African literature isn’t just about politics - Africans have written love poetry for thousands of years.

That’s the message from a professor at South Illinois University-Carbondale who has compiled a 285-page volume of African love poetry.

In this introduction to “Bending the Bow,” editor Frank M. Chipasula writes that his anthology shows that Egyptian love poems predate the poetry of King Solomon by more than 2,000 years. The poems during the New Kingdom era may be as old as 1300 B.C.

The first stanza of one anonymous ancient poem is translated by John L. Foster:

   “Love, how I’d love to slip down to the pond,

                 “bathe with you close by on the bank.

     “Just for you I’d wear my new Memphis swimsuit,

                               “made of sheer linen, fit for a queen -

      “Come and see how it looks in the water!”

After these ancient poems came sung love poetry and then written poetry.

In many African cultures, love poetry exists as praise songs in which the “singer-lover extols the loved one’s physical and spiritual attributes and virtues,” Chipasula writes. His book is published by Southern Illinois University Press.