Pippa Little was born and raised in Tanzania. She is Scots but has lived mainly in England. A teacher, editor, higher education lecturer and literacy tutor, she has now begun writing full-time. Married with three sons, two in England and one in Mexico, and a labrador dog, she has a poetry collection titled Overwintering.
Spotlighting Pan-African Poetry
Biography
Imagining Africa From A Window
The kitchen smells of cold
the sky is old blue
I’m not this house’s child
I want to be gone
out over those fields
where the tall trees call
Home, come home
in Swahili only I can hear
for the glass is sealed
If I walk and walk
how far till I reach there?
Those shivers of cracked stars
under the world’s end
must be my sea, place
I grew –
home, come home,
but I live in a snow globe now
and the glass is sealed
Pippa Little
Featured Poem:
Fatouma
You lift and lower me
into bath-water, ocean-water,
swaddle me in towels between your knees.
Sucking my thumb, I drowse
in your lap, ear to your heartbeat.
The nights I can’t sleep
I follow and find you,
drawn by fire and drumming,
sparks on my nightdress.
The day we drive away
hands waving through the window
I know nothing of never again
just as you know nothing of snow
or another life called Scotland.
Imagining Africa From A Window
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Biography
Pippa Little
Biography
Pippa Little was born and raised in Tanzania. She is Scots but has lived mainly in England. A teacher, editor, higher education lecturer and literacy tutor, she has now begun writing full-time. Married with three sons, two in England and one in Mexico, and a labrador dog, she has a poetry collection titled Overwintering.
Imagining Africa From A Window
The kitchen smells of cold
the sky is old blue
I’m not this house’s child
I want to be gone
out over those fields
where the tall trees call
Home, come home
in Swahili only I can hear
for the glass is sealed
If I walk and walk
how far till I reach there?
Those shivers of cracked stars
under the world’s end
must be my sea, place
I grew –
home, come home,
but I live in a snow globe now
and the glass is sealed
Featured Poem:
Fatouma
You lift and lower me
into bath-water, ocean-water,
swaddle me in towels between your knees.
Sucking my thumb, I drowse
in your lap, ear to your heartbeat.
The nights I can’t sleep
I follow and find you,
drawn by fire and drumming,
sparks on my nightdress.
The day we drive away
hands waving through the window
I know nothing of never again
just as you know nothing of snow
or another life called Scotland.
Imagining Africa From A Window
Imagining Africa From A Window
The kitchen smells of cold
the sky is old blue
I’m not this house’s child
I want to be gone
out over those fields
where the tall trees call
Home, come home
in Swahili only I can hear
for the glass is sealed
If I walk and walk
how far till I reach there?
Those shivers of cracked stars
under the world’s end
must be my sea, place
I grew –
home, come home,
but I live in a snow globe now
and the glass is sealed
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