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Traumatic Memory and ‘Scriptotherapy’ in Malawian Poetry: The Case of Bright Molande's Seasons

This article examines the way trauma is conceptualized in selected poems from Bright Molande's Seasons (2012. Zomba, Malawi: Chancellor College Publications). In my reading of the poems, I advance the argument that traumatic events locatable in a specific historical context, such as Malawi's post-independence regimes, can be seen as material incarnations of a repetitive trauma that Malawians are struggling to recover from. I also argue that Seasons is a book that inscribes scriptotherapy, and that his poetry offers the possibility of healing both to the author and his audience in the face of the structural violence that has dogged Malawians since independence.