On 30th January 2010 a round of memorial services held in honour of the late Dennis Brutus came to an end at the Baseline in Newtown, Johannesburg. Hoards of his wor(l)d’s followers came in song, word and sound to remember the life of a teacher, educationist and activist who died at 85 on 26th December 2009. This prominent writer and poet will be remembered for his courage and support to the disenfranchised majority of landless people and workers, among others.

While at a seven hour long memorial service organised by Sounds of Edutainment and wRite Associates to honour this legend of protest, poetry and prose, the Muse interacted with various revolutionaries, most of whose will never be seen or heard on TV. Artists and writers such as Lesego Rampolokeng, Patrick Bond, Moemise Motsepe, Vonani wa ka Bila and the Botsotso Jesters are among those who shared word’s power with the audience.

A documentary on the life and times of Brutus was run while performers and speakers took turns on stage. It was noticeable that most of the service’s attendees were not artists, writers or the well known socialites, but mainly ordinary women from local informal settlements and workplaces.

-

Brutus was well known among the underground poetry movers and shakers internationally. He was an organiser within the Anti-Privatisation Forum, Earthlife, and Jubilee South Africa, among other progressive movements.

Brutus was born in Zimbabwe in 1924 and raised in South Africa, where in his early adult life he was imprisoned and attacked for his contribution to the anti apartheid struggle. In 1961, he was banned under the Suppression of Communism Act. He fled to Mozambique, but was later captured by apartheid police forces and jailed at the Johannesburg Fort and later on Robben Island. Between 1964 and 1965 he wrote the collections of poems Sirens Knuckles Boots and Letters to Martha – two of the richest poetic expressions of political incarceration.

In the 1970s, while in exile in London and later in the USA, he took the role of, among others, poet, anti-apartheid campaigner, and professor of Literature and African Studies at Northwestern (Chicago) and Pittsburgh universities. His final academic appointment was as Honorary Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Civil Society. While there he published the autobiographical Poetry and Protest in 2006.

“Brutus’ political activity initially included extensive journalistic reporting, organising with the Teachers’ League and Congress movement, and leading the new South African Sports Association as an alternative to white sports bodies,” comments his colleague (and co-contributor on many progressive articles) Patrick Bond.

Since the 1990s on his return to South Africa, Brutus became a pivotal figure in the global justice movement and a featured speaker each year at the World Social Forum, as well as at protests against the World Trade Organisation, G8, Bretton Woods Institutions and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. This anti-racist hero will be remembered for his struggle against any social and economic injustice and his contribution towards bringing closer “the global and local, politics and culture, class and race, the old and the young, the red and green,” says Bond.

Poems

Sharpeville

What is important
about Sharpeville
is not that seventy died:
nor even that they were shot in the back
retreating, unarmed, defenceless
and certainly not
the heavy caliber slug
that tore through a mother’s back
and ripped through the child in her arms
killing it
Remember Sharpeville
bullet-in-the-back day
Because it epitomized oppression
and the nature of society
more clearly than anything else;
it was the classic event
Nowhere is racial dominance
more clearly defined
nowhere the will to oppress
more clearly demonstrated
what the world whispers
apartheid declares with snarling guns
the blood the rich lust after
South Africa spills in the dust
Remember Sharpeville
Remember bullet-in-the-back day
And remember the unquenchable will for freedom
Remember the dead
and be glad

(1973)

*

Stubborn hope

Endurance is a passive quality,
transforms nothing, contests nothing
can change no state to something better
and is worthy of no high esteem;
and so it seems to me my own persistence
deserves, if not contempt, impatience.
Yet somewhere lingers the stubborn hope
thus to endure can be a kind of fight,
preserve some value, assert some faith
and even have a kind of worth.

(1977)

Book details

• Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus reader by Dennis Brutus, Aisha Karim, Lee Sustar
  EAN: 9781869140809
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Photo courtesy Moonstone Arts Centre

Malika Lueen Ndlovu is a playwright, performer, arts project manager and mother, working under the brand “New Moon Ventures”, with the motto “healing through creativity”. She has published poetry books including Born in Africa But and Womb to World: A Labour of Love, Truth is both Spirit and Flesh, and a poetic memoir, Invisible Earthquake: a Woman’s Journal through Stillbirth, published by Modjaji Books in March 2009. Among other anthologies, her poetry is also featured in We Are… A poetry anthology, published by Penguin in 2009.Visit www.malika.co.za.

Malika’s latest play Sister Breyani had its world premier at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees 2009 before a highly successful run at the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town.

Hosted by Scripps (Women’s College) in April 2010 she will tour Chicago with extracts of her play A Coloured Place, as well as Writing Our Way Home based on issues around gender, race, ancestry, family and a true sense of belonging beyond physical place. (Also see http://theatre.uiuc.edu/pages/african-dispora-festival.)

In the UK, she will be featured at the London Book Fair (18-21 April), where the Fair has a South African focus for 2010.

Malika is a founder-member of Cape Town-based women writers’ collective WEAVE, co-editor of their multi-genre anthology WEAVE’s Ink @ Boiling Point: A selection of 21st Century Black Women’s writing from the Southern Tip of Africa and is member of The Mothertongue Project since 2004. At the Grahamstown Arts Festival in 2004 she left gigantic spiritual and artistic prints when she presented Uhambo: Pieces of a Dream.

She has also initiated the And The Word Was Woman Ensemble of 14 local performance poets, bringing together established Cape Town writers and fresh writing talents. She also performed at the Poetry Africa International Poetry Festival in 2005.

Words Pave the Way is an autobiographical journey through her poetry performed at the Darling Festival Trusts 2006 Voorkamer Festival. Womantide is her poetry-song-music production in collaboration with well-known singer-songwriters Tina Schouw and Ernestine Deane.

In January 2008 Malika became co-curator of the Spier Poetry Exchange, renamed Badilisha! Poetry X-Change – a highly successful 5-day international poetry festival produced by the Africa Centre in Cape Town to celebrate the rich history and contemporary practice of African arts and culture. She is currently developing Badilisha!Poetry Radio, an online African poetry podcast platform.

Muse @ BOOK SA caught up with this artist extraordinaire and shared within her several current reads which include Bhuddhist teachings of Nichiren Daishonin and Daisaki Ikeda of Sokka Gakai International (SGI), A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, Listener, a poetry anthology by Lemn Sissay, and Storm Between Fingers, an anthology of Black UK & Chicago-based poets from a group coincidentally called Malika’s Kitchen.

“I am also browsing through juicy mags….latest issue of ROOTZ – local arts, culture & music mag which I write the Soul Food column for quarterly and OPRAH mag.”

Poems

Truth Is Both Spirit And Flesh

Truth is both spirit and flesh
It is the hotel bill or photograph discovered in a pocket
The open mouth saying nothing in defence
It is the fact splattered across the courtroom
Exposed to cameras, microphones and strangers ears
It is the addict at the brink of suicide
Frozen between picking up a fix or the telephone
It is the vibration in your chest and stomach pit
That hits when you hear or read a real guru’s words
It is the breath absent from the body of a beloved
Who will not wake up or ever laugh into your eyes

Truth is the child speaking without thinking
Unaware of the adults they have suddenly stripped naked
It is the cut, the scar, the wrinkle, the rash, the swelling
The illness revealed in the face, in the shaking
The toxin reflected in the skin
It is the uninhibited hug projected from the heart
The electricity of a long time lover’s touch

Truth is the smoke or the stench
That cannot be dismissed or disguised
The bone that waits decades to be found
The memory in our cells
The irrepressible rising of tears
It is the current in our veins
The universal rhythm of our hearts
It can be understood in any language
It lives within the word and the sound

Truth is liberation and source of great pain
It is both water and fire
The visible and the invisible
It is the written and the unwritten
The space and the line
It is different
It is the same
It is buried
Yet it will not die
It is the silence before
Beneath and beyond
The lie
It waits for you and I
It will not die

Truth is both spirit and flesh

**

* Inspired by a dream after visiting Tradouw’s Pass in the Klein Karoo, July 2005

**

cleansing

out of my body
out of touch
much too long
I have been away
from where i belong
where i am strong
the ground that knows
the pulse of my feet

in my body
i am home
my organs quarrel
my heart wants to be alone
from opening to opening
a rhythm to reclaim
a neglected, divinely protected nest
between my breasts

deep inside i hold my hand
expose where it began
the breaking of this promise
the severing of this bond
mind and muscle
faith and flesh
now restored to sharing
one blanket of breath

- Copyright Malika Ndlovu

Book details

• Invisible Earthquake: A woman’s journal through still birth by Malika Ndlovu
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9780980272932
  Find this book with BOOK Finder!

Scribd.com book preview:

Invisible Earthquake: A Woman’s Journal Through Stillbirth

• Not loading? View in the Little White Bakkie e-books store

Thabo Mokale, passionately known as “Flo”, is a poet, writer, actor, stage director, and entertainer whose performances leave audiences feeling light hearted and cracking in laughter.

In addition to being one of South Africa’s favourite young poets – with poems such as “I thought of Writing you a poem”, and “Hi, My name is Flo” – he is also a powerful beatboxer and plays the Storotoro (jaw harp), with which he has accompanied the likes of Ursula Rucker, Lebo Mashile, Stacey Anne Chin, Mak Manaka, Roger Bonair Agard and Steve Coleman, among others.

His poems also speak to the seriousness of violence against women and children, so this BOOKED is posted at the right time, during the 16 Days.

Flo has been instrumental in building relations among poets in the Johannesburg poetry movement. He orgnised enchanting poetry shows at Cool Runnings (Melville) and at the late Horror cafe in Newtown, and has now moved to Kospotong, also in Newtown. He is a member of LIKWIDTONGUE, a poetry collective that keeps the fire of performance poetry aflame in Johannesburg. When the muse caught up with Flo, he was awaiting the birth of his new baby, as well as reading The Famished Road by Ben Okri.

Poems

I THOUGHT OF…

I thought of writing you a poem about how heavenly and Divine you are,

But the lord beat me to it by creating angelic beings so he can keep a piece of you next to him in heaven.

Then I thought of writing you a poem about your eyes, but the stars beat me to it by mimicking the brightness of your eyes when they shine.

Again I thought of writing you a poem about your lips, but the bees beat me to it by creating sweet honey to replicate the sweetness of your kiss.

Then again I thought of writing you a poem about your smile, but the flowers beat me to it by blossoming and blooming whenever you chose to smile.

Again I thought of writing you a poem about your voice, but the birds beat me to it by imitating your voice in their melodic songs.

Then I thought of writing you a poem about your sadness, but the clouds beat me to it by weeping rain whenever you chose to cry.

Again I thought of writing you a poem about how your presence makes me feel, but Mother Nature beat me to it by painting the rainbow after the storm.

And then I thought of writing you a poem about appreciating you, but the sun and the moon beat me to it by rising to honor you and by the leaves falling at you feet to pay their respect to you.

Then again I thought of writing you a poem about love, but ( bloody) Shakespeare beat me to by writing “shall I compare thee to a summers day…”

Again I thought of writing you a poem about how nice I could treat you if I could have and keep you as my girl, but your man beat me to it by having you first.

Then finally my heart decided to write you a poem and it wrote,

I LOVE YOU.

*

LOVE IS BLIND

She said that looks don’t matter, but she went for the other guy with better looks when I was not looking

And I have to admit it they looked good together

But it looks as if things are not looking good because she doesn’t look back when she sees me looking

And look how he left her not looking so good

And it looks as if looks can be really deceiving

Because she judged her book by the way it looks

I mean she was the apple of my eye

I would catch every tear she’d cry

But she didn’t see it like that, and I hate seeing her like that, when I see she doesn’t like that

When they don’t see eye to eye

When its and eye for an eye

And I guess in their land of the love blind, this one eyed man is king

Who turned a blind eye and stood on the side walk watching

As she got smacked by the hands of her watch, not carrying whose watching

When he should’ve been the one whose watching

Because now it’s a time of ticks and not tocking, ticks and not tocking

And now the windows to her soul are tinted dark blue, and its hard for her to see through and see that I am still looking.

I guess love is really blind.

– Poems copyright Flo Mokale

Nonkululeko Godana’s life is affirmed by constantly seeking innovation in the world of literature. This poet-journalist-organiser-entrepreneur is among the founding and organising members of the Poetry in Lokomotion and the So Where To poetry experiences. These platforms helped groom and organise the poetry movement in Johannesburg – and greater South Africa.

“Nonks”, as she is fondly known, was born and raised in Johannesburg, but has recently relocated to the Mother City, where she is channeling her words and creative energy through her company, Well Said Communications.

Nonks cannot stay away from developing youth and being enriched through these experiences – she’s planting into the futures of fertile young minds by facilitating weekly writing and online media workshops and sessions with a group of teenagers as part of an organisation called Students For Humanity, which operates from COSAT (the Centre of Science and Technology) in Khayelitsha.

Recently Nonks also formed a stokvel for women writers to share their experiences in the journey of words. The stokvel’s doings are posted on the blog http://wildwomendo.blogspot.com.

When Muse caught up with Nonks’ flow, she was reading (for reference/interest in psychology, healing and spirituality), Many Lives, Many Masters by Brian Weiss, Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes and The Dance by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. “And for pure reading pleasure,” she adds, “I’ve just started reading Disgrace by JM Coetzee.”

Poem

The prayer they left out…

Our Mother who art(s) all around us
Mama, Mme be your name
Your Queendom has come
Your will be done
And children fed on this earth
For this is our heaven

Give us our daily sunrays of embraces
and summer-rain kisses
and forgive our brother and sister
who bite on the nipple
that feeds them breastmilk
Lead us into bleeding temptation
For this is how we learn

This is your Afrika
If only you realize your power
And rub onto your children’s wounds
Forever and ever…

Ah Mama
Ah Mama!

– © Nonkululeko Godana

Khethukubonga “Khethi” Ntshangase is the poet-singer whose voice infuses the blues and jazz of the likes of Nina Simone with the mbaqanga sounds of our very own of Margaret Xingana. Her experiences on the African continent (Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Zimbabwe…) and beyond have strengthened her perspective and enriched her art, both written and performance work. Khethi has been leaving audiences begging for more at festivals such as Oppikoppi and at the recent Arts & Culture World Summit held in Johannesburg. In Soweto she recently entertained a crowd of about 1000 youths for the StreetPop Industry Sessions, a historical event for the KwaZulu Natal-born songstress and poet as it was “my first public event in Soweto”.

Khethi has been involved with the poetry underground scene since 2002 where she was part of the Soul 2 Mouth poetry collective as well as the founder of The Elevators Creative Concepts, a youth networking forum and publishing house. A selection of her poems can also be found in We Are… A poetry anthology published by Penguin.

After the release of her debut album Xemplify (with songs like “Warrior”, “Why don’t You” and “Lady Tupandve”), Khethi is breaking into many local and international spaces to share and expand her talents. She has lived and worked as resident singer and entertainment coordinator at a hotel in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She also worked for East Africa Radio, co-hosting a breakfast show, and later as creative director and producer for a fashion & lifestyle TV show – broadcasting in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.

Here’s the video for “Lady Tupandve”:

• Not playing? Watch on BrotherJackMCDuff TV

>> If you are in Johannesburg, catch Khethi on Thursday 22nd October at the SABC, V1A room at Radio Park in Auckland Park at 20:00. Follow this link for more: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=613148806#/event.php?eid=132642267877.

Khethi links

• Khethi.com
• Khethi @ MySpace
• Kethi @ YouTube (AfroSoulJazz)
• Become a Facebook fan

Poems

Untitled

They wait impatiently as,
She orders my thoughts, my words to spatter effortlessly
Words intended to somehow make things better
For the souls of those who read (them)

I consider,
How I wish to free these souls with words
Gushing naturally as though there to nourish….
Quench a remarkable thirst they never knew existed
Eventually my words will eradicate greed, salvaging our creed
…and release You to flourish

So knowing what they want, they wait impatiently
From me, right now, they seek poetic justice!
That elaborates in craftily creative phrases
Words there, to somehow, invoke clairvoyance
In the souls of those who read them.

So we can foresee,
How eventually these words will eradicate greed, salvaging our creed
…releasing You to flourish

There, I give you words that meander,
Intended to somehow make things better
For the souls of those who read (them)

copyright: Khethukubonga “Khethi” Ntshangase

*

A poem I wrote for Miriam Makeba and what she represented

She, broke the silence in the darkest of times
People’s minds mesmerized by the bravery in her eyes
As she sweetly sang the blues, she did the wise
Communicating truth, speaking of our painful lives
Injustices, labour law fallacies
Disease tongue spoke foul truths of broken promises
Sweet were kisses as melody releases
The pain and strife of beings with life
Warrior each time

copyright: Khethukubonga “Khethi” Ntshangase

Thabiso Mohare, better known as Afurakan, is the crown prince of Johannesburg’s underground slam poetry. He is best known for his stage improvisations on hip-hop tunes. His style has caught the attention of many slam poets and and writers across Africa with its rhythm and provocative nature.

This is a poet who can cipher with god – and while celebrating the fact that “Blaq people rock” also writes for the miners who beat rock all their lives, for everything that is “less”. His activity within Jozi’s poetry movement can be traced back to the “So where to” poetry events, and his work with the poetry collective Soul 2 Mouth, among others. Afurakan has played a vital role in the growth of the spoken word movement in Johannesburg and indeed South Africa; and he’s a regular at schools and community centres, performing for the purpose of spreading the word.

The past three years have seen Afurakan learn and earn the highs and lows of entrepreneurship through a media and production company. When Muse @ BOOK SA finally caught up with the busy director of Head Gear Media, he had just finished reading The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield and was starting on My Life by the one and only Fidel Castro.

Poems

Today

today
I cried
And with my tears
Fell all the walls around me.
With my tears
Fell all
Expectations prejudice and colour.
Today
My tears
Washed away all memory of my failures
Washed away all memory of my struggles
And all traces of my scars.

Today
I heard poetry
For the first time
It was heavy with accent
Yet, spoke clarity
It spoke words
That drove demons out of me
It unleashed pain from my spirit prison
And fed it to the universe
For she knows how to deal with it
It freed all corners of my mind
And gave me freedom lessons
It painted God as me
And hung my portrait
On the gallery of thought

Today
My world
Lost all shape and form
And what stood before me
Were endless possibilities
Today
My earth was clay
And I was a six year old

Today
I learned how to breathe
And
With every breath
Came fresh hope
With every breath
Came new visions and dreams
With every breath
Came
Time, age and wisdom

Today
I learned
To let go

*

Blaq People Rock

rumour has it
that the roots of rock as we know it,
score whispers of truth,
leave human records unspun,
in the form of, ambition-propelled,
note-streams.

rumour has it
that we, compositions of clay
who speak sand storms
in the dilect of rock
carry scoresheet of origin
as patterns of skin tone.

can u dig?

yeah, i can dig

for we have dug rock
and
played its tragedy on world stages
around necks of legends
between rock-breaks, base kicks and hi-hats,
we have given life and limb
improvised the art of digging rock
yet stand with a fistful of sound
as descendents of soil.

can you rock?

yeah, i can rock
for we have danced bullets
and rocked oppression out of fashion
tatooed rock on the tongue of memory
and now the world sings our name.

and who are we?

we are the under-miners
and under mines
we are undermined
migrant roadies who beat rock
we beat rock
we beat rock
we beat rock
and let the beat rock
with a gumboot beat-box
we let the beat rock

and thru unplugged volumes of rock
ruff jewels bare the rock crushed backs
in pursuite of their destiny to shine
While mine,
Is a legacy of blood
A chorus beneath the earth
Instruments of greed
We compose the riches of rock
Yet sing hunger to the night
My royalty is life
Unspoken it hurts
Buried in a verse
The irony of word
Truth spoken, unheard
On how we still fish the earth
And while you rhyme about platinum and gold
Music is the canvas and we paint secrets untold

When the album is done
And black label satisfies a black labour thirst
We play a new rhythm
Back stage, while you toast statues of our labour
We play a new rhythm
We beat rock and
Let the beat rock
We beat rock and
With a gumboot beat-box
We let the beat rock

*

Cypher

I stood in a cipher with God
and all he seemed to speak about was rotating planets and stars
I stood in a cipher with God
and all he seemed to speak about was separating light from the dark,
barbeques on the sun and leaving a burning candle on the moon

Thor was his beat-box and Moses was keeping score on 2 four-cornered stones
his accomplice was a four headed shadow which seemed to bump it’s head in every direction
and the spying Ra, listened from a distance in anticipation
he started talking about me and I thought he was dissing
but actually he was explaining the philosophy behind me
see, God is the wizard and I’m his magical bag of tricks
all he needs to is think and I spit
and we don’t need blunts to reach the highest ultimate level of thought
coz we smoke life rolled up in papyrus leaves
blow out smoke rings and let them hang around Saturn planets

then suddenly Thor changed the beat

Thor changed the beat and 21 angels joined in
we opened up the cipher so the rest of hell could move in
flames sparked the cipher from this fiery creature claiming he was a battle cat
he started dissing but God ignored him,
I asked why, he said “nah, I’ll let Gabriel handle that “
he called me the first son of man and kept on repeating that
the Armageddon was only a punch-line away,
the Armageddon was only a punch-line away
but how could it be, he had promised me that we would cipher into eternity
then deciding that he was out of my league,
he brought Moses in to battle me

now Moses was from the old school and was known to battle only with 10 lines
but could simultaneously project his voice to transmit through 10 mics
10 times, now that’s 10 lives
10 mc’s embarrassed and taken out at the same time
the cipher was getting hot and I had to battle back,
so looking at Moses I was like

You are not an m.c
even if I was the red sea and you were a staff
You still couldn’t split me
Don’t even look at me
You need to live another century to be raw enough to battle me
And I’m the prodigal son out of the crowd you misled
And I’m back to make swallow every word you ever said
Even on Noah’s ark you wouldn’t survive regardless
I’ll make you write AFURAKAN as the eleventh commandment

The beat stopped as Thor had swallowed his electrical tongue
and all corners of the universe seemed to fold in
too dumb-struck to react, Moses collapsed face flat
as the 21 angels hung their heads in shame
and fell on my knees at God’s feet

Our father, please forgive me for I have killed one of your sons
Please forgive me for I have killed one of me

My tongue was then imprisoned for 21 reincarnations
only then can I cipher with God again
only then can I truly be me, again

Photo courtesy Kagablog

Maakomele Manaka is no doubt one of South Africa’s most influential writers, poets and thinkers. Raised by a family that engages in the arts, it is no surprise that this young lion started to write at 12. He went on to publish his first poetry collection, If Only, in 2003 at age 19. Recently, his debut poetry album Word Sound and Power was released through Melody Muzik. The flowerful and flaming production fuses reggae, dub, hip hop and ghetto sounds. As much as he celebrates Africa and his people, he also chides the powers that be! This provocative artist will launch his second collection of poems, titled In time, on 31st October, published through Ge’ko.

Throughout his 15 years on stage and page, Manaka has shared his poems/views through his strong voice, young blood and old roots, in countries such as Jamaica, Cuba, Germany and recently Italy with an array of extraordinary artists from South Africa and beyond. Muse recently caught up with “Mak”, as he is known, at the acclaimed International festival of Literature in Italy’s Mantova, where he appeared with two of South Africa’s (and the world’s) most loved writers, Nadine Gordimer and Gcina Mhlophe. Among them was poet/perfomer and playwright extraordinaire Napo Masheane.

Manaka has been associated with poetry collectives such as Likwid Tongue and Seven. His poetry can also be found in anthologies such as We are… (Penguin) and I nostri semi/Peo tsa Rona poetry (Mangrovie). Manaka is currently reading The girl who played go by Shan Sa.

Poems

A Feeling Like This

She tickles me,
Yet I find it harder to laugh
Coz it’s a feeling
Of a thousand Jazz-men flowers,
A sunset of different colors
Cady coded on her finger tips
As she touches.
She is not late night
With Msizi Shembe
Coz her beat on my heart
Pounds the rhythm of a djembe,
And I know….
That my pain will cease
Once my arrogance
Learns not to resist
Her fiery kiss
Simply because,
She is that calming serene sent
Of bliss
How
Can
I ever
Forget
A feeling like this.
All of nature’s beauty
In one face,
She said my name
But Sunday jazz
Was all my ears to taste
Come darling here is my fire
Let’s blaze
Tonight you are the sun light
In all of men’s dark days
Some of us are still searching
For our selves in her purple eyes
And so I learned
To ask no lies
Hear no evil
And realize
The truth lives in her smiles.
She of a million light-years
Brightens up my path
True evidence
Of any man’s confidence
She is love longing to be found
We met at street corners
Like Township lovers
Plus the night covers
Disbelieve of loving
Feeling like we are surrounded
By nothing
My semi sweet glass of serenity
Please
Say my name once more
So may definitely know
For sure
That just from a conversation
I soar
And in her eyes I saw
The truth starring back at me,
Innocent tears of reality.
And as she spoke in shades of the moon
I questioned
When will she ever hear the tune
I composed with my heart.

– copyright Mak Manaka

*

the ghosts of theatre

see how they dance
attention into a trance
and jazz pain off our hands.
born to wait,
stronger than yesterday
and weaker than now
see the energy in their frowns.
look how they steal our crown
and treat us like clowns,
they forgot
that in the past
our feet stomp anxiety in their hearts.
we sing to bring classism
to a stand still,
listen to the anger in our poems,
because our music
has not been written yet.
we engraved tolerance
on time’s hands,
we are shadows
behind the curtains in your shows,
sons and daughters of patience
i respect your strength,
you are the everlasting beauty
of our spiritual wealth.
walk away from their pressure
and your insecurities,
coz lately words are bad for my health.
forward in the books of history we march
as untrained generals of our destiny,
by the time i am 30
i will be sick of me.
see how they treasure your pain
and label your passion insane,
where is the sugar in our coffee?
our passion for art runs as deep as the ocean
but passion pays no bills
passion is mean
passion is hard,
so i refuse to be a machine
because you are turning our hearts into poison.
built for death, doomed at birth
what are you teaching our children?
compromise yourself in a situation?
i refuse to compromise my truth
for the chains of conformity.
coz naked mics and unwritten verses
are yearning for honesty,
your world is smaller than our stage
and our spirits are stronger than your rage
we are more than names on your page
listen to the gumboot in our voices.
as we dance jazz to mbaqanga,
groove hip-hop with kwaito
slang english to scamto
the wind moves to our rhythm.
the energy in our talents is priceless
so your shit stops now
not before or after but now
you can’t hurt us any more
you can’t swell our feet any more
you can’t control us any more,
you cant stop the horror
we are not the ornaments on your door
we are the untouchable chords
of marley
marvin,
dylan,
taiwa,
garvey,
mpharanyana
sisters of joy down paradise road
mahlathini,
mxingana
and not singana,
tiro,
biko
baldwin,
elvis,
matsemela,
davies
hendrix
we are the delicate rhythms of your heartbeats
the music in your books
we do not conform
our mistakes teach us how to live
our sorrows teach us how to receive
and respect whatever the lord gives
we drum fear into lives reluctant
to face the pride in our footsteps.
the truth about nature
is that it never lies
so its in our nature to be,
our children will not be afraid of art.

– copyright Mak Manaka

Photo courtesy Kagablog

Lucille Greeff is a story catcher whose sensitivity spices life into every word she gives. She will soon launch her debut collection of poems titled, Glaskastele / Skylight of the Heart. “The book is unusual and controversial as it contains both Afrikaans and English poems (with no translations of each other). It is built around the idea that people who live in glass houses, usually die in earthquakes. It also explores narratives around motherhood, grief, xenophobia, heritage, freedom, domestic violence and consumerism,” she says. Lucille has recently contributed her poems to We Are: A poetry anthology.

Lucille recently took part in DEEP: A night of Creative Currents featuring Sharks, Poets and other endangered species at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town. Her “The Vinyl Collection” featured poems printed on transparent vinyl and displayed over fish tanks. “A Poem of Forgiveness” was featured on the Tristan Five Fingers display tank, which the fish seemed to marvel over.

Lucille also facilitates workshops on gender, society, class issues, self-esteem, laughter and mentorship programmes in the professional world. Recently, she facilitated a women’s day workshop for high school girls centred on the theme “I am Powerful” and another on gender and power, unpacking self-esteem and gender relations.

When the muse booked Lucille, she was reading Babel Tower by A.S. Byatt.

Poems

A Poem of Forgiveness

I want to wash myself
in the ebb and flow
of the ocean as it sings
its gentle lullaby today,
salt stinging skin
that only recently remembered
how to heal itself.

I stare into the blue lure
hunting for my own reflection,
until it finds me
on the soft curve of a wave
falling towards the rocks,
hungry for its lover’s touch.

In the small silences
between each ocean breath
I open myself to the sound I need
to forgive myself,

only to feel it slip
between my fingers
as the wave retracts
and rolls itself back
to its roots
within the depths,

where even forgiveness
doesn’t matter.

© 2009 Lucille Greeff

*

Nova Catengue
A poem for Ashley Kriel

In my dreams I’m always playing my guitar:
its strings coax crosslegged tunes
from my fingers onto the bed.

In my dreams you sit with your knees to mine,
your head reaching sideways
to entice the tunes into your ears.

In my sleep I hum with the innocence
of the childhood songs I left behind
when I crossed the border at Luiana without you.

In my waking my humid fingers are unlearning chords
and redirecting their music to sound like bullets
raining into human flesh.

I’m learning to lead with my trigger-finger.

My voice is forgetting how to sing
and remembers instead the deep silence of stealth
that will boil the blood of our enemy.

Some days I miss the warm air of my mother’s kitchen
so much that the flavour transforms in my mouth
to carry me home on its wings.

In my waking, I stand in the strength
of the woman who raised me
to believe in what is right.

In my waking, I deconstruct the tones of my own mortality
and manipulate myself to fit as a footnote
on the pages of our struggle.

But in my dreams I’m always playing my guitar;
its strings coax crosslegged tunes
from my fingers onto my bed.

In my dreams our knees are always touching,
your head always reaching to remind me of the songs
I still want to play before I’m dead.

© 2009 Lucille Greeff

Ntsiki Mazwai requires no introduction both in Mzansi and beyond within the urban poetry, hip hop and music scene. She is co-founding member of Feela Sistah! a popular poetry collective with Napo Masheane, Lebo Mashile and Myesha Jenkins.
Her poetry/music debut album MaMiya was nominated for best urban pop album of the year in 2008.

Ntsiki is curently working on her next album, Defiance Campaign. She is also working on publishing a poetry book, with the legendary Ntate Don Mattera and Mme Miriam Tladi, our very own pioneering Black woman writer.

As an anti-rape activist, Ntsiki was recently criticised for posing naked in a revolutionary pose on a Marie Claire anti-rape campain. Some media defined the picture as “shocking” or “disturbing” – to which she responded, “rape is shocking”.

Ntsiki is currently reading Steve Biko’s I Write What I Like which is an “empowering read because [Biko] adresses all these issues that are in our poetry so eloquently”. Off the stage and page, Ntsiki also shares her gifts with youth at orphanages, schools and universities around the world, as well as by mentoring young women who want to become “[music] industry chix”. In the world of the spoken word, she is best known for love poems such as “Urongo”, “I found love in Soweto” and “Wena” (with DJ Sumthyng Black – see video below).

Visit www.ntsikimazwai.co.za.

Poems

Raped

I did not ask to be raped.
Brutally molested,
body vandalised,
scrutinised by non believing eyes.
Read more…

*

I choose life

We wander aimlessly,
drowsy from the fear of losing.
Abandonment…whispered at the bottom of my soul.
but I chose life, because I knew if I didn’t LIVE…
Read more…

*

Video: DJ Sumthyn Black feat. Ntsiki Mazwai: “Wena”

• Not loading? Watch on JusGorilla TV

Performers include: Donna Smith, Ntsiki Mazwai, Lesego Rampolokeng, Flo, Jessica Mbangeni, Lesego Motsepe, Bianca Williams, Khethiwe Mtimkulu, Masoja Msiza, Khanyi Magubane, Mzwakhe, Skado, myself and host Abigail Mogale.

The show runs from 6pm to 9pm and tickets cost R30 at the door. See you there!