THE CARELESS SEAMSTRESS, foreword by Kwame Dawes

71pp., paperback, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 2019

ISBN: 9781496214126

Poems

“These poems open the archive of identity and the mysteries of the body at one and the same time. In richly embossed detail, events, lost evenings and the erotics of history are unveiled. In these narratives, a young woman’s life moves between danger and custom: her body knows silence is a language/ any woman can learn to speak. This work brings the reader to new places and age-old insights. These are moving, eloquent and compelling poems.” Eavan Boland, author of A Woman Without a Country: Poems

"With a natural approach to the physicality of her characters' lives and struggles, Botswanan poet Tjawangwa Dema uses her work to explore large questions of gender, identity and labor. The pieces in The Careless Seamstress live at the intersection of these themes, showing how one moment or action brilliantly encapsulates the whole." Noah Cruickshank, Shelf Awareness

Botswana poet and educator Tjawangwa Dema is the author of the poetry collection an/other pastoral (2022). The Careless Seamstress won the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. Her chapbook, Mandible, was published in the box set Seven New Generation African Poets. Formerly chairperson of the Writers' Association of Botswana, she is currently an Honorary Senior Research Associate in the Department of English at the University of Bristol.