbery. The poetic arrows in this poetry collection declare war on societal silence on things that matter most and draw lines to proper order of the ideal society, a society in which they would love to dwell now as children and tomorrow as adults. It is a reflective collection of thoughts with thousands of options of solutions to our fears. It is work you wouldn’t abandon to dust.”
-Kened. B. Ngiise iii, teacher, poet/writer.
DON’T LOVE ME IN ENGLISH brilliantly tells the journey of the persona in poetry through Kampala taxi-rides, men’s public objectification of women, the quest for love and the pain of the heart-break and the power of resilience. This wonderful collection highlights issues of gender, religion and culture. A must-read for all teenage girls.
“A nation turning into a mortuary” as an “experiment in human suffering”. This is an example of how powerful Richard Otwao’s poetry is: using deceptively simple diction and imagery, he vividly captures the tragedy that African countries have suffered in different situations of war, dictatorship, deprivation, disease, and insult, to mention but a few. With delicate irony and humour, he shows us that not all is lost, for if we mediate upon our deeds and will ourselves into loving our fellow human beings a little more, we can salvage something from the mess we have put our countries, and ourselves, into.”
-Dr Danson Sylvester Kahyana, Senior Lecturer in Literature, Makerere University
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