December 2011
8 posts
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no coincidences
the other day i met this woman. she is loud, offensive, a go-getter and a loyal friend. she brings quite a bit of conflict into the story but also a truckload of support for the MC. and i knew straightaway that her name was Cecilia.
then later when i looked up the meaning of this name i found out that it can be translated to “the way for the blind”. and, well, my story deals a lot...
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“For the sad fact remains: there is far more poetry in the world than justice.”
– Paul Auster: Invisible.
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“We live in the present, but the future is inside us at every moment. Maybe...”
– Paul Auster: Oracle Night
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“Words could kill, he discovered. Words could alter reality, and therefore they...”
– Paul Auster: Oracle Night
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“Odds don’t count when it comes to actual events, and just because a thing...”
– Paul Auster: Invisible [a beautiful reminder to all writers]
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“It always stimulates me to discover new examples of my own prejudice and...”
– Paul Auster: Oracle Night
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note to self
THINK less about writing, WRITE more.
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May 2011
1 post
hard to believe that there was a life before kindle.
March 2011
6 posts
5 tags
Freedom Roads featured on english radio stations!
I contributed a text on the Afro-German poet May Ayim and performed as part of Freedom Roads, an exhibition on the colonial footprints in German cities with a focus on colonial streetnames, last year.
To now hear these lovely features on BBC (from about 11:00) and DW-World is so exciting as this is a topic that we need to place in the media and push into people’s heads.
Words are so...
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Lunatic Blackness on Badilisha Poetry X-Change →
My poem home or the journey to my lunatic blackness has been published as a podcast on the Badilisha Poetry X-Change. It’s a beautiful Capetown-based platform for many different African & Diasporan voices. Enjoy!
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and still, i write.
though my focus has been on my MSc course for this season, i have been fortunate enough to have an article published on body’politics & the framing of bodies of Colour in the december ‘10 issue of arranca as well as poems in the most recent freitext. a beautiful performance in berlin on top of that were i finally felt like i claimed the space, made it my own, shared from the heart...
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February 2011
1 post
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Performance in Berlin 09/02
Wednesday 09/02 at 8pm I will be reading/performing at the Werkstatt der Kulturen in Berlin. Only realised today that this will be a major first: So far I have always performed either only a few poems or in collaboration with other artists. This is the first time of full nakedness with the audience - just them, me & a mic. I couldn’t be more excited, hey…
Here is all the info (in...
January 2011
1 post
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“There is no unassailable solitude. All roads lead to the same point: to the...”
– Pablo Neruda
December 2010
3 posts
3 tags
The Double Life →
In one of my lives, I’m a writer. This means, essentially, that I contemplate the human experience while wearing my pajamas.
Spending half of my christmas holidays in bed, reading “vanishing” by Deborah Willis (the other half is divided into cooking and eating). Beautiful stories, am really enjoying her style. Quiet stories, simple, yet remarkable details and sentences that get...
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there is a story growing roots inside me. every...
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“we just have to make peace with being beings whose surroundings constantly...”
November 2010
1 post
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Featured in Freitext
Two of my poems have been published in the latest Freitext, a great German magazine that combines literature, academics & sub/culture.
One of them can be read in part here but in order to enjoy the whole experience (there is a great handwritten appendix in the mags) you should get hold of issue 16 “bewohner innen”.
Oh yeah, it also got quite an interesting article by Ronamber...
October 2010
6 posts
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“I came to understand that colonial subjects die a kind of death when they lose...”
– Nuruddin Farah ‘Yesterday, Tomorrow’ (via julinkah)
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success
= 25% knowledge + 75% enthusiasm
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“its not an easy world in the forest, but where everything is useful and used one...”
– Linzi Lewis, while in the rain forest in guyana. eco-artist, spirit, friend, traveller.
September 2010
36 posts
3 tags
“One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential....”
– Maya Angelou
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“I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word.
Sometimes I write...”
– Emily Dickinson
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“You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably...”
– James Baldwin (via libraryland)
“I’d eat shelves of books
if I knew how to chew through
binding and pages.”
– theaveragepoet (via prettybooks)
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Oxford Station Observation
Forcing my way through oxford street at rush hour & watching my smile disappear in the waves of bodies, i listen to my spirit praying in tongues & reminding me:
May i become more like Christ with each day. If known for anything besides being His child than known for my kindness not arrogance, for my humility not pride. Not hardened by the world but softened for G.d’s cause....
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write from where you are not where you will be.
the novel i have been working on has to be put on hold, it is not going anywhere right now. most of it takes part in south africa while i am in London at the moment & will be here for many more months to come.
spoke to a dear friend, mentor & writer about it. he said this is why in a lot of exile literature the landscape become blurry & the focus naturally turns to ideologies &...
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“Literature, like other disciplines, creates the scenario to answer to
very...”
– Grada Kilomba
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“I sincerely believe that a subjective experience can be understood by others;...”
– Frantz Fanon in: Black Skin, White Masks
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Never meant to survive
And when we speak
we are afraid our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid.
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
- Audre Lorde
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“As a songwriter, environment plays a key role in the game of making shit up. And...”
– Jason Mraz
“I am an unfinished woman.”
– Khanyi Magubane, South African poet & soulsister
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A first: Back at High School
This Thursday, I am back at high school -for a talk with/performance for students. My first time in front of a class like this.
Not too great memories of my own high school time (the burden of being a working-class hippie-nerd with an uncombed ‘fro in a West-Berliner post suburb), so hope they won’t be too mean this time around, I couldn’t handle anymore trauma in this area.
...