Saili Katebe

Katabasis:
Forking Through Memory

Saili Katebe is a Zambian-born writer, performer, and workshop facilitator based in the Southwest of England. His work explores story through art, playing with the musicality in language to make sense of things. Curiosity inspires the ideas he follows down rabbit holes, ideas of faith, culture, race and the self.

If not on the page, Saili takes every opportunity to collaborate with other practitioners, theatre makers, digital projectionists, movement artists, with hopes to broaden the scope of collaborators.’

Saili has seen some success in slam poetry and worked with organisations such as SS Great Britain and BBC Radio Bristol to use poetry to connect communities.

Some of the poems in Katabasis are shown below. To engage with more of Saili’s poetry, you can book a place in a Cheltenham Poetry Festival Zoom on 28 March at 7pm London time (GMT)

The subtitle of this book is adapted from
‘Gullible Disciples‘, one of Saili’s poems in Katabasis

‘We are fed by nostalgia
forking through memories. . .’

Copies of the book are available for delivery. Please click here to order.

Advance praise of Katabasis

In his debut pamphlet, Saili Katebe carves out a tender, wry voice on the page. Exploring memory and interrogating the self (in all its fallibility!), these poems are packed with gorgeous turns of phrase, striking images, and a humanity that sews them all together. In Katabasis, Katebe honours the journeys we take on our way to ourselves while finding humor and playfulness in the process of creation. In turns gentle, rousing, concise, and liberated – this is a collection of poems that will reveal new intricacies with each re-read. A gem of a debut from an invigorating voice.  Malaika Kegode

“In Katabasis, Saili Katebe shows us what it means to ‘navigate through the dark.’ In powerful, beautifully crafted poems, this gifted poet leads us to the underworld (Katabasis) and out again through the redemption of art, love and friendship. 

Saili, an acclaimed spoken word artist, brings all his understanding of sound, rhythm, and dramatic effect to the page. He describes a fisherman’s boy who strives to find sanctuary in an ‘Archipelago carved by colony.’ He writes ‘Drowning feels inevitable here. / Union Jack across my shoulders / asterisk around my name / rediscovering water and legacy.’

Yet whilst being clear-eyed, at times mournful and angry, this is a joy of a book, full of an exhilarating life force, a rich musicality and keen intelligence, and the author’s evident love of poetry itself. ”  
Anna Saunders

“In his debut pamphlet, Saili Katebe carves out a tender, wry voice on the page. Exploring memory and interrogating the self (in all its fallibility!), these poems are packed with gorgeous turns of phrase, striking images, and a humanity that sews them all together. In Katabasis, Katebe honours the journeys we take on our way to ourselves while finding humor and playfulness in the process of creation. In turns gentle, rousing, concise, and liberated – this is a collection of poems that will reveal new intricacies with each re-read. A gem of a debut from an invigorating voice.“
Malaika Kegode 

Five poems from Katabasis: Forking Through Memory

Waterlogged

I am a fisherman’s son
In foreign rivers
gurgling Mutipula’s language
with expensive English.

Luapula to Avon through
Emirates. Paddington to
Temple Quay, Temple Meads
to Colston.

This is England. This
is England, and this is
England.

I applaud this island’s ability
to forget its indiscretion.
Archipelago carved by colony.

Drowning feels inevitable here.
Union Jack across my shoulders
asterisk around my name
rediscovering water and legacy.

The Kings Arms

My town has one redeeming quality,
a resurrection from tedium, our local.
Madness brewed in its sinews,
old stools, and stout bottles.

There is no chaos without this pub.
No clarity without its contradictions.
Loss is a love language learned and lived
in the aqueous sonnets of last orders.

I discovered this pew-less church
in search of benediction and found
solace in the constant forgetting
that getting the rounds in gives us.

I lived as a figure balancing
heartbreak, banter, and Kierkegaard
by the bar, where memory
was starved of relevance.

I am the consequences of place
and time and the fear of forgetting.

Gullible Disciples

I am the patron saint of fools
who found communion
in the greasy spoons of a ghost
town granted immortality.

I sit with my gullible disciples
chewing on old books
photographs and bread
braiding guilt with celebration.

We are fed by nostalgia
forking through memories
to find the pantheons of glass
that pacify our indiscretions.

We chew through certainty with
repetition.

Ordering the same meals,
sitting at the same table
polishing the same graves
that gave us exodus.

For what we are about to bereave
may the world keep us thankful
that we survive the plagues
invented by curiosity.

Mosi O Tunia
[Water That Thunders]

Sons become their fathers. I have dedicated time to writing
poems about my mother; today I take the time to face my
mirror.

I am my father’s son! I follow his footsteps learning the
nuance of sacrifice beside the water, in a country without
beaches, a country with one God, one river, and water that
thunders. It sits between two countries and cuts at cliff faces.
Some people lose sleep wondering which country holds its
Victorious Fall, others watch as the water applauds itself in a
country taught to be quiet.

When they are old enough to suffer, sons will join their fathers
in the world. Inheriting tradition, and learning how to fish by
fire, they are forced to meet again as men in the arenas of
practicality. Tragedy awaits those foolish enough to dance
while casting their nets. They risk tangling their necks with
midnight, unable to turn towards the passing ships.

I borrowed religion from my father, and challenged ideas of
prayer with alternative names for God. He used to question
my visit to the Musjid but stopped the year he gave up pride
for Lent. Our conversations atrophy and stop pointing at the
lines in the sand. I wonder if he has read the wall of books he
kept around the house. He wonders if the books around my
bed are decorations. We dismiss comparisons and pray.
This is how boys and their fathers play.

Memorial

I have been looking for you
in this void between memories.

Gabriel, memorial, remission.
Grief is still an inconvenience.

I talk around your name avoiding
your mother and our church.

The cartography of this distance
has led me away from home.

I fill my evenings with contradiction
Psalms, Surahs, and long silences

trying to mend the fracture
between mortality and faith.