The January Children depicts displacement and longing while also questioning accepted truths about geography, history, nationhood, and home. The poems mythologize family histories until they break open, using them to explore aspects of Sudan's history of colonial occupation, dictatorship, and diaspora. Several of the poems speak to the late Egyptian singer Abdelhalim Hafez, who addressed many of his songs to the asmarani--an Arabic term of endearment for a brown-skinned or dark-skinned person. Elhillo explores Arabness and Africanness and the tensions generated by a hyphenated identity in those two worlds.
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Poet's experience of alienation, violence, colonialism, colourism, racism, in Sudan (Egypt?) and the US.
The inclusion of Arabic within the poems is eloquent in conveying how unlikely it is that I can fully grasp all the layers of meaning present, (though there is a glossary and notes in the back that may assist) any more than I can share all the poet has experienced. Still, I owed it to her work to try.
I think formatting is both artistic choice and a calculated method of slowing reading down to reflect further, but I think it messed with my reading comprehension.
Just a humbling reminder that I'm still a novice at understanding poetry.
