Ken Junior Lipenga, University of Malawi
Asante Lucy Mtenje, University of Malawi
Vol. 42, No. 2 (Fall 2023), 343-360

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.