The New Carthaginians

by Nick Makoha

SHORTLISTED FOR THE TS ELIOT PRIZE 2025

'© Codex' SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST SINGLE POEM

'Profound, sheer originality... a tantalising jigsaw puzzle of a book' Tristram Fane-Saunders, Telegraph
In The New Carthaginians, time – and with it the world – is out of joint. A hijacked plane lands at Entebbe International Airport in 1976, triggering the crisis that will lead to Idi Amin’s Uganda becoming a pariah state and, within a few years, to the young Nick Makoha’s flight from the country. A mysterious writer daubs poetic slogans on the walls of late-’70s New York City, signing them SAMO©. Three characters who are also one – the Poet, a Black Icarus and a resurrected Jean-Michel Basquiat – journey through a time that is both our own and not, watching TV, discussing art and literature and tucking their wings into their jackets on the way to airport security.

Concerned throughout with flight and falling, the sample and the loop, The New Carthaginians is a poetry collection of staggering a work by an author at the height of his powers, in which the familiar Western canons of art, history and philosophy are prised apart and reassembled in a new configuration. Drawing on Basquiat’s technique of the ‘exploded’ collage, our heroes’ odyssey gathers the symbols of a new mythos, through which the othering of Black life might be undone and the stage set for some fresh emergence, some transfigured understanding of myth and life. ‘Hold that note,’ writes the poet. ‘In this place you are no longer the chorus … In any future, remember you are a New Carthaginian.’

A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST SUMMER BOOK OF POETRY 2025


‘In this book, Nick Makoha has found an otherworldly, visionary voice and diction that arrest you from the first page and never let you go.’ Jason Allen-Paisant, Winner of the TS Eliot Prize

Genres: Poetry

84 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 27, 2025

Reviews

[Kristiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this collection in return for a review.

Makoha’s new collection, while poetically stunning at times, makes for a challenging read, leaving the reader lost at times in the layers of all Makoha wished to achieve.

An ‘exploded collage’ drawing upon the work of Basquiat, this four part collection explores the thoughts and experiences of a post-colonialist voice. With a particular focus on African diaspora, Uganda and the themes of power, submission and liberation.
Makoha takes the hijacking at Entebbe Airport in 1976 as his cornerstone - marking clearly how political and colonial desires continue to hamstring the people.

The main message I could gain from this was one of suffering - of how power is held by the few and the majority are oppressed. But it was hard to find these meanings at times, particularly when once reaching the end, unless you are incredibly familiar with Basquiat’s work, you realise how many of the poems are Ekphrastic. For some this will no doubt prompt a reread - the beauty of poetic and artistic expression being the layers of experience and exploration. But for me, it felt too over its head in all Makoha chose as inspiration and this impacted how enjoyable it was to read.

[W.S. Luk · Rating 3 out of 5]

"...As the hours pass he will try to cure/himself of his country. But isn't a country/also a space?..."

In this collection, Makoha borrows the device of the "exploded collage" from the works of Basquiat, which he interprets as a means of displaying information in a non-hierarchical way, with his poems applying these techniques to sources as disparate as the writings of Marcus Garvey to James McAvoy's performance in The Last King of Scotland. I was impressed by this collection's formal inventiveness: Makoha's use of footnotes and unusual text layouts visually exemplifies his "exploded collage" technique, with these textual disruptions challenging the left-to-right, top-to-bottom order in which we usually interpret writing. However, these conceits also made the poem's emotional crux rather opaque. Even though I was intrigued by Makoha's verse and how he ponders themes of migration and national identity, I never quite felt emotionally attached to the narratives this collection tells.

[Thomas Sorokti · Rating 5 out of 5]

5.0/5.0 Nick Makoha makes me feel like I have never been a poet and never will be. And then you meet the man. I have been lucky enough to hear Nick read the poems from this collection, and the way that he approaches the reading of poetry is enough to convince anyone of his work. His poems are full of energy, challenge, and poise, and privilege human connection and instinct over immediate intelligibility. An inspiring work.

[Jennifer Loschiavo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sad desperate and emotional. Lost and lonely. Also showed the growth of man fighting through hard struggle in hard war times. So much discrimination that everyone is fighting for and the people that are in it deep, on all the sides. It is very different kind of poetry. It will be a shock to some a tear jerker maybe and who knows maybe you could be offended by the topic chosen. But this author is brave for putting something like this out there. Its very forward. Inspirational and new.

[Christopher Walthorne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This ode to Basquiat’s ‘exploded collage’ approach to poetry is a bold, vibrant and challenging text, teetering on incomprehensiblity at times, but always maintaining a power and beauty of its own. I’d love to see what Makoha comes up with next!

[Cooch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ground-breaking poetry

Here the innovative forms perfectly fit the voice of the poetic narrative. The music and painting metaphors help to empower the poetry. There are lyric moments of intense beauty. Excellent.

[Ario · Rating 5 out of 5]

God, this is good.