THE BOOK NO ONE WILL READ

Some poems are not written to be loved. They are written because the thing has to be said, and nobody else will say it.

THE BOOK NO ONE WILL READ: SoS, No Love Poem is a raw, unapologetic poetry collection from Zimbabwean poet Allen Njete, It opens with a refusal: poetry is not always about love. Here, it is about everything people would rather walk past mid-sentence.

Across more than two dozen poems, Njete turns his attention to the people and places polite verse ignores: a roadside toilet in Mvuma, the father who left against the people who stepped up, the single mother nobody dreams of marrying, the pressure to marry in church, and a nation’s constitution under a hard look. He writes about faith and doubt in « The Year I Became an Atheist » and « The Christian Sheikh. » He writes about corruption, friendship, loneliness, and the long hangover of heartbreak. One poem is in Shona. One is a tragic tale of two lives. One is a duet between physics and chemistry that proves a scientific mind can still carry a tune.

The voice is blunt, funny, bruised, and honest, moving from sharp satire to quiet grief without warning. Each poem is followed by a short note from the poet.

This collection is for readers who:

• want poetry that sounds like the street, not the lecture hall
• have ever been told their pain was too much to say out loud
• are tired of love poems and want the other things that happen to a person
• enjoy spoken-word energy on the page

Content note: this book contains themes of grief, loneliness, heartbreak, corruption, and suicidal thoughts. It is intended for mature readers.

If you have ever had a thought no one wished to hear, this book was written for you.