Tag Archives: Captivation

Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva

Uganda No Comments

Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva is the founder of Beverley Nambozo Poetry Award and Babishai Niwe Literary Foundation which means Creating with You, in a mixture languages. It Babishai Niwe has been coordinating annual poetry awards for Ugandan women since 2008 targeting hundreds of women country-wide over the past 5 years, being the only award o its kind in the country. In 2014, the award will extend to the entire continent, targeting both men and women. In 2013, the foundation will publish an anthology of poetry from poets of Africa. Beverley Nambozo is also the author of Unjumping, a chapbook collection of poetry which was published by erbacce-press in 2010 after she emerged a joint first runner-up in their annual poetry competition. She has a Masters Degree from Lancaster University and devotes a lot of time to being a stay-at-home mum. Beverley currently lives in Kampala and looks forward to travelling far corners of the world with her husband and children.

Blackpearl

Zimbabwe No Comments

Black pearl was born and raised in Zimbabwe. The 25 year old poet emerged on the performance scene in June 2010. Her poetry is impeccable and captivating to all poetry lovers. Her work depicts life as she experiences it, pointing out beauty, and humor. Blackpearl has taken part in events that include Harare International Festival of the Arts, 16 Days of Activism against Gender based violence, Acoustic Nights (hosted by Zimbabwe German Society and Wildfire Events), Intwasa Festival, Sistaz Open Mic, Bocapa amongst others.

Billene “Bilu” Seyoum

Ethiopia No Comments

Billene “Bilu” Seyoum – avid word lover and travel enthusiast has been splashing words to paper since the age of twelve capturing her experiences of faces, places and spaces. Her poetry aims to take listeners and readers on a journey of re-imagining different imaginings of everyday existence. Having lived in five countries and traveled wide, Bilu’s poetry embraces her global identity.

Bulelwa Basse

South Africa No Comments

Bulelwa Basse is the Founder of Lyrical Base Project, an arts and culture organisation which seeks to elevate the profiles of writers from marginalised communities through community-publishing projects and performance poetry (merged with music, dance, visual arts) at cultural and corporate events.

She has collaborated nationally with various arts education institutions and literary establishments, such as Kgare Ya Africa, Centre for the Book, Iziko Museum’s Education Department, Cape Town Language Committee, Artscape Theatre, Badilisha Poetry and the City of Cape Town, in the capacity of Language Facilitator, Published/Performance Poet, Guest Speaker and Events Co-ordinator.

Her writing has been published by the Poetry Institute of Africa, University of KwaZulu Natal Press, Department of Arts and Culture, The British Council and Oprah Magazine.

Basse is passionate about aligning herself with women empowerment projects such as Bona Magazine’s Women Empowerment Club, True Love Magazine’s Winning Style and Move Magazine’s empowerment initiatives, for which she’s both hosted and performed her poetry as a motivational tool.

Bulelwa is former Editor of Muse, an online poetry publishing and profiling magazine, and has earned herself a performance platform on, Poetry Delight, where she’s affectionately known on stage as, Miss “Sassy” Basse, following her satirical poem entitled: My Lyrical Sass, which confronts the societal nature of portraying women as sex-objects.

Her creative and business path has seen her represent her country as an arts and cultural-exchange ambassador in India (Coimbatore and Kerala) and tour the UK (England). But South African stages have always been her favorite arena of her work at play.

Bongiwe Dlamini

Mozambique No Comments

Bongiwe Dlamini was born in Swaziland on the 29th of September 1973, and grew up in Simunye in the Lowveld. While in Swaziland, she engaged with people from all parts of the continent and the world; Swaziland was during the 70s and 80s an alternative destination and exile for many due to Apartheid in South Africa. She relocated to Johannesburg in the 90s and began performing professionally as a musician in Johannesburg in 1995.

Whilst living shortly in Italy, she sang in a cruise ship for six months, coming down from Italy, though, Israel, Egypt, Seychelles, Mauritius, Madagascar and South Africa. Bongiwe is a member of the Trio Spirits Indigenous, a Afrocentric musical group that has performed in several spaces in Mbabane, at the Bushfire Festival and at the Grahamstown Cape Town. The other band members are Thobile Magagula and Gcebile Dlamini. Bongiwe has chosen Maputo as her creative base, where she now lives.

Bernedette Muthien

South Africa No Comments

Bernedette Muthien co-founded and directs an NGO, Engender, which works in the intersectional areas of genders & sexualities, human rights, justice & peace. Her community activism is integrally related to her work with continental and international organisations, and her research necessarily reflects the values of equity, societal transformation and justice.
She has published widely, written for diverse audiences, and believes in accessible research and writing.
Bernedette started reading poetry at political mass meetings and other public spaces while at high school during the 1980s. Her poetry has, among others, been translated into Spanish and Portuguese, and published in the Americas, Europe and the UK, as well as across Africa. She is a core member of the Cape Cultural Collective, a progressive performance arts group with its roots in anti-Apartheid struggles of the 1980s. For Bernedette the poetic is not merely personal, but profoundly political and spiritual too.
Amongst others, she co-convenes the Global Political Economy Commission of the International Peace Research Association, is a member of Amanitare, the African network of gender activists, and serves on various international advisory boards, including of the international journal Human Security Studies.
She is co-founder of an indigenous scholar-activist network, the KhoeSan Women’s Circle, in addition to convenor of an international listserv of Native scholar-activists, Gender Egalitarian.
Muthien was the first Fullbright-Amy Biehl fellow at Stanford University (1994-1995), and holds postgraduate degrees from the University of Cape Town (Dean’s Merit List), and Stellenbosch University (Andrew W Mellon Fellow, 2006-2007) in South Africa.
Her current research centres on the Egalitarian KhoeSan – Beyond Patriarchal Violence, in other words, how social and gender egalitarianism are coterminous with nonviolence, as well as showing that nonviolent and egalitarian societies have existed throughout time and continue to exist at present.

Bassey Ikpi

United States No Comments

Bassey Ikpi is a Nigerian born poet/writer who was a featured cast member of the National Touring Company of the Tony Award winning Broadway show, Russell Simmon’s Def Poetry Jam. Not a stranger to the stage, her poetry has also opened shows by Grammy Award winning artists. Recently, Bassey appeared on the NAACP Image Awards as part of a tribute to Venus and Serena Williams and was a featured performer for Johannesburg, South Africa’s annual arts festival, Joburg Arts Alive. Bassey has been seen gracing the pages of magazines such as Nylon, Marie Claire, Glamour and Bust.

With social commentary being a focus of her work, Bassey recorded an original poem for the Kaiser Foundation’s, HIV/AIDS campaign, Knowing Is Beautiful. Bassey’s personal and heartfelt work has made her a much sought after performer. She is currently working on various screenplays as well as freelance writing for social media outlets. Her first completed collection of poetry and prose entitled, Blame My Teflon Heart: Poetry, Prose and Post-Its For Boys Who Didn’t Write Back will be released soon. In addition to her writing, this summer Bassey is also embarking on a 5 city tour, appropriately called “Basseyworld Live”, where each show will infuse poetry and interactive panel discussions on everything from politics to pop culture. Not only will she headline each show, but will also moderate the panel discussions, which will include special invited guests from various industries such as art, film and journalism.

Boonaa Mohammed

Canada No Comments

Dubbed the “voice of a generation,” Boonaa Mohammed is a critically acclaimed award winning writer and performer with accolades including a playwright residency at Theatre Passe Muraille, a short story published in a Penguin Canada anthology called Piece by Piece and various slam poetry titles including winner of the 2007 CBC Poetry Face-Off “Best New Artist” award. As an Artist he has toured and traveled across the world and frequently conducts writing workshops and seminars, sharing his experience and expertise in social justice based story telling with mainly youth from all walks of life.

Blaq Pearl

South Africa No Comments

Blaq Pearl has performed with her band at Jazzathon and various city concerts particularly in Mitchell’s Plain. Having featured on television program Hectic 9nine and Keeping it Real, she is working on releasing unique designed T-shirt merchandise on www.sabandmerchandise.com. Currently Blaq Pearl is in the studio completing her album to be released this year.

She aspires to contribute to positive change in South Africa’s current state regarding the music industry and youth empowerment. To be successful and inspire upcoming artists & musicians and to to grow immensely and continuously in her musical talents and self.

Her poetry and music entails social content, controversial /tabooed issues and is about empowerment and real experiences + strength and motivation. She describes her music genre as a fusion of African/ Soul / Jazz / Hip Hop/ R&B.

Breyten Breytenbach

South Africa No Comments

The work of Breyten Breytenbach includes numerous volumes of poetry, novels, and essays, many of which are in Afrikaans, many translated from Afrikaans to English, and many published originally in English. In 2000, Breytenbach published Lady One: Of Love and Other Poems, a collection of poems for his wife that includes images of east Asia, southern Africa, and Morocco. The combination of the personal and the global in the poems reflects a marriage that, because it was considered taboo under South African apartheid laws, led to the poet’s original exile.

Known as the finest living poet of the Afrikaans language, Professor Breytenbach’s verse volumes include The Iron Cow Must Sweat (1964) and Footscript (1976) and they feature rich visuals, a powerful use of metaphor, and a complex blending of references from Buddhism, Afrikaans idiomatic speech, and recollections of the South African landscape. He has been honored with numerous literary and art awards, including the APB Prize, CAN Award (five times) Allan Paton Award for Literature, Rapport Prize, Hertzog Prize, Reina Prinsen-Geerling Prize, Van der Hoogt Prize, Jan Campert Award and Jacobus van Looy Prize for Literature and Art.

Barbra Breeze Anderson

Zimbabwe No Comments

Barbra Breeze Anderson is a performance poet, writer and designer. She started the art of performing in the year 2007 at the ‘Power In The Voice Competition’, a British Council sponsored event where she performed a short prose piece.

Barbra breeze the performance poet was born a year and seven months ago at the Book Cafe and since then has been exposed to frequent poetry slams such as the House of Hunger poetry slam at the Book Café. She has performed at Open Mic events and other poetry events at the Book Café/ Mannenberg such as Sistaz Open Mic and Mashoko events.

Barbra also took her poetry outside of the two venues to places such as Alliance France’s Chimoto poetry night and an Acoustic Night at the Symphony. She has performed at the Buddyz Annual Festival of the Arts (BAFA) 2009 at Harare Gardens and the Sixteen Days of Activism concert 2010. Barbra performed in Bulawayo in 2010, she has appeared on television and radio –Youth.com, Spot Fm’s various spoken word outlets and has featured in Newspaper articles from Newsday, the Daily News, Herald, the online regional news site Shout Africa and the online outlet Zimbo Jam. The articles have been profiles of her and her current projects.

Early this year she performed at a community based event ‘Step Up’ 2011 at the Aquatic Sports club in Chitungwiza and at the monthly ongoing Mashoko event at the Mannenberg. She performed at the U.S Embassy Black History Event 2011 at the Ambassadors House in early February. Barbra is now working on various projects, one that she has put into effect is a monthly Poetry night event called ‘Poetry And’ launched in April 2011 where poetry is fused with different genres of art. She is working with some of the best of Zimbabwe’s spoken word artists and she intends to make it a success.

Barbra has participated at the first edition of Shoko Spoken Word and Hip Hop Festival 2011 and she has performed her poetry at a Pamberi trust project-a Concert for Non Violence 2011, in Highfield, in September this year and at the Acoustic Night, November 2011 edition.

For the year 2012, she opened it as part of the poets of the spoken word section at Harare International Festival of the Arts (Hifa), 1-6 May edition, where she hosted and performed at the Hivos Poetry Café.

Muhammad Muwakil

Trinidad and Tobago No Comments

Muhammad Muwakil is currently enrolled at the University of the West Indies pursuing a degree in English Literature with a minor in International Relations. He has been performing spoken word poetry in Trinidad for the past five years, and is heavily involved in the spoken word poetry movement in Trinidad and by extension the Caribbean region.

In 2007 he performed at the Calabash Literary Festival in Jamaica, and in 2009 his work was published in the Casa de Las Americas annual review. Muhammad is also an actor and has been involved in several major productions. In 2008 he won the Cacique Award (the highest award for acting in Trinidad) for best supporting actor, for his role in the production entitled Bitter Cassava.

He believes his work is an essential ingredient in the struggle of the African Diaspora in reconnecting with itself and the continent. It is one of his main goals to use this work to make people more aware of their past, their present situation and what we need to do to secure our collective future.

Mojisola Adebayo

United Kingdom No Comments

Mojisola Adebayo is a British born, Nigerian / Danish performer, playwright, director, producer, workshop leader and teacher. Over the past 20 years, she has worked on theatre projects across the world including Antarctica, Botswana, Brazil, Belgium, Burma, Canada, Finland, Greenland, India, Ireland, Lebanon, Malawi, Mauritius, Norway, Pakistan, Palestine, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Syria, the USA and Zimbabwe. She has acted in over 40 theatre, television and radio productions, scripted, devised and directed over 30 plays and has lead countless workshops and training courses.

Her wide and diverse work has ranged from being an actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company to co-founding VIDYA, a slum dweller’s theatre company in Ahmedabad, India. All of her work is concerned with power, identity, personal and social change. Having trained extensively with and also worked alongside Augusto Boal, she is a specialist facilitator in Theatre of the Oppressed, being invited to work particularly in areas of conflict and crisis.

Mojisola also teaches in the department of Theatre and Performance at Goldsmiths, University of London, at Rose Bruford College and is studying for her PhD at Queen Mary University of London.

Mojisola has written poetry for many years and even had a stint as a teenage rapper. However, it was in 2005 that she embarked upon writing plays as her primary focus, through her landmark production, Moj of the Antarctic: An African Odyssey, which was researched on Antarctica in 2005 and performed at Lyric Hammersmith, Oval House Theatre, Queer up North and had a British Council African tour. She followed this with Muhammad Ali and Me (Oval House) and Matt Henson, North Star, developed in Greenland through Cape Farewell (Lyric Hammersmith).

Her first commission was Desert Boy (Nitro, Albany and national tour). 48 Minutes for Palestine, a collaboration with Ashtar Theatre Palestine, is now touring all over the world. The Listeners, a play for young actors, commissioned by Pegasus Theatre Company, in partnership with The Samaritans (Oxford) premiered in March 2012. She was a Writer-on-Attachment with Unicorn and Birmingham Rep where she wrote Asara and the Sea-Monstress, her first play for children.

I Stand Corrected, created with Mamela Nyamza and commissioned by Artscape, South Africa, premiered in Cape Town in August 2012 and played to rave reviews at Ovalhouse in November / December 2012. The show comes to the Soweto Theatre in 2013.

Alongside her produced plays, Mojisola’s publications include The Theatre for Development Handbook with John Martin and Manisha Mehta, based on their work with VIDYA (order at www.pan-arts.net all proceeds go to the VIDYA charitable trust); 48 Minutes for Palestine in Anna Furse’s Theatre in Pieces: An Anthology of Experimental Theatre from 1968-2010 (Methuen) and Moj of the Antarctic: An African Odyssey in Deirdre Osborne’s Hidden Gems for Oberon Books. Her first solo collection Mojisola Adebayo: Plays One has just been published by Oberon. Order Plays One here: www.oberonbooks.com/author/adebayo/ She is busy working on Plays Two…

Mbizo Chirasha

Zimbabwe No Comments

Mbizo Chirasha is an acclaimed wordsmith, performances poet, widely published poet and writer. He is the Founder and Creative Director of several creative initiatives and projects, including Young writers Caravan Project, This is Africa Poetry Night 2006 – 2008, Zimbabwe Amateur Poetry conference 2007 – 2010, African Drums Poetry Festival 2007, GirlChildCreativity Project 2011- Current, GirlchildTalent Festival 2012.

The widely traveled poet and creative projects consultant is widely published in more than 60 journals, anthologies, websites, reviews, newspapers, blogs and poetry collections around the world. Some of the countries he traveled include Ghana, Sweden, Egypt, Tanzania, South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Malawi.

The poet have done a number of official NGO creative interventions and consultancy programmes with Social Family Health (Namibia 2009 – 2010) on a HIV/Aids Documentary Project, Catholic Relief Services Zimbabwe 2006 on a HIV/Aids Nutrition Project, Swedish Cooperative Centre 2006 on Arts against Drought (Zimbabwe).

His writings are published in Canada, Germany, Norway, South Africa, Turkey, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia, Zimbabwe, America, India, Wales, London, Nigeria and other countries. He co-authored Whispering woes of Ganges and Zambezi with Sweta Vikram from New York in 2010. His poetry collection Good Morning President was published by Diaspora publishers UK in 2011.

In 2001- 2003 Mbizo was the Membership Drive officer for Budding writers Association of Zimbabwe. In 2000 was Outreach Agent for Zimbabwe Book Development Council, Delegate of Zimbabwe international Book fair to Goteborg international book fair /Sweden in 2003, Delegate of Zebra publishing House, Namibia to Unesco Photo Novel Writing Project in Tanzania 2009, Poet in Residence of International Conference of African Culture Development in Ghana 2009,Producer/Coordinator of I am the Artist project, an Artist in Residence program by Zimbabwe Germany Society /Goethe Zentrum.

He holds Writing Skills and Editorial Expertise certificates courtesy of BWAZ/SAIH-Norway. Mbizo works as a poet/writer in residency, Readership and literacy culture development Advocate, Media Relations Strategist, Live Literature Producer and Creative Projects Consultant.

Mbali Kgosidintsi

South Africa No Comments

Mbali Kgosidintsi graduated from the University of Cape Town in 2004 with a B.A in Theatre and Performance and was on the Deans Merit List for Drama. Her professional debut was on the Maynardville stage where she played the young lead of Hero in
Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Fred Abrehemse.

She then went on to do Tall Horse with The Handspring Puppet Company, which opened at The Baxter Theatre in Cape Town 2005, before touring to the Theatre de Welt Festival in Stuttgart Germany, followed by an eight state American tour at various prestigious venues, from the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York to The Kennedy Centre in Washington DC.

In the same year, she joined The Mother Tongue Project who collaborated with members of the Darling community to workshop and produce Breathing Space for the Darling Festival. On her return from Darling she staged her first production, By word of Mouth- A night of Lace and Petals which combines dance, music, poetry and theatrical aspects to tell a story featuring Rite 2 Speak. She is one of the members of Rite 2 Speak, a female poetry collective that addresses identity in contemporary South Africa. They have performed at prestigious events ranging from National Women’s Day 2008 to Heritage Day in Portugal and Urban Voices Festival 2009.

Mbali played the lead of Electra in Yael Farber’s Molora which opened in Yokohama, Japan 2006. She was recruited as one of four writers / adapters to develop two productions for the London/South Africa based company Portobello productions. The writing team, directed by Mark Donford-May, adapted A Magic Flute – Impempe Yomlingo and it went on to win the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical Revival.

Mbali was awarded a writing residency on the island of Sylt, Germany to develop her autobiographical novel, which formed the basis for her one-woman show, which was then produced by The Mother Tongue Project entitled Tseleng The Baggage of Bags written and performed by Mbali and directed by Sara Matchett. It won the ovation award at The National Grahamstown festival 2010. Mbali was invited to participate in Poetry workshops hosted by Badilisha Poetry X-change featuring internationally acclaimed poets and selected to participate in a two-week workshop with internationally acclaimed poet, Stacey Ann Chin where they investigated themes of the self and the body.

She recently played the character of a modern day Medea in award winning playwright and human rights activist, Ariel Dorfman’s Purgatorio, at a play reading hosted by the Baxter Theatre.

Mbali continues to write and perform poetry and is working on her first novel.

Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye

Kenya No Comments

Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye is one of the most prolific women writers, not only in Kenya, but also in Africa. She has distinguished herself as a writer of novels, poetry, and children’s stories. She was born in Southampton, England, in 1928 and came to Kenya as a missionary bookseller in 1954. She married D.G.W. Macgoye in 1960 and subsequently integrated into her husband’s extended family and the Luo community. This feature is well manifested in her literary works which have been acknowledged all over the world. Coming to Birth won the Sinclair Prize for fiction in 1986, while Homing In won second place in the Jomo Kenyatta Prize for Literature in 1985.

Mama C

Tanzania No Comments

Charlotte Hill O’Neal aka Mama C is an internationally known visual artist, musician and poet with more than two decades of experience. She was born in Kansas City, KS in 1951 and has lived in Africa with her husband Pete O’Neal since 1970. She is the mother of two children, Malcolm and AnnWood “Stormy”. She is co-director of the United African Alliance Community Center UAACC located outside of Arusha, Tanzania. www.uaacc.habari.co.tz
Mama C was greatly influenced in her early years by the jazz, blues and gospel that Kansas City is famous for and integrates elements of that experience in both her music and the rhythm of her poetry along with the African beats and hip hop vibe of her spirit. She explores the reality of her life as a Diaspora born African who has lived most of her years in Tanzania in many of her poems, one of the most famous being I Almost Lost Myself.

“As a member of the Black Panther Party I was taught the importance of building international solidarity among all people while honoring my Ancestral roots. That philosophy has never changed and many of my poems and songs reflect this burning desire and mission to spread peace, love and unity through my art”, Mama C reflects. “The spontaneous release of love that comes from poetry and music and art, in general… that thing that binds us all together and builds solidarity and understanding among all people no matter where they are from or what language they speak, is like magic!”

Her song writing and performing talents have been showcased on stage, television and radio in many cities in Africa and in America during the annual UAACC Heal the Community Tour. She launched her book of poetry, Warrior Woman of Peace in 2008 and plans to launch her second book of poetry titled Life Slices – a Taste of My Heaven, in 2013. Mama C debuted several of her newest poems during the Poetry Africa Tour 2010 to Cape Town – South Africa, Harare – Zimbabwe and Blantyre – Malawi and the 14th Annual Poetry Africa Festival in Durban, all sponsored by the Creative Arts Center at University of KwaZulu Natal.

Mama C is co-director along with George Kyomushula, of the newly established Arusha Poetry Club in Arusha, Tanzania which serves as a platform for East African poets and artists around the planet.
She recently completed her 4th music/spoken word album produced at Peace Power Productions studio at UAACC and she has directed and appeared in several music videos featuring East African artists, YouTube channel: mamacharlotteuaacc

Mama C and Pete O’Neal are the subjects of two award winning documentaries about their lives and activism including American Exile narrated by Hollywood actress Alfre Woodard and the PBS documentary, A Panther in Africa by Aaron Matthews and she is one of the featured artists along with M1 of Deadprez in a newly released documentary on art and activism by Michael Wanguhu titled Ni Wakati, http://www.pbs.org/itvs/globalvoices/pantherinafrica.html, http://www.niwakatithefilm.com/

Mama C has learned to play the Obokano, an ancient African eight string lyre that originates in the Gusii community in western Kenya. Even though the instrument was considered taboo for women to play, one of the recognized masters of obokano, Dennis “Grandmaster Masese” Mosiere, felt that things should change and taught Mama C. She is the first woman to play professionally and finds that, “mixing obokano with poetry and song brings me so much pleasure and adds to the scope of my creativity!”

She is presently working with several artists to establish an indigenous music school and archive/museum at UAACC. They have already begun building instruments like the kiteníge from the Maasai community; umakhweyane from the Zulu community; obokano from the Gusii community; the marimba and the kalimba thumb piano that is played in nearly every country in sub Saharan Africa,Youtube channel: Wakunga zamani

Mama C: Urban Warrior in the African Bush is a new documentary about Mama C’s life as an artist activist by film maker, Dr. Joanne Hershfield who is a professor of Womens Studies and Department Head, at North Carolina State University Chapel Hill.
A trailer and more information about the film can be found at www.mamacurbanwarriorfilm.com

Malibongwe Omega Snyman

South Africa No Comments

Malibongwe Omega Snyman, also known as “The Lazzy Poet” was born and raised in Eastern Cape, South Africa. He has performed his “street poetry” on various platforms.

Lazzy Poet’s latest brainchild and achievement has been his collaboration with, LoveLife, an NGO that deals with HIV, teenage pregnancy and various other social issues.

He is also the founder of Poetic Expressionz, a platform established to showcase the artistic work of the youth in his home town.

Mahogany L. Browne

United States No Comments

The Cave Canem Fellow is the author of several books including Swag & Dear Twitter: Love Letters Hashed Out On-line, recommended by Small Press Distribution & listed as About.com Best Poetry Books of 2010.

She has released five LPs including the live album Sheroshima. As co-founder of the Off Broadway poetry production, Jam On It, and co-producer of NYC’s 1st Performance Poetry Festival: SoundBites Poetry Festival, Mahogany bridges the gap between lyrical poets and literary emcee.Browne has toured Germany, Amsterdam, England, Canada and recently Australia as 1/3 of the cultural arts exchange project Global Poetics.

Her journalism work has been published in magazines Uptown, KING, XXL, The Source, Canada’s The Word and UK’s MOBO. Her poetry has been published in literary journals Pluck, Literary Bohemian, Bestiary Brown Girl Love and Up The Staircase. She is an Urban Word NYC mentor, as seen on HBO’s Brave New Voices and facilitates performance poetry and writing workshops throughout the country.

She is the publisher of Penmanship Books, a small press for performance artists and owns PoetCD.Com, an on-line marketing and distribution company for poets. Mahogany is currently host and curator of the Friday Night Slam at the famous Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

Maakomele Manaka

South Africa No Comments

Maakomele Manaka , was born in Diepkloof zone 6, Soweto in 1983. The first of two boys born to artistic parents. Mak, as he is widely known is the son of the late Matsemela Manaka a well known visual artist, poet, play write and black consciousness activist . His mother, Nomsa Kupi Manaka is a pioneer of African dance, an established dancer,choreographer, and actress in South Africa. With a natural artistic gift as a poet and writer and a strong artistic heritage , Mak was destined to be an artist.

South African icon Don Mattera says, “If genius can be genetically connected and if it flows from generation to generation, then Mak Manaka is the epitome of it. He comes from a dynasty of talented, creative and gifted people Nomsa and Matsemela”.

At the age of 5, he received a Young Artist Award at the once famous Funda Arts Center in Soweto . He started writing poetry at 14 yrs old , just two years after his near fatal accident which left him in a wheelchair for a year and a half. He started performing at the age of 15 on crutches, debuting in 1998 in Lugano, Switzerland at a tribute for his late father.

In 1999, he performed at the Windybrow Arts Theater with British poet Benjamin Zephaniah and South African poet Dr Don Mattera. In 2000 he performed for Arnold Shwaznager on his visit to South Africa at the Takalani Home for the mentally Handicapped school.

In 2001, he performed at Horror Café in a show called Urban Voices with Grammy award winning American poets Sarah Jones and Steve Coleman along with other young and aspiring South African poets. This was to become a milestone poetic performance for Mak – as it formerly introduced him as an integral part of the local spoken word scene .

In 2002 he performed for the former president of South Africa Mr. Thabo Mbeki at the SABC in a live program called In conversation with the President hosted by Tim Modise and during that year he compiled all his works for publication of a poetry book, If Only. During the subsequent years he become a sought after poet as well as headliner for various festivals and events including the annual international Urban Voices Poetry Festival which took place nationally in SA. Over the years on various Urban Voices stages he has performed with international and locally acclaimed poets including the likes of Mutabaruka, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Saul Williams, the Last Poets, Ursula Rucker, Lesego Rampolokeng , Keorapetse Kgositsile and various other poetic icons.He was commissioned to perform for the former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela at the launch of a primary school in Soweto. Later that year, Mak toured Cuba and Jamaica with poets Don Mattera and Lebo Mashile representing South Africa in celebrating 10 years of democracy. .

In the 2004 he was nominated for The Daimler Chrysler Poet of the Year 2005 Award. This year also saw Mak Performing in Holland, at the Crossing Borders Festival.

In February 2005 he spent a month in Germany on an island called Sylt and performed in Hamburg and Berlin. Later that year he played a character also called Mak and who was facing disability issues in the children’s television program Soul Buddies on SABC.

In June 2006 he performed at schools around Soweto as part of the campaign for the We Remember June 16. In the same year, he performed in Germany, Berlin for the
heads of state at the closing ceremony of the 2006 World Cup. In Kohln he shared the stage with talented poets, Lebo Mashile and Gcina Mhlophe, He also shared the stage with some of South Africa’s legendary artists, Johnny Clegg, Jabu Khanyile, HHP and
Freshly Ground.

In 2008, in pursuance of this goal, Mak launched his debut cd entitled Word Sound Power!!.  Word Sound Power!!  an album of quality music and Conscious lyrics, was certainly a milestone album for spoken word in South Africa. Produced by Melody Muzik Sound Productions, the music reflects a deep range of reggae rhythms together with hip hop and jazz. International and local musicians have contributed and collaborate on Word Sound Power!! including The Royal Kushite Philharmonic Orchestra featuring L Michell, H Izachaar, L Beckett and mixed by K M Tafari

In 2009 Manaka launched his second anthology In Time, in Italy at a Literature festival in Mantova. The anthology sold out months after its release.

In 2010 he performed at the Zwakala Festival for deaf children, and he also performed at the annual languages awards, The Pen-Salb Awards. He also launched a writers program in the same year to encourage self-esteem in young people

In 2011 He performed at the MNET awards, the Television awards for Good (TAG).

In 2012, Mak performed in Padova, Italy at the Porsche Live Festival. In June 2012, Mak represented South Africa at the 18th Genoa International Poetry Festival in Italy. In the same month he performed at the Listros Gallery in Berlin, Manaka also facilitated workshops at the prestigious Humboldt University called Poetry 101 with Mak Manaka. He also performed at The Moving Poets in Berlin with an installation of a Berlin based South African visual artist, Liz Crowley. He also performed at Badilisha Poetry X-change’s 100 Thousand Poets for Change.

Mufasa

Kenya No Comments

Mufasa is a spoken word artist, actor and singer born and raised in Kenya. He popped into the spoken word scene after winning a spoken word slam competition. Since then Mufasa has been performing in all major poetry events in Kenya. Raised by a single mother, Mufasa is a passionate performer on stage and hides no emotions when he speaks about his life and disturbing issues in the society.

MP Mkhize Da Bee

South Africa No Comments

MP Mkhize Da Bee is a poet based in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. This young poet has extensive writing and performance experience. Highlights of his career have been performing with veteran South African storyteller Gcina Mhlophe, performing at the Africa Cup of Nations and at the ANC’s 101 Years Celebration.

Morongwa Matsau

Botswana No Comments

Known on stage as Messenger, Morongwa is a 30 year old  born in Maun, Botswana. He is a trained and professional accountant. Messenger’s interest in poetry started in the year 2000. However, the realisation of becoming a full-fleshed writer and performer began 9 years later when he joined Poetavango Spoken Word Poetry.

Messenger’s influence comes from everything he sees, touches and smells. He derives inspiration from the creatures he meets – in reality and in dreams and the sounds and voices he hears.

He has performed at all installations of the Maun international Poetry Festival. He also took part in the 100 Thousand Poets for Change, Maun 2012.

Morongwa Matsau is currently working on a collection of short stories and a novel manuscript.

Michael Mabwe

Zimbabwe No Comments

From the mining town of Kadoma in Zimbabwe, Michael Mabwe is a human rights activist who uses the arts especially poetry as a weapon of mass instruction. He has been instrumental in steering the growth of slam poetry in Zimbabwe, taking charge of the House of Hunger Poetry slam. He is also the founder and coordinator of the Zimbabwe Poets for Human Rights (ZPHR) which advocates for the recognition, respect and restoration for human rights in Zimbabwe. Michael’s poetry touches on issues such as HIV and AIDS, politics, black consciousness and tolerance.

Memory Chirere

Zimbabwe No Comments

Memory Chirere has been writing poetry since his boyhood in the Zimbabwean countryside.  His poems were first published in Tipeiwo Dariro (1994). He has also published three short story books in English and Shona. His short-short stories estimate the delicate midway between prose and poetry. He has read his poems at festivals and conferences in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Malawi and Germany. He lives in Harare where he teaches Creative Writing at the University of Zimbabwe.

Mbongeni Nomkonwana

South Africa No Comments

Mbongeni Nomkonwana is an actor, playwright, theatre director, poet and sometimes standup comedian who has performed at the former Vodacom Funny Festival (2007) now Jive Funny Festival.

This multi-talented performer is always willing to try new things and has special gift with words. He started his performing, writing and directing career at Sophumelela Theatre Group where he still is to date. He holds a performing Arts Certificate from New Africa Theatre Academy (2007). He has written and directed four plays for them which one of them Bendingazi was performed at the 2009 National Arts Festival.

He has acted in two international films alongside Kiefer Sutherland and Hakim Kae Kazeem, he has done some local cameo roles with penguin films. He has done children’s theatre with Arepp Theatre for Life (2010-2011) touring the Eastern Cape and is now working for Okuhle Media doing educational school roadshows.

Winner of Cape Town DFL LOVER+ ANOTHER poetry challenge, he has since then performed at OFF THE WALL poetry sessions and Inzync Poetry by Stellenbosch University, 2012 HEAIDS Conference at UCT, Jam That Session, Brand House Marketing Campaign and Last Poet’s: Rhythm Poetry1.

Co-Founder of a Cape Town based poetry and music movement, Lingua Franca. In 2013 he teamed up with Lwanda Sindaphi to coordinate the Poetry for the annual Zabalaza Theatre Festival at Baxter Theatre.

He also teamed with Linda Kaoma to coordinate the 2013 DFL Lover+Another Poetry Challenge.

Marí Peté

South Africa No Comments

Durban poet Marí Peté writes in Afrikaans and English. Marí was born and schooled in the Mpumalanga province in South Africa.

Marí wrote her Street Poems Collection while driving to and from various campuses of the Durban University of Technology where she has worked as an e-Learning specialist for almost twenty years. During Poetry Africa 2010, the Mail and Guardian described Marí’s performance of the poem Durban Taxi (a conglomeration of taxi names) as “a delicious success”. The poem Warwick Junction was shortlisted for the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award in 2012.

Various tensions and juxtapositions arise from Marí’s Cambridge Poetry Collection, which could be ascribed to the fact that the poems were originally written in Afrikaans, during the year before South Africa’s first democratic elections. Halfronde / north and south was written upon receiving the news of the death of Chris Hani.

Marí has published two bilingual poetry collections namely Amytis (2007) and Begin (2002). With Bianca Bothma, Marí was editor of Art for Humanity’s book Women Artists and Poets Advocate Children’s Rights.

Nina Femme

South Africa No Comments

Nina Femme is a poet-feminist who is trying to master writing, protesting and finding balance in the pursuit of love and justice. Flowers and Feminism, a personally inspired poem, earned her second place in the national Drama for Life Lover and Another poetry competition in 2013. “I wrote my first piece ten years ago, but it never gets easier because the issues never get easier.” When she isn’t in an existential state, she contests her title as “the worst pool player in the Westrand”.

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Nduta Kariuki

Kenya No Comments

Nduta Kariuki is an artist working and studying in Nairobi, Kenya. She paints primarily, in a personal style that is derived from pop art, but dabbles extensively and has working knowledge of most art forms.

Nduta is currently a fourth year Fine Arts student at Kenyatta University. She is a freelance artist and has worked with Samsung and various high schools for the annual Music and Drama festivals. She enjoys writing, as it allows her to express her quirky sense of humor, and has performed at the Slam Africa, Word Up Live, St. Andrew’s Eve of Poetry and Wamathai events.

Her work has been shown in the following venues: The Michael Joseph Centre, Kenya Railways Museum Gallery, the National Museum, Paa ya Paa Gallery, The Kenyatta University’s Culture and Career weeks, International School of Kenya.

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Native Son

Canada No Comments

Marvin Trimm aka (Native Son) is a writer, poet, spoken word artist, motivational speaker and musician. He has been engaged in the world of literary and performance art for 20 years. It is this passion for the arts that has led him to be showcased globally in the United States, Canada, Europe and the Caribbean.

A native of the small island of Bermuda, it was there that he honed and developed his craft his craft. In the late 80’s he was able to write, produce and direct his 1st one man show entitled “Life Signs on Planet Earth” a collection of monologues depicting real life characters in social situations.

Today, he continues in the capacity as a writer of performance poetry/spoken word, which he performs at various venues such as spoken word series, poetry slams, music festivals, community events, conferences, universities and prisons. Marvin describes his poetic literary speech as spontaneously truthful. A self pro-claimed “Empowerment Poet”, he often writes about self development, self awareness and self improvement. Marvin is a charismatic storyteller that combines history , social, political issues to enlighten and bring new perspectives about the world we live in.

Natalia Molebatsi

South Africa No Comments

Natalia Molebatsi is a writer, performance poet, workshop facilitator and programme director who has presented shows such as An Evening with Alice Walker, Urban Voices International Spoken Word Festival, and an evening with the father of Ehio-jazz, Mulatu Astatke.

The Tembisa-born and raised Natalia has performed in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Holland, Italy, Nigeria, Senegal, Arzerbaijan and England. She is founding member of the South African/Italian band Soul Making.