Afro Poetry Times August 2022 edition has the knack for great #poetry

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it's writing redefined - it's the beauty of poetry unboxed.

Inspiration from poetry knows now boundaries. Get the digital copy #August copy of the Afro Poetry Times magazine from #PressReader. Be inspired through poetry!

As usual the August edition is packed and it features the beauty of poetry and the literary arts from cover to cover.

This edition features some great poems, short stories, book reviews, interviews, some competitions to win real money and lots more.

Get your copy from the link below. PressReader issue the leading digital magazines distributor.

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/afro-poetry-times/20220801

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Date set for Lagos International Poetry Festival

The Lagos International Poetry Festival 2022, with the theme “Babel… A New Language,” runs from October 27 – 31, 2022.

The Lagos International Poetry Festival brings together poets, writers, artists, and thinkers from across the world to Lagos for a week of conversations, readings, performances, workshops, and adventure.

Founded in 2015 by poet Efe Paul Azino, it has established itself as one of the continent’s annual art and culture highlights.

The organisers have announced that the festival this year will happen at the tail end of October. Here is the official communication;

This year we consider how the technology of language underscores our sense of identity and facilitates our understanding of the relational universe.

Entire generations of people across the world have had their contributions to scientific advancement and intellectual engagement precluded by the power dynamic that subordinates language for language, blurring encoded histories and bodies of knowledge in the process. And so this year we center the mother-tongue and the ongoing reclamation of default languages from the rubble of colonialism, interrogating the implication of a re-imagination of language in local education, and the possibilities presented for the liberation of stories and societies.

The 2022 edition of the festival draws an array of guest poets, writers, translators, and performers, as they translate their experiences by taking us beneath the skin of their tongues. 

Watch out for conversations, performances, workshops, and parties with offerings from across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, the US, England, Scotland, Australia, India, Belgium, Germany, Canada, and Spain.

If you wish to keep up with proceedings from the Lagos-based festival, please follow their Facebook or Twitter. You can also sign up for information by clicking here.

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Afro Poetry Times July 2022 issue is explosive

The Afro Poetry Times has released it's July 2022 edition. 

As usual, the beauty of poetry and the literary arts is celebrated in this fresh magazine.

The Afro Poetry Times transforms words to life under the touch of love. The July edition features:

- How poetry is keeping a community alive. 

- University student pens poetry book that aims to heal. 

- 5 breath taking poems from new African Poets. 

- Lots of competitions to win real money. 

- The usual short story bonus.... And lots more

Get your digital copy from the leading press distributor in the world - PressReader. 

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/afro-poetry-times/20220701

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Mattera was a writer par excellence

Mandela Day was punctuated by the end of a great life. The great Don Mattera passed away, aged 87.

“Bra Zinga”, as Mattera was known to many of his contemporaries and those close to him, has been described variously as a poet and an activist.

But to many of us who were close enough to him for him to call us “my laaitie”, we knew that he was much more than that.

In his younger days in Western Native Township, now called Westbury – where he was a prolific soccer star for Sophiatown African Morning Stars and, later, a gang leader – Mattera was known as a no-nonsense klevah (streetwise) who disciplined those he considered to be out of order.

He bliksemmed those who were ill-disciplined so hard that his “Zinga Special” was soon the talk of the town.

But it would be a mistake to think of Mattera as just a pugilist. Rather, bringing out the Zinga Special was just a way to demonstrate how prepared he was to defend what he believed in.

Throughout his life, his commitment to certain principles shone through. One of those was his seemingly bottomless desire to empower young people.

Realising that there was inadequate training for young black journalists, Mattera started running a journalism programme at local newspapers.

In 1986, I was among a group of young black journalists from all over Africa that Mattera helped to spend a couple of months in Boston, Massachusetts, on a journalism leadership exchange programme.

Many of the more established black journalists today are his former students.

His desire to improve the lives of black journalists was further demonstrated when he became one of the key players in the formation of the Union of Black Journalists (UBJ) – at the time when black journalists were under attack from the apartheid white minority regime in the late 1970s.

However, his love for writing was not limited to journalism only. He was a wordsmith par excellence, and also loved poetry.

The now-defunct Skotaville Publishers published a brilliant collection of his poetry – covering a period from 1971 to 1982 – in the form of a book titled Azanian Love Song.

Of course, as a devout member of the Islamic faith, Mattera also believed in and advocated Pan Africanism.

He was also a great storyteller who enjoyed retelling his life under apartheid in Sophiatown, the forced removals of the 1950s, and the hardships black people experienced in those years.

In short, he was a man with a deep, varied and complex history. That is what made him special. But above all, he was simply a great South African.

Mooi loop and rest well, Bra Zinga. Your laaities will forever remember you.

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Zimbabwean poet publishes debut collection

Up and coming poet Gift Matimba has released his debut poetry collection, Secrets of the Heart, which he said addressed a wide range of themes centred on love.

Matimba said that although the collection was his first published work, readers should expect more in future.

“This is my first publication and there is more to come in the form of poetry and short stories or even novels,” he said.

“What inspired the collection is love in general hence I spoke in different voices. For instance, in the poem, Am I Not? I tried to speak of how a woman in an abusive marriage feels.”

Matimba, who drew inspiration from renowned writers Shimmer Chinodya, Thomas Bvuma and Wellington Kusema, said he hoped to grow his readership beyond the country’s borders.

Although he was introduced to poetry by his Grade 3 teacher Batsirai Makondo, the interest blossomed in high school.

“I couldn’t spend the whole day without writing a piece of poetry. I hoped that one day I could write a book,” he recalled.

Matimba’s poetry collection was published in Harare by Royalty Books.

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Xhosa poems steal the show

Despite only formally tackling the art of poetry in their third year, the works of a group of Nelson Mandela University isiXhosa students left such an impression on those who had a peek at their poetry prowess that they have been published as an anthology.

Umphanda Wolwazi, which means “barrel of knowledge , contains 82 poems, covering” diverse topics including Covid-19, gender-based violence, motherhood and womanhood.

Associate professor in the language and literature department’s isiXhosa section, Dr Linda Kwatsha, said the journey started about two years ago after the 2020 cohort of students handed in their prescribed third-year coursework that included four poems, two of which had to be recorded into the spoken word.

“The maturity and creativity of the 2020 cohort’s poems could not simply end up as material in their portfolios,” she said.
“And 34 students put up their hands when asked if they would be interested in writing for publication.”

Kwatsha began looking for a publisher, because she was overjoyed by her students’ skill.

“At Nelson Mandela University, students only start studying poetry at third-year level, and for them to have produced such quality work showed that they were able to grasp whatever I taught them.”

Limpopo-based Seulaula Publishers came on board.

The students chose the title and cover of the book, which was edited by Kwatsha and Zandile Kondowe and published in April last year.

“Several students wrote poems about the coronavirus, and yet the voices are different. They approach the same thing but in a different way,” Kwatsha said.

“And then the choice of words, the choice of figurative speech to show some elements about Covid-19 — you find that they show the same thing but using different symbols. It makes for such a beautiful read.”

Kwatsha said she was using the book in her honours class, where students were analysing the poems.

The book sells for R220. To buy a copy, contact Ncedo Nikelo, one of the authors, at s2200099015@mandela.ac.za

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Poet tackles poverty through poetry

The creative sector is moving with the times as evidenced by quality videos being produced by most local artistes. The same applies to poets who have shifted from just penning poems on paper to accompanying them with visuals.

Local poet and author Lennox Makurumidze said his latest poem, Chingwa seeks to unravel the complex issues in society.

Buoyed by the success of his book titled Budding kit and building blocks (2019), the 24-year-old artist went on to release a poem, Chingwa accompanied by visuals aimed at exposing poverty and inequality.

“I lived in the ghetto and what I encountered there pushed me to come up with this poem.

“Life has inspired me to speak on different things that I see and have experienced. Chingwa, which is in Shona and English, speaks about the everyday life of a human in Zimbabwe, what they do and the misfortunes they encounter due to our economy. It exposes that there is no longer a difference between the educated and uneducated,” he said.

He added that there is so much inequality, poverty and strife and the pain can sometimes be unbearable.

Makurumidze, whose poems mainly speak about Christianity, society and love, said his works seek to tell people’s hidden stories.

He is also the founder of Spoken Word Society (2018) at Prince Edward High School. Poetry has been his solace in times of trouble.

“Poetry has become my home and my motive is to better the world by opening the eyes of people to different aspects of life.

“My book, Budding kit and building blocks creatively uses words to encourage the youths to use authentic voices to fight for themselves.”

The young and enthusiastic youth took second place in the inaugural Zimbabwe online poetry dubbed Slam-ZW (2020) and has participated at the Shoko Festival in the battle for Cities Poetry Slam (2019). He is a member of Page Poetry Alive.

Afro Poetry Times 

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