David Rubadiri

David Rubadiri Poems

David Rubadiri Biography

James David Rubadiri is a Malawian diplomat, academic and poet. At independence in 1964, Rubadiri was appointed Malawi's first ambassador to the United States and the United Nations. On Tuesday August 18th, 1964, he presented his credentials to President Johnson at the White House and expressed the hope that his newly independent country would get more aid from the United States. Ambassador Rubadiri said that Malawi needed help to build its democratic institutions and noted that Malawi was already receiving US economic and technical help. David Rubadiri left the government in 1965 when he broke with President Hastings Banda. Education Rubadiri attended King's College, Budo in Uganda from 1941-1950 then Makerere University from 1952-1956, where he graduated from with a bachelor's degree in English literature and History. He went on to the University of Bristol from 1956-1960, where he received a master of arts degree in English literature. Publications His only novel, No Bride Price was published. The novel criticized the Banda regime and was, along with Legson Kayira's The Looming Shadow, some of the first published work by Malawians.)

The Best Poem Of David Rubadiri

Begging Aid

Whilst our children
Become smaller than guns,
Elders become big
Circus Lions
Away from home.

Whilst the manes age
In the Zoos
That now our homelands
Have become,
Markets of leftovers,
Guns are taller
Than our children.

In the beggarhood
Of a Circus
That now is home,
The whip of the Ringmaster
Cracks with a snap
That eats through
The backs of our being.

Hands stretching
In a prayer
Of submission
In a beggarhood
Of Elders delicately
Performing the tightrope
To amuse the Gate
For Tips
That will bring home
Toys of death.

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