Biography:
Tania van Schalkwyk is the hybrid of a Hamburg sailor and a Mauritian artist, born in Africa, raised in Arabia and matured in Europe. She has studied, taught, edited, served tea, busked, sold useless things, given famous statues make-overs and even tried (and failed fabulously at) a couple of less interesting but 'serious' jobs. She has published, performed, exhibited , directed, curated & collaborated on various multi-media artworks across the globe with a sculptor, a choreographer, a carpenter, DJs, photographers, film makers, artists, dancers, musicians,scientists, poets, famous statues, cows, horses, turkeys, sheep and her dog Elvis ; read and performed in theatres, bars, bookstores and bathtubs around the world; written columns, scripts, shopping lists, love letters and once upon a wonder-full time-- food reviews.
Tania holds an MA in Creative Writing from UCT and a natural ability to watch the day go by. She is a proud founding member of SEWS (The Society for the Erection of Women Statues). When she's not writing, Tania reads and reads and reads, and engages in the gentle art of omphaloskepsis. Her work is inspired by the places and spaces in between, the hyphen-states of life, love and home. She currently lives between Cape Town and the Piketberg mountains.
UCT Writers' Series recently published Tania's first book of poems, Hyphen. Her poetry has appeared in the following publications: UK: Agenda, Orbis, Decode, South, Focus on Farmers Anthology ( Aune Head Arts),Citizen 32, Intellect Quarterly South Africa: New Contrast, Carapace, Green Dragon, Ons Klyntji, Laugh it Off Annual Online: Triplopia, Muse Apprentice Guild, Itch, Litnet, Unlikely 2.0, Incwadi.
Related Podcasts & Events:
Siren Song
I keep going back to an island The moon is big there and moves the waters with a strong magnetism. the eyes and lights of a drowned city Do all islands contain our souls' whispers Or is it just this land It' the softness of the air by tropical humidity This grave is beautiful.
moist with death, coraled
with the bones of lives unfinished.
And the phosphor at night peeks through the sea
spill onto beach sands
beloved by tourist brochures.
in the leaves of their coastal trees
perpetually moving to the beat
of the wind, tolling, to and fro,
like a restless head on a sleepless pillow?
of lotus eaters
that wraps its lagoon
around my feet, asks me to eat
in wonder and never wake up?
that entangles me like seaweed,
languid and familiar before
becoming despondency. Trapped,
my eyes can no longer see the deep, opening beyond the reef
and my ears keep hearing
the crash of waves on the barriers.
My ancestors live here and call me
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