Poéfrika: February 2011

27 February 2011

25 February 2011

African Bloggers Statement on David Kato and Uganda

"We the undersigned wish to express our deep sadness at the murder of Ugandan human rights defender David Kato on 26th January 2011. David's activism began in the 1980s as an Anti-Apartheid campaigner where he first expressed a strong passion and conviction for freedom and justice which continued throughout his life. David was a founding member of Sexual Minorities Uganda where he first served as Board member and until his death as Litigation and Advocacy Officer and he was also a member of Integrity Uganda, a faith-based advocacy organization.

David was a man of vision and courage. One of his major concerns was the growth of religious fundamentalism in Uganda and across the continent and how this would impact on the rights of ordinary citizens including lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered / Gender Non-Comforming and Intersex [LGBTIQ] persons. Years later his concerns were justified when the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill backed by religious fundamentalists was outlined in 2009. David was also an extremely brave man who had been imprisoned and beaten severely because of his sexual orientation and for speaking publicly against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

Many African political and religious leaders in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Zambia, Gambia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Malawi and Botswana, have publicly maligned LGBTIQ people and in some cases directly incited violence against them whilst labeling sexual minorities as “unAfrican”.

In October 2010, the Ugandan tabloid, Rolling Stone published the names and photographs of "100 Top homos" including David Kato. David along with two other LGBTIQ activists successfully sued the magazine on the grounds of "invasion of privacy" and most importantly, the judge ruled that the publication would threaten and endanger the lives of LGBTIQ persons.

The court did not only rule that the publication would threaten and endanger the lives of LGBTIQ persons but it issued a permanent injunction against Rolling Stone newspaper never to publish photos of gays in Uganda, and also never to again publish their home addresses.

Justice Kibuuka Musoke ruled that,
"Gays are also entitled to their rights. This court has found that there was infringement of some people’s confidential rights. The court hereby issues an injunction restraining Rolling Stone newspaper from future publishing of identifications of homosexuals."

Every human being is protected under the African Charter of Peoples and Human Rights and this includes the rights of LGBTIQ persons. We ask the governments of Uganda and other African countries to stop criminalizing people on the grounds of sexual orientation and afford LGBTIQ people the same protections, freedoms and dignity, as other citizens on the continent."

Anengiyefa Alagoa, Things I Feel Strongly About
Anthony Hebblethwaite,   African Activist
Barbra Jolie, Me I Think
Ben Amunwa, Remember Ken Saro-Wiwa
Bunmi Oloruntoba, A Bombastic Element
Chris Ogunlowo, Aloofaa
Eccentric Yoruba, Eccentric Yoruba
Exiled Soul ExiledSoul
Francisca Bagulho and Marta Lança, Buala
Funmilayo Akinosi, Finding My Path
Funmi Feyide, Nigerian Curiosity
Gay Uganda , Gay Uganda
Glenna Gordon, Scarlett Lion
Godwyns Onwuchekwa, My Person
Jeremy Weate, Naija Blog
Kadija Patel,   Thoughtleader
Kayode Ogundamisi,   Canary Bird
Keguro Macharia, Gukira
Kenne Mwikya, Kenne’s Blog
Kinsi Abdullah Kudu Arts
Laura Seay, Texas in Africa
Llanor Alleyne Llanor Alleyne
Mark Jordahl, Wild Thoughts from Uganda
Matt Temple, Matsuli Music
Mia Nikasimo, MiaScript
Minna Salami, MsAfropolitan
Molisa Nyakale, Molisa Nyakale
Mshairi, Mshairi
Ndesanjo Macha Global Voices
Nyokabi Musila, Sci-Cultura.
Nzesylva, Nzesylva’s Blog
Olumide Abimbola, Loomnie
Ory Okolloh, Kenyan Pundit
Pamela Braide, pdbraide
Peter Alegi, Football is Coming Home
Rethabile Masilo, Poéfrika
Saratu Abiola, Method to Madness
Sean Jacobs, Africa is a Country
Sokari Ekine, Black Looks
Sonja Uwimana, Africa is a Country
Spectra Speaks, Spectra Speaks
TMS Ruge, Project Diaspora
Tosin Otitoju, Lifelib
Toyin Ajao StandTall
Val Kalende, Val Kalende
Zackie Achmat, Writing Rights
Zion Moyo, Sky, Soil and Everything in Between

24 February 2011

The Spirit

The circle is closing, and
unless there's penance,
no love will be green on the field.
When Jesus died, Simon
had carried the cross to the hilltop
and tamed its woodiness, making it his;
Simon probably just took off his coat,
threw that crux on his shoulder,
and marched up. The poet says
that's what any African would do;
But after tea when the sun
lowers eyes to visit the unknown--
and evening comes up the stairs
with a bedside lamp and a book of poems
in its black hand, no one knows
if the time is right. In graves of the Atlantic
skulls sit open-mouthed, their calls
for clemency, and sometimes I'm sure
some dark profanity, frozen to the floor.
Siblings gathered for dinner under the stars,
at the table of history, a vision
of hearts splintering and split apart
into the most beautiful, unhappy thing.

22 February 2011

Malcolm X was killed on 21 February, 45 years ago

After leaving the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X became a Sunni Muslim and made a pilgrimage to Mecca, after which he disavowed racism. He traveled extensively throughout Africa and the Middle East. He founded Muslim Mosque, Inc., a religious organization, and the secular, black nationalist Organization of Afro-American Unity. Less than a year after he left the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X was assassinated while giving a speech in New York.
[source...]

Happy birthday, Ishmael Reed!

Ishmael Scott Reed (February 22, 1938) is an American poet, essayist and novelist. Reed is one of the best-known African-American writers of his generation, and along with Amiri Baraka is one of the most controversial (and politically left-wing). His work consistently satirizes the American right-wing (and often the left as well), highlighting domestic political and cultural oppression.

While some have found Reed's work a vivid, comic depiction of America, others have criticized it as incoherent or muddled. Another group of public intellectuals has argued that some of Reed's work is misogynistic because of his criticism of the movie version of "The Color Purple," which the novel's author, Alice Walker, also criticized.

While he is among a number of black male authors who are criticized as "misogynist" by mostly white feminists, Reed can point to a number of black feminists who defend him, including many whose work he has published.
[source...]

Reed edits Konch Magazine which features poetry, fiction, essays and photography. In the Winter 2008 issue editorial, he says, "Konch began as a print magazine in 1990 and went online in 1998.Konch continues to publish those voices that are ignored by the American media, which abandoned their goal of diversifying their ranks by the year 2000- a goal set by the late Robert Maynard. Unlike the mainstream writers who spend two hour lunches hobnobbing with those whom they cover, the contributors to Konch are volunteers. [source...]"

Happy birthday Mr. Reed!

Jacket Notes

Being a colored poet
Is like going over
Niagara Falls in a
Barrel

An 8 year old can do what
You do unaided
The barrel maker doesn't
Think you can cut it

The gawkers on the bridge
Hope you fall on your
Face

The tourist bus full of
Paying customers broke-down
Just out of Buffalo

Some would rather dig
The postcards than
Catch your act

A mile from the drink
It begins to storm

But what really hurts is
You're bigger than the
Barrel
© Ishmael Reed

20 February 2011

If you're lucky

If You Are Lucky
(by Michelle McGrane)

If you are lucky
you will carry one night with you
for the rest of your life,
a night like no other.
You won’t see it coming.

Forget the day, the year.
It will arrive uninvoked,
an astrological anomaly.

You will remember
how every cell in your body
knew him, this stranger,

how you held your breath,
the way you searched his face.
This is how such evenings begin.

And you will be real in your skin,
bone and sinew; the way you always thought
you could be. Effortlessly
This is how you will fit together.

His parted lips between your thighs,
your half-lit nipples darkening,
the hot-breathed arrival of desire,
the frenzied coupling
as you opened soundlessly
and the world flooded into you.

In the morning, maybe,
soon after sunrise
you will walk barefoot above a waterfall in the forest,
light-headed with the smell of sex
laughing at your déshabillée.

You will carry
the music of this memory with you
and from time to time,
in the small, withered hours,
your body will sing its remembering.
__________

More:

19 February 2011

Happy birthday, Smokey!

William "Smokey" Robinson was born on 19 February 1940. Happy Birthday to him.
© and photo credit: http://imagecache2.allposters.com

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18 February 2011

Our Winter Day

Surely our walk will soon
become a wall of dark dreams,
given that since you left home
there have been no options,
brother, for body or for mind;
and this park where you lie
holds no promise of remission.
We sit here listening to wind
whip the leaves of this oak
that grows on your grave.
To weed this mound and
chuck away dandelions,
hard tufts of tussock stuck
to our memory, hoe, rake
the surface with our hands,
is to accept the solitude
of your room. On a clear day
in winter one can see the tree,
gnarled by the cold months'
abscission, reach up to grab
heaven by its lapels. Seasons
go, and wrapped in bark against
the chill, the tree shakes birds
in its branches. Meanwhile,
through summertime, its roots
drink your blood, your blood
that clings to leaves that float
earthward on scarlet wings.

Prompted by Big Tent Poetry

17 February 2011

ARRIVING AT THE NIGHT FIRE
(by Dorian Haarhoff)

in Motetema, Limpopo Province
I feed the teachers,
morning to late light,
a feast of stories.

as the sun sifts the room
one ladles a question
onto my plate.
it lies there like the pap
we ate at lunch.

Who did you inherit story-telling from?

a big meal question.
he watches me chew. first response,
inside, I say, No one. It started here.
but this Lazarus has raised a ghost.
I take his question down to my gut
to search for one who hands down gifts.
who multiplies fish and bread.

I answer his gaze. when I tell,
the story comes from somewhere else,
through me. You see this?
he slowly nods and smiles.

a match strikes a woodpile.
Europe and Africa
blood and belonging
reconcile in the telling.
it is the ancestors who story through me.
a night fire ignites my belly.
© Dorian Haarhoff

15 February 2011

SUMMER LOVE
by Geoffrey Philp

(for Nadia)

"And summer's lease hath all too short a date."
- Sonnet XVIII ~ William Shakespeare

When evening marches down Flagler
to the tumble of closing cash registers,
the mold of faded bills in the back
pocket of his blue, pin-striped suit,
she will go with him only as far
as the river to watch fishing
boats with their tail of terns and pelicans
flashing their bright wings, like silver,
against the glass vaults of Brickell.

But when night ambles along Biscayne
with the rumble of reggae in his stride,
tabaco and mojitos on his breath,
desire wrapped around his waist,
she will lead him down the causeway
into cooling waters of the bay,
the daily cares sliding off their flesh,
and her dark laughter, like waves,
lapping the sides of the Rickenbacker.
© Geoffrey Philp

I have been enjoying Geoffrey's poetry for some time now. And I don't mind sharing. Here are just some of his writings that I've read over and over, and posted on this blog, or found elsewhere on the web.

But don't stop there, because there is also his blog, and books, to discover. Happy reading everyone. Here's a parting jab:

CARIB STEW
(by Geoffrey Philp)

first, you need a pot or basin
large enough to bury
the ingredients under salt
water; throw in the cheapest bones:
africans, indians (three continents),
chinese, lebanese, the odd jew;
add to the stock: english beef, scotch
bonnet peppers, a smack of spanish
parsley, irish potatoes and slivers of french
bread; bring to a boil with colonialism,
capitalism, democratic socialism
and soon islands of froth, small
as grenada, should be scooped
off the top and the bones removed,
for if left on the bottom for too long
they will ferment into a riot of flavor
too strong for american tastes.
(the jaw bones of goats, round
as the stones on the south side
of cuba, should never be used.)
stir well to the consistency of molasses,
and simmer for five hundred years.
for best results, serve while hot!

13 February 2011

SATURN'S CHILD
(by January O'Neil)

When my father snores
he sucks in the whole world
and releases it in one pure breath.
At night I’d come into his room
where he would pass out on the bed—
too drunk to change his clothes or
put out his cigarette, which had
burnt itself down to the embers. I pulled
off his shoes and watched him sleep,
smelling his sweet, stale breath
fill the room in waves. He was so out of it
I could put my finger into his mouth and pull it out
before he inhaled.
Once I let my finger linger a second
too long and his tongue touched the flat of my tip.
I thought of going in deeper, first a hand, then an arm;
the tender cutlet of my body swallowed whole by my
father. But I was barely enough to make him cough.
He rolled over on his side, leaving a well in the space
where his body had been. I crawled back into my own bed,
as my father slept the peaceful sleep of ogres, feeling
the house shake with his rhythmic tremors.
© Poet Mom

12 February 2011

Tsamaea Hantle, bra Winston, 1943 - 2009

Mankunku

Dark golden boat
on a sea
far away, rock with me
rock with me:

deep-throated bird
gentle me home
past the mud-lined street
where thoughts stick fast
and children pick rubbish
hungrily

the night flakes notes
from the scalp of my sorrow

hide in my pillow
and cry for me
© Kelwyn Sole 1987

[source of poem...]

[interview with kelwyn sole...]

"Legendary jazz saxophonist Winston Mankunku Ngozi died at Victoria Hospital in Wynberg, Cape Town, the ANC said.

Ngozi, 66, died from a heart-related illness, ANC spokesperson Brian Sokutu said in a statement.

'His death is a huge loss to South Africa, particularly the music fraternity. We join many South Africans in paying tribute to this jazz icon who became a beacon of hope and inspired so many artists.'

He said Ngozi used his talent to inspire social, economic, cultural and political change in the country.

Ngozi's recording in 1968 of the famous Yakhal' Inkomo album , together with Early Mabuza, Agrippa Magwaza and Lionel Pillay, earned him the 'Jazz Musician of the Year' award."
[source...]

"I Want to Write", by Margaret Walker

I want to write
I want to write the songs of my people.
I want to hear them singing melodies in the dark.
I want to catch the last floating strains from their sob-torn
throats.
I want to frame their dreams into words; their souls into
notes.
I want to catch their sunshine laughter in a bowl;
fling dark hands to a darker sky
and fill them full of stars
then crush and mix such lights till they become
a mirrored pool of brilliance in the dawn.
© Margaret Walker

11 February 2011

SONNET,
(by Alice Dunbar-Nelson)

I had no thought of violets of late,
The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet
In wistful April days, when lovers mate
And wander through the fields in raptures sweet.
The thought of violets meant florists' shops,
And bows and pins, and perfumed papers fine;
And garish lights, and mincing little fops
And cabarets and songs, and deadening wine.
So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed,
I had forgot wide fields, and clear brown streams;
The perfect loveliness that God has made,--
Wild violets shy and heaven-mounting dreams.
And now -- unwittingly, you've made me dream
Of violets, and my soul's forgotten gleam.

10 February 2011

Summer Sun

More alien to us than what flows
into plant stalk and stem at first,
trickling like a midnight brook,
then in the flesh of long-legged girls
who are the prophets of its coming,
hats like asters in the night, never
will our lives know. My mother says
we in the tropics were blessed by it,
that after one night just as crickets
quit singing, as dawn unfolded
our furled palms into its light
and we, dumbfounded, loved the earth,
she startled the world by singing out
a melody, simple as a 3-step beat
her voice carried aloft, in laughter
that children rendered to the street.
But now it is here, it is above us,
a bathroom bulb to thaw a heart:
picnic basket, shawl; we have arrived
at the shore of kites and salt breezes,
a volleyball field on crystal sand.
A drying portuguese-man-of-war.
Sometimes when we sit here reciting
poems by Kozain or Philp from
their périodes roses, or edward estlin's
i like my body, over and over, as if
to stop love drowning and washing up
like a dead fish on this tufted beach,
we live, each impassioned inside each.

NB: Prompted by Big Tent Poetry

9 February 2011

The Crossing

The hole the full moon leaves

leading from one side to another,

takes life away to that other place

like a train across France to a killing spree;

everyone and every loving thing,

dusty books from shelves

and the gold goblet, and them other objects

hunters must keep for themselves.

And now we stand at the bottom

of this well, staring back at the moon.

Was it never enough that children

were taken from their mother's breasts?

Now, gone forever, is the star's confession

that at the pillars of creation we stood together,

nebulas rain clouds above our heads.

A lack of soil does mean something, maybe

this need to fill nights with our dreams

then stand up with the dawn to remind you that

finding the sons of slaves

may mean looking at some of the stars.

6 February 2011

Happy birthday, Bob Marley!

"Robert 'Bob' Nesta Marley OM (February 6, 1945 – May 11, 1981) was a Jamaican singer, songwriter, guitarist, and activist. He is the most widely known performer of reggae music. Marley is regarded by many as a prophet of the Rastafari movement.

Marley is best known for his reggae songs, which include the hits 'I Shot the Sheriff', 'No Woman, No Cry', 'Three Little Birds', 'Exodus', 'Could You Be Loved', 'Jammin'', 'Redemption Song', and 'One Love'. His posthumous compilation album 'Legend' (1984) is the best-selling reggae album ever, with sales of more than 12 million copies.
[more...]"

You will have heard of Bob, who has had a good influence on many Basotho of my generation. We jammed to his music and struggled with his philosophy in mind. He is one of my favourite musicians of all time. Happy birthday to him. Geoffrey Philp says a lot more about Mr. Marley and his message.

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