Black Women and Self-Care: A Black Feminist Reading of Upile Chisala’s Poetry

• Ken Junior Lipenga ^[1] ; Asante Lucy Mtenje ^[1]
  1. [1] University of Malawi

     University of Malawi

     Malaui

     
• Localización: Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, ISSN 0732-7730, ISSN-e 1936-1645, Vol. 42, Nº. 2, 2023, págs. 343-360
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This article examines poems of the young Black writer Upile Chisala selected from her three poetry collections, soft magic (2019), nectar (2019), and a fire like you (2020). The poet advances an ethic of self-care—driven by the simultaneous needs for deliberate selfishness and sisterhood—directed at Black women in Africa and the diaspora as the first step towards their mental, physical, and social well-being. Adopting the notion of self-care as advanced by a number of Black feminist scholars, the article examines the way Chisala tackles the topic through a three-pronged trajectory, emphasizing deliberate love of the self, the rejection of toxic relationships, and Black women’s (re)discovery of their voice.