tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81061016149317336942024-03-19T05:33:41.218-07:00Poéfrika 2.0Africa-inspired poetry. Celebrating family and heroes.Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-56318148977059515902020-07-31T15:35:00.002-07:002021-08-27T15:46:35.025-07:00Geoffrey Philp's "He Would Dance"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwGnxQ8Nj-t8z63tU7MBZ-I5aVxs9eCVq8ejPFOympOMYfLiYkTa8v1sqiEiQ4uGu_o9MKTukDyfXNiccep116sDIZL0CEyjStSeVeG8WJ6zLxvAgk8-_F8h94-mhE24pafNp60nd1/s1600-h/Michael-Jackson-no-longer-never.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352805459477456418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwGnxQ8Nj-t8z63tU7MBZ-I5aVxs9eCVq8ejPFOympOMYfLiYkTa8v1sqiEiQ4uGu_o9MKTukDyfXNiccep116sDIZL0CEyjStSeVeG8WJ6zLxvAgk8-_F8h94-mhE24pafNp60nd1/s200/Michael-Jackson-no-longer-never.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; height: 200px; width: 136px;" /></a><br />
<br />
he would dance,<br />
even when his frail body could no longer bear<br />
the weight of all our fears<br />
<br />
or when we questioned his allegiance<br />
under the spotlight's unforgiving glare<br />
he would dance<br />
[<a href="http://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/2009/06/he-would-dance-michael-jackson.html">continue there</a>...]
</div>
Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-10438552095977825742020-06-15T15:30:00.000-07:002021-08-27T15:47:04.336-07:00Soweto, 16 June 1976<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>I was fifteen, but I remember the events of 16 June 1976 like it was last week. Black kids rose against the Apartheid state in South Africa, and refused Afrikaans as a medium of instruction in schools. They stamped their collective foot and said "No!" And their cry shook the world. Police opened fire and the first kid to go down was Hector Pieterson. I know you've seen the now <a href="http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/worldlit/africa/images/soweto_riots.jpg">famous picture</a> of his limp body in the hands of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbuyisa_Makhubo">Mbuyisa Makhubo</a>, his sister running alongside them. <br /><blockquote>"I saw that he was bad, but I thought that he was just wounded, you know," remembers Hector's sister, Antoinette Sithole. [<a href="http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/africa/06/15/inside.africa/">source</a>]</blockquote>There were to be many victims that day. Hector's photo was plastered on the conscience of the world (though few did anything about it), but there weren't enough photographers to <s>shoot</s> take pictures of the other victims. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hastings_Ndlovu">Hastings Ndlovu</a> was another such victim, and it is said he may have even died before Hector. Here's the story of his death.<br /><blockquote>Klein was dumbstruck as to how a school child, in the middle of the morning, was being admitted to Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital with gunshot wounds, and questions raced through his mind.<br /><br />"Children with bullet wounds?" he wondered. "But how? And by whom? A robbery? By school kids? In the middle of the day? Where would the guns come from? Black South Africans are prohibited from owning guns."<br /><br />The answer came: "They were shot by the police."<br /><br />Klein says a quick survey in the casualty ward revealed that all except one child were shot above the waist: in other words, the police had shot to kill. Then his old high school friend and a neurosurgeon, Dr Risik Gopal, arrived and checked Hastings' condition.<br /><br />Gopal confirmed what Klein had suspected: no one could survive such an injury. And indeed, a "short time later, Hastings was dead", having been in a coma from the moment he was shot, Klein says.<br /><br />Klein worked in Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital for several years, and had been warned that it would be a "baptism in blood" - particularly on Friday nights. But after years of handling "grisly injuries" from assaults using a range of weapons, he thought "nothing could penetrate the emotional barriers I had learned to erect".<br /><br />Not that day.<br /><br />The sight of "uniformed children riddled with bullets", accompanied by their "terminal breaths", left Klein feeling helpless and hopeless, and he could only watch in despair as life ebbed from the "fragile frame" of Ndlovu.<br /><br />The white hospital administrator walked into the ward and Klein told him to expect trouble that night in Soweto. The administrator replied: "Oh, no, by tonight everything will have blown over."<br /><br />Klein, a coloured doctor who under apartheid ethos had no authority to shout at a white person, couldn't contain himself. He yelled: "In Soweto, you do not shoot children and get away with it. There is going to be shit!" He walked away with tears in his eyes.<br /><br />Klein had to break the news of Ndlovu's death to the boy's friends and relatives, a difficult task not made easier by repeating the news to other relatives of dead children. "I remember the looks of disbelief, the anguish, the tears. And I remember my own grief welling up afresh each time I delivered the grim news."<br /><br />Gopal, now the chief neurosurgeon at the hospital, said they stood at the window and watched police shooting children. Some of the staff members saw their own children being brought in with gunshot wounds. "There was a lot of emotion on the day. It was just chaos," he says.<br /><br />By late afternoon the government had prohibited blacks from assembling in groups larger than three. Workers, when they disembarked from trains and taxis, got together before walking home, wondering what was happening, unaware of the ruling.<br /><br />Police opened fire on them, expecting them to know about the prohibition, and they arrived at hospital asking innocently why the police were shooting at them.<br /><br />Others arrived at hospital with strange wounds, says Klein: small entrance holes in their upper bodies, with larger exit wounds lower down. One man said: "We were sitting in our kitchen, having dinner, when bullets came in through the roof and hit us." Police were firing from helicopters overhead. [<a href="http://www.southafrica.info/ess_info/sa_glance/history/hastings-ndlovu-150605.htm">source</a>]</blockquote>The purpose of this post is of course to remember these children's sacrifice. I remember the personal friends I made after refugees started flowing into Lesotho from all over South Africa. I remember how we would gather round and sing freedom songs in the evenings, how knowing them made us better politicians at that young age (I was fifteen). I remember how we'd listen to Radio Freedom being broadcast from Tanzania by the African National Congress. I remember how the sound sucked because the Apartheid government was doing its best to kill the signal.<br /><br />I remember.<br /><br />The other purpose of this post is to warn us about being inactive in the face of grave injustices. After 1976 and what it brought to South Africa, you'd think the world would do something. You'd be wrong. You think the world might do something for Darfur today? Wrong again. Mention a calamity in the world and ask yourself if the world might intervene, and you'd be wrong to think it might. But America <span style="font-style: italic;">did </span>intervene in Iraq (not in Darfur). Find the error. Did America intervene in South Africa with<br /><ol><li>the mere existence of <a href="http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~cale/cs201/apartheid.hist.html">Apartheid</a></li><li>laws such as The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immorality_Amendment_Act">Immorality</a> <a href="http://www.rebirth.co.za/apartheid_and_immorality2.htm">Act</a> of 1950, which stated that no one could make love to anyone outside of his or her race<br /></li><li>Nelson Mandela and many other leaders in prison</li><li>the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpeville_Massacre">Sharpeville</a> <a href="http://poefrika.blogspot.com/2006/11/21-hlakubele-1960.html">Massacre </a>of 1960<br /></li><li>the Soweto uprisings of 1976</li><li>the fact that more than 3 million blacks were forcibly removed from their homes and resettled in black '<a href="http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0856654.htmlhttp://">homelands</a>'.</li><li>the gruesome killing of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Biko">Steve</a> <a href="http://sotho.blogsome.com/2006/12/18/they-feared-you-steven/">Biko</a> in 1977</li><li>the killing of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_First">Ruth First</a>, wife of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Slovo">Joe Slovo</a>, by means of a parcel bomb</li><li>and many other injustices carried out against a whole people because of the activity of <a href="http://poefrika.blogspot.com/2007/05/great-imperative-meme.html">melanocytes</a> in their skin</li></ol>So, how did the world react? How did the big Occidental powers react? This is part of what happened: "<span style="color: #666666; font-style: italic;">[Chester] Crocker attracted the attention of the Reagan transition team with an article he wrote in the winter 1980/81 edition of the Foreign Affairs journal. In the article, Crocker was highly critical of the outgoing Carter administration for its apparent hostility to the white minority government in South Africa, by acquiescing in the United Nations Security Council's imposition of a mandatory arms embargo (UNSCR 418/77) and the UN's demand for the end of South Africa's illegal occupation of Namibia (UNSCR 435/78). [</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_A._Crocker" style="color: #666666; font-style: italic;">source</a><span style="color: #666666; font-style: italic;">]</span>" That's what happened. The Reagan administration went on to apply and implement its policy of <a href="http://richardknight.homestead.com/reaganlegacy.html">Constructive Engagement</a>.<br /><br />Let us remember this day with a particular thought for those who died; let us remember it also with a particular thought at preventing it from happening <s>in the future</s> now. So, whatchu gon' do?<br /><br /><a href="http://civileyes.blogspot.com/2007/06/god-bless-africa-nkosi-sikeleli-africa.html">Nkosi, sikelel'i Afrika</a><br /><br /><hr /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1SfjivhLdClJ8HH_jP7I9wiF05d_hYTFQYRy7xgF7rNlFTORTmws1X7bSEmjP37vjQjcqhkNalnVNd-smyWVH4Txs5-HoMnNyXVBERhwtCIVNgoDHjhgcw-L9NRZnB7k7kymggXbp/s1600/June+16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="254" data-original-width="215" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1SfjivhLdClJ8HH_jP7I9wiF05d_hYTFQYRy7xgF7rNlFTORTmws1X7bSEmjP37vjQjcqhkNalnVNd-smyWVH4Txs5-HoMnNyXVBERhwtCIVNgoDHjhgcw-L9NRZnB7k7kymggXbp/s200/June+16.jpg" width="169" /></a></div></div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-79766900869468860402020-06-06T15:10:00.000-07:002021-08-27T15:47:13.766-07:00Happy birthday, Ms Giovanni!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><a href="http://nikki-giovanni.com/timeline.shtml">Nikki Giovanni</a> was born today in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1943. I went to school in Maryville, a few kilometres from Knoxville. Wikipedia says that "on April 17, 2007, at the Virginia Tech Convocation commemorating the April 16 Virginia Tech massacre, Giovanni closed the ceremony with a chant poem, intoning:<br /><blockquote>We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech... We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the possibilities, we will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness, we are the Hokies. We will prevail, we will prevail, we will prevail. We are Virginia Tech."</blockquote>"<a href="http://poefrika.blogspot.com/2007/03/woman-by-nikki-giovanni.html">Giovanni's writing</a> has been heavily inspired by African-American activists and artists. She has a tattoo with the words 'Thug life' to honor Tupac Shakur, whom she admired. Her book 'Love Poems' (1997) was written in memory of him, and she has stated that she would 'rather be with the thugs than the people who are complaining about them.' She also tours nationwide and frequently speaks out against hate-motivated violence. At a 1999 Martin Luther King Day event, she recalled the 1998 murders of James Byrd, Jr. and Matthew Shepard: 'What's the difference between dragging a black man behind a truck in Jasper, Texas, and beating a white boy to death in Wyoming because he's gay?'"<br />[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_Giovanni">source</a>...]<br /><br /><blockquote><div style="border: 1px solid rgb(192, 192, 192); color: #999999; padding: 52px 45px; width: 70%;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">When I Die</span><br /><br />when i die i hope no one who ever hurt me cries<br />and if they cry i hope their eyes fall out<br />and a million maggots that had made up their brains<br />crawl from the empty holes and devour the flesh<br />that covered the evil that passed itself off as a person<br />that i probably tried<br />to love.<br />__________</div></blockquote><br /><br /><hr /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOOqghcAvVclHuK8MyenpARhoer7qD7AlTng5MOfBQh9u9sjziV1c_1chUvdkrmnoR8H6jvdEUoxc0MtYGP-eBNQOt5a6ALpf6GEDw_PjiyKBiziU5buW0AiuLMLtAJdC9wFaUe5r-/s1600/nikki+giovanni.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOOqghcAvVclHuK8MyenpARhoer7qD7AlTng5MOfBQh9u9sjziV1c_1chUvdkrmnoR8H6jvdEUoxc0MtYGP-eBNQOt5a6ALpf6GEDw_PjiyKBiziU5buW0AiuLMLtAJdC9wFaUe5r-/s200/nikki+giovanni.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nikki Giovanni</td></tr></tbody></table></div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-47067071049948682062020-06-01T02:04:00.000-07:002021-08-27T15:47:21.883-07:00Nikki: "How to write a love poem"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">“5-If I could give just one piece of advice about writing a love poem I would remind the writer that love is about the lover not the beloved. It’s about how you feel not how he responds. That should free you to set your heart on your sleeve; no one is going to knock it off.”<br /><br />“4-Everything about love and life is the simplicity of it. The most important thing to keep in mind is to be clear. The Dells sang Love Is So Simple and I think they are right. Nat ‘King’ Cole sang I Love You (for Sentimental Reasons); clear as a bell. Cole Porter wrote You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To. Classic. All of them. Clear. You can feel the longing.”<br /><br />“3-The most common writing mistake, period, is complication. The reader does not want to figure out what you mean. Neither does your beloved. Prince says I Want To Be Your Lover. Boom. You know where you stand.”<br /><br />“2-There must be an internal rhythm to a love poem; the desire must come out. The mistake a lot of people make is to over-think the poem. To reach out for images when just letting the longing of the heart come through would be sufficient.”<br /><br />“1-If someone writes you a love poem you’d have to be an idiot to say it was not a good poem. That’s like someone saying ‘I love that dress on you’ and you saying ‘What? This ole thing?’ The proper answer is a sweet smile and a thank you. If you have feelings for that person you can always blush.”<br /><br />Giovanni concludes, “Writing a good love poem is like being a good lover. You have to touch, taste, take your time to tell that this is real. The Supremes say You Can’t Hurry Love and you can’t fake it, either.”<br />[<a href="http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/548627/">continue there</a>...]<br /><br /><hr /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6STBDT1eAH3M2zDfFxAM0kdRwAko7fcucZfDCkahxsec8aCaIk6OSOYaccd-W_9Cl0tUg6foH0lrniKHxv0FaA8WfcncC3lvfd01fVkkgUvvYQ7HZX0WQPJ6nxVEEh0M0Ef_NjZFk/s1600/giovanni.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="204" data-original-width="200" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6STBDT1eAH3M2zDfFxAM0kdRwAko7fcucZfDCkahxsec8aCaIk6OSOYaccd-W_9Cl0tUg6foH0lrniKHxv0FaA8WfcncC3lvfd01fVkkgUvvYQ7HZX0WQPJ6nxVEEh0M0Ef_NjZFk/s200/giovanni.jpg" width="196" /></a></div></div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-84704671263464203672020-05-20T08:31:00.000-07:002021-08-27T15:47:34.983-07:00It is important to state, a poem by Kobus Moolman<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<style>
.thumbNail {
border:1px solid #C0C0C0;
border-collapse:collapse;
padding:5px;
}
.thumbNail caption {
caption-side:bottom;
text-align:center;
color: #3CB371;
font-size: 0.85em;
padding:9px;
font-weight:bold;
}
.thumbNail td {
border:1px solid #C0C0C0;
text-align:center;
padding:5px;
}
img {
display: block;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
}
</style>
<span style="padding-left: 96px;">It is important to state</span><br />
that this is not a dream, much less a<br />
skylight for bats to fly in and out of,<br />
it is a porn site, an advertisement for <br />
virgin air, uncontaminated by language, <br />
it is a removal van taking boxes and boxes<br />
of superfluous words, memories of birthday <br />
cakes with candles and three-legged races,<br />
it is important to state that this is none<br />
of the above, when confronting a ladder<br />
in the middle of a field, when confronted<br />
with the footprints of a fish at the top <br />
of the ladder, the ladder that makes the <br />
sound of a hole dropping through language <br />
into the excess of any of the oceans. <br />
<br />
<br />
<table class="thumbNail"><caption>Kobus Moolman</caption>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtv4J-_jc8gzWoqTT7j11U7Fq36zOShah5CKs_AA2Iziv80b9TapZKqY-ON1JD5ey9-HFUu3jsIJdvbU81w1VFSwpYzE8nEKYtsAGcFm4fsA82Zhwsa4vArXTyZlSFqw6VDAYCrzrUi3jy/s1600/Kobus-Moolman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtv4J-_jc8gzWoqTT7j11U7Fq36zOShah5CKs_AA2Iziv80b9TapZKqY-ON1JD5ey9-HFUu3jsIJdvbU81w1VFSwpYzE8nEKYtsAGcFm4fsA82Zhwsa4vArXTyZlSFqw6VDAYCrzrUi3jy/s200/Kobus-Moolman.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<br /></div>
Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-63193493974181115702020-05-10T15:20:00.000-07:002021-08-27T15:47:52.932-07:00Walcott: "With a president who reads poetry, there's hope."<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><blockquote>President-elect Barack Obama has a lot of writers excited about the next four years. He'll have a poet at his inauguration. He's said he's going to have more poetry readings at the White House. He's even quoted poetry on the campaign trail. In the speech he gave on Super Tuesday, Obama said, "We are the ones we've been waiting for." That line is from June Jordan's "Poem for South African Women." Nobel laureate Derek Walcott has been thinking about what it means to have a president who reads poetry. He talked with Weekend America's Larissa Anderson.<br /><br />A few days after the election, poet and playwright Derek Walcott saw a picture in the paper of Barack Obama carrying around a copy of his collected poems. Walcott says he was flattered, "But for me, what that means is it's nothing to do with me so much as a fact if you have a president who reads poetry, there's hope because poetry tries to tell the truth."</blockquote>Remember <a href="http://poefrika.blogspot.com/2018/05/forty-acres-poem-by-derek-walcott.html" target="_blank">Walcott's poem for Obama</a>? I've just listened to him read it, and discuss the election of Barack Obama. And talk about the poetic image that to me makes most of this piece: the plough and furrow image.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_h_qEwrswiaI7MO5rp0Gmut-PgsAq0qYdOv7gnO-ONsP_7dNsm0DEWMbHqXIVchh5v8p2MhGIws2vTXJ38TRCGWE4ovzUvs-ur6ufdtnkhstgdInT-BU7CA_RocHR5EJOpyxLbuU-/s1600/derek+walcott.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="216" data-original-width="216" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_h_qEwrswiaI7MO5rp0Gmut-PgsAq0qYdOv7gnO-ONsP_7dNsm0DEWMbHqXIVchh5v8p2MhGIws2vTXJ38TRCGWE4ovzUvs-ur6ufdtnkhstgdInT-BU7CA_RocHR5EJOpyxLbuU-/s200/derek+walcott.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://poefrika.blogspot.com/search/label/derek%20walcott" target="_blank">Derek Walcott</a></td></tr></tbody></table></div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-16167023413017855752020-05-08T14:40:00.000-07:002021-08-27T15:48:00.926-07:00Charles Simic's Advice "On Writing Poetry"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Don't tell the readers what they already know about life.</li>
<li>Don't assume you're the only one in the world who suffers.</li>
<li>Some of the greatest poems in the language are sonnets and poems not many lines longer than that, so don't overwrite.</li>
<li>The use of images, similes and metaphors make poems concise. Close your eyes, and let your imagination tell you what to do.</li>
<li>Say the words you are writing aloud and let your ear decide what word comes next.</li>
<li>What you are writing down is a draft that will need additional tinkering, perhaps many months, and even years of tinkering.</li>
<li>Remember, a poem is a time machine you are constructing, a vehicle that will allow someone to travel in their own mind, so don't be surprised if it takes a while to get all its engine parts properly working.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<hr />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP4RDUW9_DAtIqXRgSlVs-CO7S0Ql43HMb-F3SJbkvjWVt0AJgnJBKFx8sCav7eUPNmXjJ4mza0xxXuXvCSCpVQfdYc35TaF9Cqr0rBoI3qTcNBJHhIGXGWBXiKUrkD8Lk4H68oDPeI4NY/s1600/simic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="712" data-original-width="712" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP4RDUW9_DAtIqXRgSlVs-CO7S0Ql43HMb-F3SJbkvjWVt0AJgnJBKFx8sCav7eUPNmXjJ4mza0xxXuXvCSCpVQfdYc35TaF9Cqr0rBoI3qTcNBJHhIGXGWBXiKUrkD8Lk4H68oDPeI4NY/s200/simic.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
</div>
Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-57451733818137101062020-04-29T04:33:00.000-07:002021-08-27T15:48:10.567-07:00Matchbox lover, a poem by Kobus Moolman<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<style>
.thumbNail {
border:1px solid #C0C0C0;
border-collapse:collapse;
padding:5px;
}
.thumbNail caption {
caption-side:bottom;
text-align:center;
color: #3CB371;
font-size: 0.85em;
padding:9px;
font-weight:bold;
}
.thumbNail td {
border:1px solid #C0C0C0;
text-align:center;
padding:5px;
}
img {
display: block;
margin-left: auto;
margin-right: auto;
}
</style>
He knew it. <br />
<br />
What he had to do. The only thing left to him under the present circumstances. <br />
<br />
He would have to shrink his lover. There was nothing else for it. And then he would put her in a<br />
<br />
matchbox. <br />
<br />
Yes. And he would carry her around with him like that. In his old leather bag. <br />
<br />
Then they would always be together. Night or day. Wherever he was. <br />
<br />
But there was a downside to his plan. Of course. <br />
<br />
He did not smoke. He never had. So his wife was bound to ask why he carried a matchbox<br />
<br />
everywhere with him. Night or day. <br />
<br />
To want to know what was inside it.<br />
<br />
There was only one solution to this. He would simply have to start smoking. There was nothing else<br />
<br />
for it. <br />
<br />
Of course he knew that he ran the risk of contracting lung cancer. <br />
<br />
But that was a small price to pay for having his lover always there. With him. Close to his hip.<br />
<br />
<hr />
<br />
<br />
Kobus Moolman is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Western Cape. He has won numerous awards for his writing, including the 2015 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry, and has presented his work at literary festivals in South Africa, Ireland and Canada. His most recent book is a short story collection called The Swimming Lesson (2017).<br />
<br />
<br />
<table class="thumbNail"><caption>Kobus Moolman</caption>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtv4J-_jc8gzWoqTT7j11U7Fq36zOShah5CKs_AA2Iziv80b9TapZKqY-ON1JD5ey9-HFUu3jsIJdvbU81w1VFSwpYzE8nEKYtsAGcFm4fsA82Zhwsa4vArXTyZlSFqw6VDAYCrzrUi3jy/s1600/Kobus-Moolman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtv4J-_jc8gzWoqTT7j11U7Fq36zOShah5CKs_AA2Iziv80b9TapZKqY-ON1JD5ey9-HFUu3jsIJdvbU81w1VFSwpYzE8nEKYtsAGcFm4fsA82Zhwsa4vArXTyZlSFqw6VDAYCrzrUi3jy/s200/Kobus-Moolman.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-52250642223768296182020-04-24T23:28:00.000-07:002021-08-27T15:48:17.333-07:00Sign language, by Mangaliso Buzani<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The lead singer was Lahliwe, my mother, and Tukie and Tonogo were the backup singers. They sang Utloa sefefo samoea. We were their small congregation, we clapped our hands, our grandmother hitting the side of the wardrobe because we had no drum. We were the ears to the singers. I wonder if they are still singing together behind the moon.<br /><br />:::<br /><br />My grandmother fell inside the bathroom and hurt her ribs. After that she abandoned speaking because when she spoke a pain like a broken bone stabbed her. That’s why she chose to use sign language. We phoned the ambulance, lucky it was near, it arrived within no time. Because it was me who was looking after her, I was sent with her in the ambulance to Livingstone Hospital. She was not attended to, she suffered in that hospital until she fell asleep. I went outside looking for bread and juice, a diabetic patient mustn’t go for long hours without taking food. I woke her with bread, I ate crumbs only with my eyes. I also suffered in that hospital, there was nothing else in those 8 hours except polishing chairs with our buttocks.<br /><br />:::<br /><br />It was very difficult to cross the doorframe of the room with you grandma, without bending over to pick up one of your teardrops with a tweezer. You were a washing line made of bones, strange stiff clothes that fluttered in the wind. Your wrinkled face that was showing the last days of its beauty.<br /><br />:::<br /><br />The world had reduced you to dust, so in the space of a minute the wind blew you away; hence the reverend said dust to dust on your burial day. With a shovel, six feet under the ground I have hidden you. Now an invisible flower, you speak with me softly saying, Manga, Manga, you are not alone, Ukhona uNyameka, Nyameke is around.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><span style="color: #999999;">Buzani was awarded the 2019 annual <a href="https://artmatters.info/2020/04/winner-of-all-africa-prize-for-poetry-announced/">Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry</a> for his poetry book <i><b>A naked bone</b></i>, published by <a href="http://www.africanbookscollective.com/publishers/deep-south">Deep South</a>. This is 'Sign language', a poem from that collection.</span><br /><br /><hr /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://badilishapoetry.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/mangaliso_badilisha-400x300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" height="150" src="https://badilishapoetry.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/mangaliso_badilisha-400x300.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://badilishapoetry.com/mangaliso-buzani/" target="_blank">Mangaliso Buzani</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-58072066083723190752020-03-20T16:02:00.000-07:002021-08-27T15:48:38.962-07:00A poem about Sharpeville, a poem by Dennis Brutus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><blockquote style="font-style: italic;">A half century ago, police officers massacred 69 black South Africans in the township of Sharpeville, where protesters had burned the passbooks that the white-led apartheid government required them to carry at all times.<br /><br />But survivors of the massacre here are tired of telling their stories: They are wondering when the change they thought they were fighting for 50 years ago will come to Sharpeville.<br /><br />Residents in recent weeks have set fire to tyres in the streets to protest the lack of basic services such as electricity and running water.<br /><br />"Our lives started changing with Nelson Mandela's release, but people are still financially struggling and finance is still in white people's hands," said Abram Mofokeng, who was 21 when officers opened fire on the protesters, shooting demonstrators including women and children as they ran away. Mofokeng still bears the scar where a bullet entered his back.<br />[<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/article/2010-03-21-sharpeville-survivors-tire-of-telling-their-stories">source</a>...]</blockquote>The Sharpeville police mowed protesters down, shooting most in the back. No accountability. Nobody to turn to, in South Africa or abroad. The heavens told black South-Africans they were alone. "You're alone." And so they were. Many fled into exile, and Lesotho started having its first waves of South-African refugees, mostly from the PAC movement, which had organised the protests.<br /><br />We called them ma-PAC, the prefix signifying more than one, some, several, many. They played rugby at a football pitch in Motse-Mocha near the Setsoto stadium, a strange sport to us, 7 years old and staunch football players/fans. South Africa had just flipped the world a bird and got away with it. It would do so again in 1976 in a repeat performance that became Apartheid's last straw.<br /><br />It's been a long time coming, but change is gonna come, sang Sam Cooke about America. He could have been singing about South Africa, or the world, even. For what is baffling is how Sharpeville 1960, Soweto 1976, King's and X's murders, the Civil Rights movement, Mandela's 27 years in jail, not to mention the thousands tortured and killed in South Africa, and tortured and lynched in America, what is baffling is how these have not entered the minds of all and instructed them on the evils of discrimination and segregation in all its forms. That is truly baffling to me.<br /><br />It is also amazingly stunning that all these things happened and almost no one got punished for it, no international hunt for the wrong-doers, no motivation to see them "brought to justice," as George Bush the son would say about so many who had committed so less. Today is a day to remember and to know why it should be remembered, today is a learning day. To me it is also a bitter day.<br /><br /><br />What is important<br />about Sharpeville<br />is not that seventy died:<br />nor even that they were shot in the back<br />retreating, unarmed, defenseless<br />and certainly not<br />the heavy caliber slug<br />that tore through a mother’s back<br />and ripped through the child in her arms<br />killing it<br />Remember Sharpeville<br />bullet-in-the-back day<br />Because it epitomized oppression<br />and the nature of society<br />more clearly than anything else;<br />it was the classic event<br />Nowhere is racial dominance<br />more clearly defined<br />nowhere the will to oppress<br />more clearly demonstrated<br />what the world whispers<br />apartheid with snarling guns<br />the blood lust after<br />South Africa spills in the dust<br />Remember Sharpeville<br />Remember bullet-in-the-back day<br />And remember the unquenchable will for freedom<br />Remember the dead<br />and be glad.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDBN7EDbSep7b1M9pME9bZXiwv_l43vobhrXohGjQHet1uhVd1hDqhPcMBseljOrrSGS0n2Vw9mnxqfi1eWZEVuRbsmc2CToLJrTRBinWzh4zt_fOBInaFFjDnx-QmksNPtxoyyjJH/s1600/dennis+brutus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="180" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDBN7EDbSep7b1M9pME9bZXiwv_l43vobhrXohGjQHet1uhVd1hDqhPcMBseljOrrSGS0n2Vw9mnxqfi1eWZEVuRbsmc2CToLJrTRBinWzh4zt_fOBInaFFjDnx-QmksNPtxoyyjJH/s200/dennis+brutus.jpg" width="153" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122020269&t=1542001912915" target="_blank">Dennis Brutus</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-52704236503724620572020-03-20T07:16:00.000-07:002021-08-27T15:48:51.524-07:00The song of sunrise, a poem by Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">The sword of daybreak<br />snips the shroud<br />of the night from the sky,<br />and the morning<br />peeps through the blankets<br />like a baby rising<br />from its cot<br />to listen to the<br />peal of the bell.<br /><br />Arise! Arise!<br />All Workers!<br />To work! To work!<br />You must go!<br /><br />Buses rumble,<br />Trains rattle,<br />Taxis hoot.<br /><br />I shuffle in the queue<br />with feet that patter<br />on the station platform,<br />and stumble into the coach<br />that squeezes me like a lemon<br />of all the juice of my life.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVqnysnXrtcLFyrZGCoTPIBT5ddwhTfc_mKjZDEl5XvRsha_Cmm31zHTaKoL-j_Xgqt-d242homVN2szEmdo0BbUCuU22aV3u5eYe_WBZUVrietvZUdfdnNBpdT6DwRUIV2z1uk85D/s1600/Oswald_Mbuyiseni_Mtshali.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="329" data-original-width="520" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVqnysnXrtcLFyrZGCoTPIBT5ddwhTfc_mKjZDEl5XvRsha_Cmm31zHTaKoL-j_Xgqt-d242homVN2szEmdo0BbUCuU22aV3u5eYe_WBZUVrietvZUdfdnNBpdT6DwRUIV2z1uk85D/s200/Oswald_Mbuyiseni_Mtshali.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><br /></div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-40065737576964928602020-03-15T09:08:00.000-07:002021-08-27T15:49:09.627-07:00Everlasting images: The Schooner Flight<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<blockquote style="color: #1d9a11;">
There are so many islands!<br />
As many islands as the stars at night<br />
on that branched tree from which meteors are shaken<br />
like falling fruit...<br />
[<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=177932" style="color: #1d9a11;" target="_blank">more</a>...]</blockquote>
I have read this part (called "After the Storm") of Walcott's immense "<a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=177932">The Schooner <span style="font-style: italic;">Flight</span></a>" many, many times, and this image astounds me. The whole poem kills me. I often wonder if I'm right when I say that there cannot be poetry without imagery. I think there can be good writing without imagery, but poetry... .<br />
<br />
He doesn't say it, but I can hear the bell-like, Christmassy sound the stars make when their branch is shaken. And I can see the magic powder falling from them. His image is that powerful to me that it leads me down other paths that may be different from paths taken by other readers, by you. I have enjoyed imagery in poetry ever since Spender surprised me with <br />
<blockquote style="color: #1d9a11;">
...the watching of cripples pass<br />
With limbs shaped like questions<br />
In their odd twist...<br />
[<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/92217/what-i-expected" style="color: #1d9a11;" target="_blank">more</a>...]</blockquote>
I still enjoy imagery like crazy. I strive in my poems to reproduce images that I harbour in my head, things that I've seen and lived, or can just imagine well enough to make them mine, therefore believable. That's some hard thing, and that's why when it's well done, it kills me. Recently I've been enjoying Opal Palmer Adisa's "<a href="http://rps.uvi.edu/CaribbeanWriter/volume8/v8p31.html">Pan-Africanism</a>" where the poet says "history is grafted / in our fingertips // we shine / the same sweat / all over / the diaspora ;" Geoffrey Philp's "Confession" where he says <br />
<blockquote style="color: #1d9a11;">
The old man came<br />
into my grandfather's shop, and I ignored him<br />
when he sat on the barrels of mackerel,<br />
the air heavy with cheese and salt.<br />
[<a href="https://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/2006/10/poem-confession.html" style="color: #1d9a11;" target="_blank">more</a>...]</blockquote>
Smell it? Feel the moisture in the air? Hear that subtle barrel/mackerel song? For imagery isn't only visual, but extends across the five senses, and may even make use of the sixth one; Rustum Kozain when in his wonderful poem "Stars of Stone" he says <br />
<blockquote style="color: #1d9a11;">
Today the stones I know will nick<br />
our skulls, then knock our souls<br />
from us. It is so.<br />
[<a href="https://poefrika.blogspot.com/2010/09/stars-of-stone.html" style="color: #1d9a11;" target="_blank">more</a>...]</blockquote>
uses an image whose strength lies not only in visualising the horrible act that went on that day, but also in hearing the stones in the K-K-K sound of nick/skulls/knock. It's the stones meeting their target.<br />
<br />
In "I want to write," Margaret Walker talks of her people, and of how she wants to write their songs, and hear them sing in the dark from their "sob-torn throats." Then toward the end of the poem she goes<br />
<blockquote style="color: #1d9a11;">
I want to catch their sunshine laughter in a bowl;<br />
fling dark hands to a darker sky<br />
and fill them full of stars<br />
then crush and mix such lights till they become<br />
a mirrored pool of brilliance in the dawn.<br />
[<a href="https://poefrika.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-want-to-write.html" style="color: #1d9a11;" target="_blank">more</a>...]</blockquote>
<br />
<hr />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0fpNACEHQfStY-i53AsEehCV2vkSMisuJ0CY6ZMIQ5QTwaWLAAMxzdB6L_EzifxTnLDKbMzxBSVJn83Fzx7hV27f2SytIgQBgu5cskIYhb9fUlsgkwa1mLo_vvbH1qVrRMoMS1GDC/s1600/stephen_spender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="454" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0fpNACEHQfStY-i53AsEehCV2vkSMisuJ0CY6ZMIQ5QTwaWLAAMxzdB6L_EzifxTnLDKbMzxBSVJn83Fzx7hV27f2SytIgQBgu5cskIYhb9fUlsgkwa1mLo_vvbH1qVrRMoMS1GDC/s200/stephen_spender.jpg" width="189" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3346/the-art-of-poetry-no-25-stephen-spender" target="_blank">Sir Stephen Spender</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-11516517224261883982020-03-08T11:58:00.000-07:002021-08-27T15:50:00.460-07:00About my dreams, a poem by Hilda Conkling<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Now the flowers are all folded<br />And the dark is going by. <br />The evening is arising…<br />It is time to rest.<br />When I am sleeping<br />I find my pillow full of dreams. <br />They are all new dreams:<br />No one told them to me<br />Before I came through the cloud. <br />They remember the sky, my little dreams,<br />They have wings, they are quick, they are sweet. <br />Help me tell my dreams <br />To the other children, <br />So that their bread may taste whiter, <br />So that the milk they drink <br />May make them think of meadows<br />In the sky of stars. <br />Help me give bread to the other children<br />So that their dreams may come back:<br />So they will remember what they knew <br />Before they came through the cloud.<br />Let me hold their little hands in the dark, <br />The lonely children,<br />The babies that have no mothers any more. <br />Dear God, let me hold up my silver cup <br />For them to drink, <br />And tell them the sweetness <br />Of my dreams. <br /><br /><hr /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Hilda_Conkling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="730" data-original-width="504" height="200" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Hilda_Conkling.jpg" width="138" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/hilda-conkling" target="_blank">Hilda Conkling</a></td></tr></tbody></table></div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-26243430087214637792020-03-05T23:03:00.000-08:002021-08-27T15:49:42.978-07:00The man who would be eaten, by Rustum Kozain<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>"The following piece was written in 2006, since when it has been languishing on the author’s blog. It was revived and read by the author at the celebration of JM Coetzee’s eightieth birthday at Amazwi: South African Museum of Literature (formerly the National English Literature Museum) in Makhanda. It’s publication comes with a ‘cautious recommendation’ from Coetzee himself."</i><br />
<br />
It begins:<br />
<b>One day</b>, I joke with friends: ‘If you were a cannibal, which author would you eat and which herb would you use?’ I almost immediately go for JM Coetzee, slow-roasted over coals, and simply but deftly flavoured: salt, pepper, tarragon. Now, every time I have eggs benedict, I think of slow-roasted Coetzee and tarragon.<br />
<br />
[<a href="https://johannesburgreviewofbooks.com/2020/03/05/i-am-quite-normal-i-just-wonder-what-jm-coetzee-would-taste-like-slow-roasted-with-tarragon-read-the-man-who-would-be-eaten-by-rustum-kozain/">Read more...</a>]<br />
<br />
<hr />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWLQ-SIZB0yRRgMLPmqCsPJIMFpROCYg92CrYdtkL1K4yVUugM7TBy3-5mC7y5HIB-r5kdmkUDDfOyLLVco-KrxURWN6AMDVIXT-lMDJwSf_AphTyKHlJm8w0X_4jxLOg8dO6bmpNvyWYQ/s1600/rustum-kozain-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1025" data-original-width="683" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWLQ-SIZB0yRRgMLPmqCsPJIMFpROCYg92CrYdtkL1K4yVUugM7TBy3-5mC7y5HIB-r5kdmkUDDfOyLLVco-KrxURWN6AMDVIXT-lMDJwSf_AphTyKHlJm8w0X_4jxLOg8dO6bmpNvyWYQ/s200/rustum-kozain-6.jpg" width="133" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
</div>
Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-50475343661593767232020-03-04T21:22:00.000-08:002021-08-27T15:49:34.007-07:00Ezra Pound Quote: What's An Image?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />The image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy.<br /><em style="color: red;">Ezra Pound</em><br /><br /><hr /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqrSjLDhoXsfziWc4J2FAHTjGsyrbGTSlXhC9MEUS50vALSnxRDIRS68oQ5o6KTyQuq_xtS3qfkzV1DAP9OmFrzeUJm5f8iPEGqtwhH5pAvoYqx67adndJRDF7_zaqUTI5wel8Pter/s1600/ezra+pound.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="240" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqrSjLDhoXsfziWc4J2FAHTjGsyrbGTSlXhC9MEUS50vALSnxRDIRS68oQ5o6KTyQuq_xtS3qfkzV1DAP9OmFrzeUJm5f8iPEGqtwhH5pAvoYqx67adndJRDF7_zaqUTI5wel8Pter/s200/ezra+pound.jpg" width="200" /></a></div></div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-39367412050210763652020-03-03T08:48:00.000-08:002021-08-27T15:50:10.510-07:00Ode to the maggot, a poem by Yusef Komunyakaa<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Brother of the blowfly<br />And godhead, you work magic<br />Over battlefields,<br />In slabs of bad pork<br /><br />And flophouses. Yes, you<br />Go to the root of all things.<br />You are sound & mathematical.<br />Jesus, Christ, you're merciless<br /><br />With the truth. Ontological & lustrous,<br />You cast spells on beggars & kings<br />Behind the stone door of Caesar's tomb<br />Or split trench in a field of ragweed.<br /><br />No decree or creed can outlaw you<br />As you take every living thing apart. Little<br />Master of earth, no one gets to heaven<br />Without going through you first.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.manhattantimesnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Feature1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="619" height="86" src="https://www.manhattantimesnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Feature1.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://owlcation.com/humanities/Analysis-of-Yusef-Kommunyakaas-Facing-It" target="_blank">Yusef Komunyakaa</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /></div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-37673128105658590212020-02-29T06:19:00.000-08:002021-08-27T15:50:18.928-07:00Grandpa Sydney's Anancy Stories<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><a href="http://www.lulu.com/content/877456" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5072819235929254946" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn7PnYHL7uuoerT5mZiFjUjRSqxZdw1nuq0BXCsmK8r2NGTgzXEb_5ZgX7oc5eu87clFgil_8hzIXiRb1dtiUb7P4xrqr9sB8gMTtEvAIhVlujijlBNMp9Oh-bHB63xF6OPyCY_jHM/s200/anancy.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px;" /></a>Jimmy Harrison loves school and his favorite subject is snack time! But when a new boy, Kevin, joins his class, he begins to bully Jimmy and the rest of the children. What’s worse, he begins to take away Jimmy’s snacks. Using the wisdom from his Grandpa Sydney’s story about “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anansi">Anancy</a>, Snake, and Tiger,” Jimmy overcomes the class bully. And for one Sunday, he reunites his family for dinner. Set in the multicultural environment of South Florida, <a href="http://www.lulu.com/content/877456"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Grandpa Sydney’s Anancy Stories</span></a> draws on the rich oral tradition of Anancy stories that are told and re-told in Jamaica and the Caribbean. These <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anansi">Anancy</a> stories, which originated in West Africa, are rich sources of wisdom that have been passed down from generation to generation. <a href="http://www.lulu.com/content/877456">Check out the just-published book</a>.</div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-6229996828741701072020-02-29T03:23:00.000-08:002021-08-27T15:50:26.414-07:00Duterte’s dead, a poem by Jim Pascual Agustin<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">are squirming with worms<br />that take the place<br />of forensic investigators.<br /><br />They seek the shortest<br />and most efficient way<br />of exposing bone.<br /><br />To those unacquainted<br />with the language<br />of final repose,<br /><br />the worms render<br />each body<br />nearly identical.<br /><br />Duterte’s dead<br />have lost the need<br />for food and water, <br /><br />for the rare solace<br />of undisturbed moments<br />at the toilet. <br /><br />Hope leaves no trace<br />in their hollowed skulls.<br />Only the living carry <br /><br />that weight as they navigate<br />the mute streets, the dark<br />alleys, the witnesses <br /><br />to the carnage.<br />Is there really<br />no memory in heaven?<br /><br /><hr /><br /><i>This poem first appeared in <b>How to Make a Salagubang Helicopter & other poems</b> </i><br /><i>(San Anselmo Press, 2018).</i><br /><br /><hr /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://panitikan.ph/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Agustin-Jim-Pascual.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="200" src="https://panitikan.ph/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Agustin-Jim-Pascual.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://pensouthafrica.co.za/qa-with-poet-writer-and-translator-jim-pascual-agustin/" target="_blank">Jim Pascual Agustin</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-47720204314727108172020-02-26T03:12:00.000-08:002021-08-27T15:50:38.908-07:00Groundwork X, by Rustum Kozain<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
You sleep well, dreaming of sea gulls<br />
and lost love. The tundra you’d walk.<br />
Or desert, the world, rock, scrub,<br />
rock, scrub. Dawn, the bright sun.<br />
<br />
And the woman who stumbles to the cliff-edge<br />
where last no one saw her husband<br />
taken by the night sea, rod and tackle<br />
all taken by the sea somewhere, somewhere.<br />
[<a href="http://groundwork.wordpress.com/2007/07/19/groundwork-x/">continue</a> there...]<br />
<br />
<br />
<table class="thumbNail">
<caption>Rustum Kozain
</caption>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdK_GhkniFDwWSDstFFJQMkVoRD5Z58tavJgFcpp7C1H2IW8XKJ8dN-2kP1zfCzsHmw_QHls9VeXTQxm4AiiTOziRIxgnKvcjdxDjLzHGXpIgOagCw8cmNY-8hGvYJavhrjE7PsPsqbT__/s1600/rustum-kozain-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdK_GhkniFDwWSDstFFJQMkVoRD5Z58tavJgFcpp7C1H2IW8XKJ8dN-2kP1zfCzsHmw_QHls9VeXTQxm4AiiTOziRIxgnKvcjdxDjLzHGXpIgOagCw8cmNY-8hGvYJavhrjE7PsPsqbT__/s200/rustum-kozain-2.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-64663787246339768862020-02-23T13:31:00.000-08:002021-08-27T15:50:47.652-07:00To my mother, a poem by Alain Mabanckou<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I have lodged my flagpole at the heart of this territory<br />Here I am, far from my people<br />Now learning to dance on one foot<br />And disremember my bipedal custom<br />The red earth of my home<br />Hasn't left my soles since the last migration<br />Slumber resides beneath my eyelids<br />But I sleep with only one eye<br />With only one ear<br />I married the fate of the leaf<br />When I detach myself from the tree and fly with the wind<br />I always fall back at the foot of the tree<br />And even though I've been swept away by a river current<br />In each of my dreams<br />This name returns<br />Two syllables<br />Congo<br />I am now unable to resist<br />When pain beckons me to the hours where sleeplessness<br />Haunts the eyelid<br />I find the shadows of our village in the night<br />And my heart beats to the rhythm of a herd<br />Fearful of an impending tornado<br />Left to water the arid soil of return<br />These spilling torrential tears <br />Are the bed of my grief<br />When I return from my pilgrimage<br />The door of the house will be shut<br />A few sheep will graze the last grass of the neighbourhood<br />I'll head to the cemetery<br />And see the grave all by itself<br />By the tree that gave birth to my first poems<br />That's where she lies, my mother<br />And that is where I have been living for a long time.<br /><br /><i>This poem was read in New York, on the occasion of Pen American</i><br /><br /><hr /><br />Translated from <a href="http://www.barapoemes.net/archives/2015/03/29/31793029.html" target="_blank">the original French</a> by Rethabile Masilo<br /><br /><hr /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp79hHlcOMcQO2xb3LNPDdl88y15yK8s0JWy-cCHsx9LKFKNPRlyX1Fn3WxboBTbx1A2ybU2sUmiGZOpgAMYExDzE0La8imQMMaAyetXSgeBntJhIOMxCm1GQdBkblLcnoNSx_q2sb/s1600/2017-07-20-mabanckou.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="600" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp79hHlcOMcQO2xb3LNPDdl88y15yK8s0JWy-cCHsx9LKFKNPRlyX1Fn3WxboBTbx1A2ybU2sUmiGZOpgAMYExDzE0La8imQMMaAyetXSgeBntJhIOMxCm1GQdBkblLcnoNSx_q2sb/s200/2017-07-20-mabanckou.jpg" width="160" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /></div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-79560867776746155372020-02-22T04:31:00.000-08:002021-08-27T15:50:57.099-07:00Billy Collins reading at the 2008 Dodge Poetry Festival<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><object height="362" width="450"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/kKFe0wY-7-A&hl=en_GB&fs=1?color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/kKFe0wY-7-A&hl=en_GB&fs=1?color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="450" height="362"></embed></object><br /><br /><hr /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Billy_Collins_2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="403" height="200" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Billy_Collins_2015.jpg" width="142" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/billy-collins" target="_blank">Billy Collins</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-50668013551324861332020-02-17T07:07:00.000-08:002021-08-27T15:51:06.283-07:0024 poems by black poets, a Poéfrika list<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15 px; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/2011/04/21-days-21-poems-poem-that-made-me.html" target="_blank">Dennis Scott</a></i><br /><br />That August the birds kept away from the village, afraid:<br /><span style="padding-left: 47px;">people were hungry.</span><br />The phoenix hid at the sun’s center and stared down<br /><span style="padding-left: 47px;">at the Banker’s house,</span><br />which was plump and factual, like zero.</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="http://poefrika.blogspot.com/2014/04/thomas-thistlewood-and-tom.html" target="_blank">Pamela Mordecai</a></i><br /><br />Shit in my mouth. He makes my woman put<br />her bottom in my face and push her doo-<br />doo in between my lips. When she stops he<br />says, "More! You black bitch, more! Shove it out till<br />it bung a clog inside his throat or I<br />will strip your back until it makes<br />a bleeding pair with his." </td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="http://poefrika.blogspot.com/2019/08/you-and-i-are-disappearing-poem-by.html" target="_blank">Yusef Komunyakaa</a></i><br /><br />The cry I bring down from the hills<br />belongs to a girl still burning<br />inside my head. At daybreak she burns like a piece of paper.<br />She burns like foxfire<br />in a thigh-shaped valley.<br />A skirt of flames<br />dances around her<br />at dusk.</td></tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://poefrika.blogspot.com/2007/01/wrath-by-mzwandile-matiwana.html">Mzwandile Matiwana</a></i><br /><br />I say:<br />"every drop of my ink will curse your balls"<br />And my children of my children<br />will know peace to mix not with your<br />progeny</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/05/10/the-winners-of-92ys-2019-discovery-poetry-contest/" target="_blank">Omotara James</a></i><br /><br />When they send the robot to replace me, do not be gentle<br />with it. Place these chords where its heart chakra should be.<br />Do not speak to it of a fountain— tell it, in the middle of<br />its life, there will be a flower: a blooming petalled trauma.</td></tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="http://poefrika.blogspot.com/2018/09/islands-poem-by-derek-walcott.html" target="_blank">Derek Walcott</a></i><br /><br />Merely to name them is the prose<br />Of diarists, to make you a name<br />For readers who like travellers praise<br />Their beds and beaches as the same;<br />But islands can only exist<br />If we have loved in them. </td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://poets.org/poem/brief-history-hostility" target="_blank">Jamaal May</a></i><br /><br />In the beginning<br />there was the war.<br /><br />The war said let there be war<br />and there was war.<br /><br />The war said let there be peace<br />and there was war.</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48756/a-poem-about-intelligence-for-my-brothers-and-sisters" target="_blank">June Jordan</a></i><br /><br />A few years back and they told me Black<br />means a hole where other folks<br />got brain/it was like the cells in the heads<br />of Black children was out to every hour on the hour naps<br />Scientists called the phenomenon the Notorious<br />Jensen Lapse, remember?</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/90733/the-house-57daba5625f32" target="_blank">Warsan Shire</a></i><br /><br />Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women; kitchen of lust,<br />bedroom of grief, bathroom of apathy.<br />Sometimes the men - they come with keys,<br />and sometimes, the men - they come with hammers.</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://poets.org/poem/hagar-wilderness" target="_blank">Tyehimba Jess</a></i><br /><br />My God is the living God,<br />God of the impertinent exile.<br />An outcast who carved me<br />into an outcast carved<br />by sheer and stony will<br />to wander the desert<br />in search of deliverance<br />the way a mother hunts<br />for her wayward child.</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://abegailmorley.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/rethabile-masilo-featured-poet/" target="_blank">Rethabile Masilo</a></i><br /><br />Tonight, I go to bed<br />with images of Maria Conçepcion in my head,<br />and Walcott beckoning from the edge of the sea<br />with honey dripping from the tips of his fingers.</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://themissingslate.com/article/purgatory/" target="_blank">Kwame Dawes</a></i><br /><br />I learned a sports car, red, muscular open roads,<br />a fit body, a smile, are reliable as a visa,<br />a path to understand the tears of a woman,<br />as I understood menstruation or perms:<br />their business is mostly inexplicable, crazy, and<br />nothing to do with me. I learned to be able<br />to say, "You did not come? Not sure why—<br />I did. Try harder, next time."</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://www.connotationpress.com/poetry/2413-geoffrey-philp-poetry" target="_blank">Geoffrey Philp</a></i><br /><br />Years later, my father would try<br />to explain, why after shoveling dirt<br />for three hours in the vault of a neighbor’s<br />son, he’d abandoned me in an empty grave.<br />And no matter how much I wailed,<br />"Pa, the duppies are coming after me,"<br />he calmly chiseled the boy’s name...</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="http://poefrika.blogspot.com/2019/03/21-days-poem-by-kamau-brathwaite.html" target="_blank">Kamau Brathwaite</a></i><br /><br />on the first day<br />of yr death it is quiet it is dormant like a doormat<br />no one-foot touch its welcome. its dust on the floor<br />is not disturb nor are the sleeping spirits of this house</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52833/dog-woman" target="_blank">Chris Abani</a></i><br /><br />It’s like flying in your dreams, she said. You empty<br />Yourself out and just lift off. Soar. It’s like that.</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54901/tonight-56d235cf37a3f" target="_blank">Ladan Osman</a></i><br /><br />Tonight is a drunk man,<br />his dirty shirt.<br /><br />There is no couple chatting by the recycling bins,<br />offering to help me unload my plastics.</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="http://www.soul-lit.com/poems/v2/Oneil/index.html" target="_blank">January Gill O'Neil</a></i><br /><br />Make peace with what cannot be seen<br />and what you do not know.<br />Try not to enter the pond scum,<br />the algae that swirls<br />in dark, empty rooms called water.</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://poetrypill.blogspot.com/2015/01/you-came-too.html" target="_blank">Nikki Giovanni</a></i><br /><br />I came to the crowd seeking friends<br />I came to the crowd seeking love<br />I came to the crowd for understanding<br /><br />I found you.</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="http://poefrika.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-want-to-write.html" target="_blank">Margaret Walker</a></i><br /><br />I want to write<br />I want to write the songs of my people.<br />I want to hear them singing melodies in the dark.<br />I want to catch the last floating strains from their sob-torn<br />throats.</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://poefrika.blogspot.com/2020/02/happy-birthday-ishmael-reed.html" target="_blank">Ishmael Reed</a></i><br /><br />Being a colored poet<br />Is like going over<br />Niagara Falls in a<br />Barrel.</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/those-winter-sundays/.html" target="_blank">Robert Hayden</a></i><br /><br />Sundays too my father got up early<br />and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,<br />then with cracked hands that ached<br />from labor in the weekday weather made<br />banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57799/citizen-some-years-there-exists-a-wanting-to-escape" target="_blank">Claudia Rankine</a></i><br /><br />Some years there exists a wanting to escape—<br />you, floating above your certain ache— <br />still the ache coexists.<br />Call that the immanent you—</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="http://poefrika.blogspot.com/2009/03/dudley-randalls-roses-and-revolutions.html" target="_blank">Dudley Randall</a></i><br /><br />Musing on roses and revolutions,<br />I saw night close down on the earth like a great dark wing,<br />and the lighted cities were like tapers in the night,<br />and I heard the lamentations of a million hearts<br />regretting life and crying for the grave,<br />and I saw the Negro lying in the swamp with his face blown off,<br />and in the northern cities with his manhood maligned and felt the writhing<br />of his viscera like that of the hare hunted down or the bear at bay,<br />and I saw men working and taking no joy in their work<br />and embracing the hard-eyed whore with joyless excitement<br />and lying with wives and virgins in impotence.</td> </tr><tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #dddddd; padding: 8px; text-align: left;"><br /><i>by <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55713/a-terror-is-more-certain-" target="_blank">Bob Kaufman</a></i><br /><br />A terror is more certain than all the rare desirable popular songs I<br />know, than even now when all of my myths have become . . . , & walk<br />around in black shiny galoshes & carry dirty laundry to & fro, & read<br />great books & don’t know criminals intimately, & publish fat books of<br />the month & have wifeys that are lousy in bed & never realize how<br />bad my writing is because i am poor & symbolize myself.</td> </tr></tbody></table><br /><hr /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbVDbVFNlCoCbo7xGpaF00lmw5oaUTnphSWnJ_JoVNXROwiwVMW8042ALLU9-pOZ25vSAGeiL-mK5LkXxn7wiKaQ1TrkIbgEzeP2HrSbV_4ZsqBU62xR0cRJ0n_Bh3xcYIpzopFpul/s1600/dawes_si-303x335.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="335" data-original-width="303" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbVDbVFNlCoCbo7xGpaF00lmw5oaUTnphSWnJ_JoVNXROwiwVMW8042ALLU9-pOZ25vSAGeiL-mK5LkXxn7wiKaQ1TrkIbgEzeP2HrSbV_4ZsqBU62xR0cRJ0n_Bh3xcYIpzopFpul/s200/dawes_si-303x335.jpg" width="181" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /></div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-15701775282329699212020-02-13T15:02:00.000-08:002021-08-27T15:51:18.040-07:00Frederick Douglass, a poem by Robert Hayden<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful<br />
and terrible thing, needful to man as air,<br />
usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all,<br />
when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole,<br />
reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more<br />
than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:<br />
this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro<br />
beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world<br />
where none is lonely, none hunted, alien,<br />
this man, superb in love and logic, this man<br />
shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues' rhetoric,<br />
not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone,<br />
but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives<br />
fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Listen to the poem</b>: <a href="https://youtu.be/rG9877CqppA" target="_blank">Shawntay A. Henry reads "Frederick Douglass"</a></i><br />
<br />
<hr />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTcO9oe3wq7GWJPvh0U0ffdVaSzMz-HXE7f6WCCCXNAtD88rdkuDtqrM-J3KLengq1MXPMNDCnGfgQnQJmabHiI7OttuhJzmhSek2nS8CkefY0vD865nyHELAwbzeOt3YVH2QpmWcdGAHX/s1600/Robert+Hayden.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="352" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTcO9oe3wq7GWJPvh0U0ffdVaSzMz-HXE7f6WCCCXNAtD88rdkuDtqrM-J3KLengq1MXPMNDCnGfgQnQJmabHiI7OttuhJzmhSek2nS8CkefY0vD865nyHELAwbzeOt3YVH2QpmWcdGAHX/s200/Robert+Hayden.jpeg" width="165" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<br /></div>
Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-78139222267794426662020-02-09T22:20:00.000-08:002021-08-27T15:51:59.240-07:00Crowd gathered, salivating for a taste of blood, by Sihle Ntuli<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">violence, <br />as a pain <br />shared between men,<br /><br />it has been said <br />time and time again,<br />to be a man<br />one must save face <br />at all times,<br /><br />it was pain <br />that drove defence<br />against a loss of power, <br /><br />to think how clenched fist <br />was once a symbol of power<br />down the road <br />to grievous bodily harm, <br /><br />now a symbol <br />of how man will hold onto the pain <br />never letting go.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><span style="color: #999999;">Sihle Ntuli (<a href="https://twitter.com/sihlexntuli" target="_blank">@sihlexntuli</a>) is a 29-year-old South African writer based in Durban. He holds an M.A degree in Classical Civilizations from Rhodes University in Makhanda, He is an award-winning lecturer of the Classics having received the 2019 CTL Innovation Award for Curriculum Design and Delivery. He has had work published in <i>New Contrast</i>, <i>Agbowo II: Limits Issue & Brittle Paper presents 20:35 Africa Volume II</i>. His chapbook collection <i>Rumblin’</i> is due to be released by <a href="http://uhlangapress.co.za/" target="_blank">uHlanga Press</a> in the third quarter of 2020. </span><br /><br /><hr /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOzoui7YwCc0wnrbkLjACrUg0zGkCGNVEQPbxtwgfDJWQM88o7g0EqeEkLDiSoQZVoD7eX5HbMEO3YKrDOupZz-vluWp6XMoEzGTqPyEDJdy2CCkCkQsTYIoHpK4WLUQurqGfmx8aE/s1600/SihlePortaits_PhotographByNiamhWalsh-Vorster-13+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1065" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOzoui7YwCc0wnrbkLjACrUg0zGkCGNVEQPbxtwgfDJWQM88o7g0EqeEkLDiSoQZVoD7eX5HbMEO3YKrDOupZz-vluWp6XMoEzGTqPyEDJdy2CCkCkQsTYIoHpK4WLUQurqGfmx8aE/s200/SihlePortaits_PhotographByNiamhWalsh-Vorster-13+%25281%2529.jpg" width="133" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sihle-ntuli-a5466b16a/" target="_blank">Sihle Ntuli</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8106101614931733694.post-40571573413088552882020-01-28T03:50:00.000-08:002021-11-12T07:56:30.528-08:00Body, a poem by Rethabile Masilo<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">This is the body from which it began many years ago,<br />one sibling after another; flesh—from flesh<br />that has found its bed now at last, in<br />a marbled room rendered silent<br />by the white company of stone,<br />the powdered face of past visions,<br />and arms and hands whose powerful sinew,<br />whose true slap, is gone, now, from it, like regret<br />slain, the delicate face of my mother a dream<br />that comes to me when I sleep, her voice in my liberty,<br />her fingers curled into fresh meaning and sense, as if<br />to say: find at this time the will for your own remedy.<br />I close my life and seek, if only for my children,<br />her voice that blesses and redeems the pulse of bleating hearts.<br />I’d present her deeds like a résumé to the guardian<br />of a gate that we do not know about, scribbled<br />on black slate, my eyes the reference letter to God,<br />plus the names of six referees who have known her<br />from before their flesh had slipped from her flesh,<br />and she held them against her bosom<br />or carried them on her back as she worked;<br />but her job here is done, just retirement is due.<br />Life started once, and she carried it to your company,<br />I will tell my children. Bury in you this memory:<br />after today, when this rain stops and the sun reappears,<br />nothing forever will be able to dissipate your dark.<br /><br /><hr /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj02EMYbcPl77aOnBhHIqR2Vkfqzn6BGr6iDfyPVO-auyVidtNLe3OrXtWDfRdGZxFTUr6dNtByCQ5v9vcIceEUZxBR74uQ7hrvxirDOZlHcxZybYEFLfBiMcMXTzBCTIbwSQm-5Fha/s1600/mom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="688" data-original-width="1029" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj02EMYbcPl77aOnBhHIqR2Vkfqzn6BGr6iDfyPVO-auyVidtNLe3OrXtWDfRdGZxFTUr6dNtByCQ5v9vcIceEUZxBR74uQ7hrvxirDOZlHcxZybYEFLfBiMcMXTzBCTIbwSQm-5Fha/s200/mom.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://poefrika.blogspot.com/2019/11/my-mothers-calendar-poem-by-rethabile.html" target="_blank">'Me' 'Makananelo Masilo</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div>Rethabilehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03523368313680103826noreply@blogger.com0