New York spoken word artist and performance poet, Tantra-Zawadi’s rousing poetry has established her as a force in the genre. Her work has been extensively published and televised and her numerous stage performances include the iconic Nuyorican Poets’. For Tantra-Zawadi poetry is “breathing, walking, doing, loving and awakening – limitless in its ability to reach across genres and varying walks of life”.
Spotlighting Pan-African Poetry
Biography
Tantra-Zawadi
Featured Poem:
Girl
(an extract from Girl)
Out sharpening my enemies with what Eve knew in Adam
Because I am a girl
I open and close my legs
On the faith that
The good will come and
The toxic release of traitors will run
Like thieves from territories destined
For greatness
Saving virgins from knives
Erected beauty
Slashing at the real war
The core of male identity
My masculine side strikes back
Whipping fights to feel
With the right to dance, rejoice and deal
With the heat of
My will to survive
Mutilated in body but not in mind
Because I am a girl
Without a place for peace
Without silver for pleasure
He burned
My face
My legs
My back
My treasure
For dowries greater than
The hellish skin
I grew out of when charred memories colored my lips
Like apartheid’s cancer
With head wraps for cover
Because I am pretty on the inside
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Biography
Tantra-Zawadi
Biography
New York spoken word artist and performance poet, Tantra-Zawadi’s rousing poetry has established her as a force in the genre. Her work has been extensively published and televised and her numerous stage performances include the iconic Nuyorican Poets’. For Tantra-Zawadi poetry is “breathing, walking, doing, loving and awakening – limitless in its ability to reach across genres and varying walks of life”.
Featured Poem:
Girl
(an extract from Girl)
Out sharpening my enemies with what Eve knew in Adam
Because I am a girl
I open and close my legs
On the faith that
The good will come and
The toxic release of traitors will run
Like thieves from territories destined
For greatness
Saving virgins from knives
Erected beauty
Slashing at the real war
The core of male identity
My masculine side strikes back
Whipping fights to feel
With the right to dance, rejoice and deal
With the heat of
My will to survive
Mutilated in body but not in mind
Because I am a girl
Without a place for peace
Without silver for pleasure
He burned
My face
My legs
My back
My treasure
For dowries greater than
The hellish skin
I grew out of when charred memories colored my lips
Like apartheid’s cancer
With head wraps for cover
Because I am pretty on the inside
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