The Lantern Meet of Poets at Ten – GUY MAMBO

Meet Mambo – he says jambo!

Guy, and that’s his given name (some name, right?) – is the founder of the Lantern Meet of Poets, Uganda’s flagship Poetry ensemble whose clock squares with the number ten this year.

Mambo is, inarguably, the raison d’être for the emergence and discovery of so many brilliant poets who today voice the aspirations of entire generations in this our beloved Pearl.

And because the Lantern Meet has over her decade-long existence evolved into a family as close-knit as any, father is what many have come to refer to Mambo as.

Others yet, thinking this plainly paternal epithet insufficient – are known to esteem Guy with the more venerable ‘godfather’.

Guy Mambo is a young Architect, and when not writing poetry as stylistically elevated as it is substantially esoteric, he is to be found developing building designs of unrivaled aesthetic.

In further service of his architectural competence, he lectures the discipline at select Universities around the country.

For those who have interfaced with Mambo’s poetry – you well know that ‘provocative and admirable’ would be gargantuan understatements.

Guy has a tone woven into his work that speaks with measured self-awareness and calculated fragility – mature and daring, yet ever unmistakably original.

His cosmopolitan parentage and upbringing all conspire to make Mambo multilingual, eclectic and undisappointingly capable of the strangest ideation.

Next time you run into Mambo with his pleasant shock of lush Afro, avuncular grin and brimming, beaming persona – do bow and hail him as Lord Writer.

You’ll thank me for it.

 Guy (Mzungu) poses with some of the first family of young Lanterns in the Meet’s infancy, back in 2007. Extreme left is Gilbert Aino, then Ntaro Jason (in cap). The lady is Rachael Kunihira – today a brilliant Engineer, proud wife, and mother.

*This Chronicle is part of a short series of Poet bios I jotted for the commemoration of the Lantern Meet of Poets’ decennial anniversary.