Monday Feature - Writer and Poet Mildred Kiconco Barya

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I (Leslie Moon) am standing in for Brian Miller this week. I have the honor of featuring Mildred Kicono Barya, on One Stop Poetry, this week. I was introduced to Mildred (Midi) through a mutual friend,Josepf Haslam. I'm not only impressed with this woman's writing but her heart for her people. 

As a writer, poet and organisational psychologist, Mildred Kiconco Barya has worked in the book industry, broadcasting, and human resources consulting with Ernst & Young. She has written travel articles, features, commentaries, book reviews, essays and short stories for various newspapers, journals and magazines.

She is presently at Syracuse University (New York) working on her MFA (Master's Fine Arts). In her spare time, she is part of a non-profit established to encourage writing in Africa.

Many thanks to Mildred for taking time out of her holiday for this interview.

Midi - When you graduate from Syracuse what are your dreams for your writing?
To keep writing, really, and also to have more publications out because what's the point of writing to keep everything in the drawer if you believe in sharing? Right now, I'm revising my novel manuscript and also writing short stories. I hope in two or three years I'll have the novel out and some short stories as well. Poetry is the constant, it meets the every day life and concerns. Prose is something i have to plan and work on for the long term.


What message would you want to convey to a fledgling poet?
To keep writing. To keep trying until they find their feet (maybe nowadays its their shoes). No baby would be walking if they'd been afraid of that first step. So the point is to get the first words out, the first sentence, and follow it up with more words and somehow it will all begin to make sense.


How has writing changed your life?
This is a hard one to respond to in a few words. But I think it has made me more of a believer. By believing I mean in creativity, in possibility, in imagination, and in creating an unknown world. Each day begins with a high dose of optimism because of what I can create to make a couple of folks feel better, and because of what I've seen others succeed at creating. Without the writing, maybe I'd be a resigned person, which would be terribly sad.


Let me encourage you to read Midi's poetry a few times. There is a depth in her work that I know you will enjoy.

The Call

Come to the edge, he said

It’s dangerous there, I answered

Come to the edge, he said

It’s risky, I might fall and break my bones

Come to the edge, he said

I did,

He pushed me,

And I flew.

The Vultures

(I don’t usually try to explain my poetry but here I’ll say this poem has nothing to do with vultures but has a lot to do with vultures.)

The vultures descend

This one is ready meat, they say to one another

The girl pretends she’s dead

They poke her head eager to feast on her brains

But it’s turtle shell hiding arrows, mazes and puzzles

Their beaks crack and two leave

The one that stays strikes raising much dust

The girl rises, clears the dust and heads home.

After the Tsunami

Pain is in the swollen silence

That comes after watching

The broadcast news-

Laughter fades

Deep calls to deep of every nation

Eyes search for a place,

To lay down the sorrow.

Trapped in a web of tangled emotions,

Wordless wounds fester,

We stand on the banks and exhume the debris

Remembrance is nothing but this crumbled pile.

We did not notice how it started,

Waves that were callous

Gathered their force and ripped us apart

Wails of a thousand voices echo:

Prove that God is there, attest to his care!

We are stripped of all answers.

Tears happen,

Hearts splinter

Loneliness and terror,

Make their visitation known

This is what it means;

To hold infinity in a grain of sand,

To watch leaves blown by wind fall to the ground

We too are severed by the seasons’ change,

The price of memory crippled by loss.

The sky wears a cloak of bereavement

The moon is somber stricken,

We hung between despair and brokenness

Strands of grief weave us together

We are knotted into a ball of mourning

Wrapped in heartache’s arms

Only blinding faith and generous hands sustain us,

In the wake of Tsunami.

Her first collection of poetry titled Men Love Chocolates But They Don’t Say won the Uganda National Award for poetry publication, 2002. The Price of Memory After the Tsunami is her second poetry collection published by Mallory International, UK, 2006. Give Me Room to Move My Feet her third poetry book, 2009. Amalion. All available to buy from the One Stop Bookshop

Mildred’s short story publications include: “Scars of Earth” published in The African Love Stories Anthology, Ayebia Clarke Publishing Ltd, UK, 2006. “Effigy Child” published by Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (CBA) UK, 2004, and republished in Gifts of Harvest, FEMRITE, 2006. “Raindrops” published in Words From A Granary, FEMRITE anthology, 2001. “Land of my Bones”, published in Dreams, Miracles & Jazz, an anthology of New Africa Fiction, Pan Macmillan, 2008.

You can find more of Midi's fantastic writing at her website

The non-profit for African Writers that she is part of is called African Writers Trust.  African Writers Trust: aims to facilitate and put in place structures that encourage synergism, writing development and publishing prospects for African writers.

Photo by: Frerieke

http://www.flickr.com/photos/frerieke/3563543999/