JANKY TUK TUKS
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Below is the second edition of Janky Tuk Tuks available from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/JANKY-TUK-TUKS-Wendy-Holborow/dp/1697334199/ref=sr_1_3?cr
THIS IS A COLLECTION ABOUT THE POET'S TRAVELS TO INDIA AND AFRICA
Wendy Holborow has done it once again with a splendid new collection, her most ambitious yet, based on her recent visits to India and Africa. It contains a 'fabulous rabble' of rattling good poems, and a chilling short fiction, 'Ngozi', which has a twist guaranteed to shake us out of our habitual complacency about the endemic refugee crises not only in Africa, but around the world. This is no mere word-painting or poetry tourism, although difference is celebrated and the poems are full of wordplay and relish of language for its own sake - 'janky tuk tuks', which refer to Indian scooter-taxis, and the 'nielloed silver' of the Nile are just two memorable examples - and she ingeniously mixes traditional verse forms, open field and concrete poetry to convey the richness of the encounter between her imagination and different cultures. Professor John Goodby
I am always a bit hesitant when someone from a different background attempts to grasp a very ‘foreign’ subject matter, but Holborow’s poems are open and true and have simply connected. Not many people have an intuitive understanding of the culture, yet Holborow’s poetry has an instinctive grasp of the intrinsic in the face of the sometimes absurd. This collection is brilliantly portrayed and entertaining. Sarada Thompson
The harsh winds of the Welsh winter are blowing in, you want to escape to the sun, to India or Africa. You can't afford it or you don't have the time. Then this book is almost better than being there. The light, heat, noise, flora and fauna, and sublime silences of India and Africa are perfectly captured in this superb poetry collection. The title 'Janky Tuk Tuks' refers to the three-wheeled motorized vehicles used as taxis throughout India, and that country's road system is wonderfully brought to life in the poem "The Highway Code of India". The poems in this are in turns funny, sad, insightful, but always beautiful. The collection concludes with a short story set in Africa. Phil Knight
An excellent review on The London Grip April 2019
https://londongrip.co.uk/2019/04/london-grip-poetry-review-wendy-holborow/
SAMPLE POEMS
MONSOON
peacocks herald monsoons
elaborate tails grow & spread
discerning a difference in the air —
the land astir, rouses
from a prolonged sleep
yellow skies & the sun shifts
to shades of lavender
lightning thunder
a leaden band of louring clouds
like a dam primed to burst
& rain like chair legs
lashes the land
cries in every crevice
crushes scent from flowers
people vacate houses
up
step out of cars lift faces
to the pelting rain, relish every drop
rain triggers lush new growth
fresh pastures for wildlife
cows & dogs & pigs no longer
scrabble the streets to drink.
The Yamuna river swells
purls away
into purple dusk
as water buffalo cross in the shallows
where displaced sandbanks
have changed the contour
of the river & the land.
In the morning margin of sky
a blush dawn bursts on the warmth
of swarming-insect buzz
wild boars wallow in accumulated mud
but the onslaught of floods is feared.
THE ROAD TO MURCHISON
i
In Kampala, a billionaire rules
& ruins lives
a place where security guards
pace
over
rifles slung shoulders,
barbed-wire the preferred fencing,
(no janky tuk tuks here),
white-uniformed traffic police
leave in despair
slink off home.
ii
We are leaving today,
in a clanky jeep
that might not get us
to where we want to be,
axle-breaking pot-holed roads of red earth
for miles & miles
mosaicked by the smile of the sun.
Termite mounds on verges
like enormous sand-castles
a child might spend
a whole week
to construct
before the sea
swishes it away.
Dithering guinea fowl
cross
& uncross roads
baby baboons swing in trees.
Fast to the end
of our journey
the Nile startles through trees
we stare past the riverine fields
to where the water glitters
like nielloed silver.