BOOK REVIEW: Minds & Mind Fields, Njeri Wangari

Book:            Mines & Mind Fields: My Spoken Words

Author:       Njeri Wangari (Kenyan Poet)

Publisher:  Nsemia Inc Publishers

Reviewer:   Vincent de Paul

Available on Amazon.

Mines & Mind Fields: My Spoken Words is a collection of poetry by Kenyan poet and writer Njeri Wangari. The book dwells mainly on contemporary issues affecting the society today, with an inclination to Kenya but cutting across all Africa. This review focuses on the poet’s ability to capture her audience, to entertain and diction; not verse forms, and literary devices.

The first thing you will probably notice as you set to read Mines & Mind Fields is that the poems address every day hustles of life in an urban centre. The way the poet addresses the issues of life in the city is simple and entertaining when you come to think of it that way. The words are simple and clear, and not clogged by deep images – just as if she is reliving the life herself.

This simple diction makes the poems even more fun to read. They are very prosaically descriptive, and narrative in nature. The beauty of her diction is that it deeply reflects on the poet’s spontaneity of the muse.

There is a lot we can learn from the book, I leave that to literary gurus to critically do what they do best. It is packed with pieces of advice for anyone living in a society devoid of stringent cultural practices, and one drifting to despondency, thanks to the continuous breaking of the fabric that’s supposed to hold it together.

Mines & Mind Fields, for me, has been a great read. It is a book every Kenyan, and African at that matter, should read. Njeri Wangari writes in a way that makes you have the same pleasure in poetry as you would have got in a TV drama.