Tom Sleigh most recent volume of poetry is Space Walk. He teaches in the MFA Program at Hunter College. His essay “The Deeds,” from the Summer 2008 issue of VQR, was selected for Best American Travel Writing 2009.
The Dadaab Refugee Camp and the Eastleigh neighborhood of Nairobi have seen an influx of hundreds of thousands of Somalis seeking a better life—but, as often as not, Kenya can offer them little.
Although my sympathies may lie with the horse and not with God’s implacable heat, implicit in this conversion story are questions about identity, how it gets established, and what forces are sufficient to sponsor it. In the realm of poetry...