Beverly Rycroft

South Africa No Comments

Beverly Rycroft’s debut poetry collection, Missing, recently won the Ingrid Jonker Award. In 2011 she was awarded second prize in the EU Sol Plaatje Poetry Competition for her poem Has your Dad got a Bird yet? In 2000 she was joint winner of the Femina/Sensa Features Competition.

Beverly is a graduate of UCT and Wits. A qualified teacher, she has written for both local and international magazines. Her poems have appeared in Carapace, New Coin, scrutiny2, New Contrast and the anthology Difficult to Explain. She has performed readings of her work in Cape Town, Hermanus, The Franschoek Literary Festival, East London and Johannesburg, many of them with the poet Finuala Dowling. She is currently setting up the poetry section of the 2013 Franschoek Literary Festival with Dr Dowling. Beverly lives in Cape Town with her family.

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.

Batsirai E Chigama

Zimbabwe No Comments

In 2006 when Batsirai started seriously performing her poetry she says there were only three women doing poetry readings at the time including herself. She was felt challenged to add her voice in the poetry circles therefore ventured into the slam community at the Book Cafe in Harare. She is passionate about lending her voice to the women whose voices have been silenced the world over.

Batsirai has performed at several festivals in the region including Harare International Festival of the Arts(HIFA), Intwasa Arts Festival, Thubalethu, Nguva Yedu Youth Festival, Arts Alive(SA), Sadc Poetry Festival(Botswana), Poetry Africa Tour, Tambo Tambulani Art Camp & Festival, Pemba, Mozambique, Shoko Spoken Word & Hip-Hop Festival and recently performed at the Hivos Poetry Cafe, Blantyre Arts Festival, Malawi.

In August 2010, Batsirai was featured in four anthologies published by Mensa Press in the USA: Whispers in the Whirlwind, War against War, Defiled Sacredness & Visions on Motherland. She is also featured in State of the Nation published by Conversation Paper-press in England. Several of her short stories have been published online and an extract from one of her short stories was published in “Writings from Africa” a publication facilitated by the British Council through the Crossing Borders Writers’ Project.

Batsirai also writes short stories and contributes to Zimbojam, the most popular arts website in Zimbabwe.

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.

Ben Caesar

Dominica No Comments

… and it seems that’s the state of our teens of today/ we grow up at such a pace/ we don’t get to touch base with the elders of our age/
Our history books are missing a page… Ma Island, June 2009

Ben Caesar Charles Le Roux (Ben Caesar) was born in 1985 in the Caribbean island of Dominica where he spent his early childhood. They moved to London and then to South Africa where they shuffled between Kwa Zulu Natal, Johannesburg and later Cape Town where he is currently settled. During his school years he travelled to Holland, UK, Switzerland, New York and Montreal and visited the Caribbean from time to time.

Growing up in such diversity, Ben states “I am fortunate to have been exposed to many different peoples, cultures, with varying sexuality’s, race and genders, it has broadened my horizons and perceptions which all feed into my music and perspective’s”.

He has released three albums, 2007, Eye of the Storm in 2008, and most recently LONDONE in 2009. He performs regularly at venues and gathering from clubs to festivals, celebrations to NGO Human Rights conferences including then ILRIG conference on globalisation, the Divinity clothing label launch, Bon Esperance Refugee Day celebration, the South African National Gallery, Muizenberg Community festival and has been the featured artist at “Verses” Poetry sessions in Zula Bar, Cape Town. After travelling and performing all over the world, Ben Caesar is now back in South Africa working on a new album.

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.

Nomthandazo Ngwenya

South Africa No Comments

Nomthandazo Ngwenya is young poet from Nelspruit, Mpumalanga. She has been mentored by many of the iconic poets from her province, and she hopes to publish a collection of her work in the very near future.

Mwalim Morgan Peters

United States No Comments

Mwalim (Morgan James Peters) is a Black Wampanoag performing artist, writer, educator and filmmaker. Born in the Bronx, NY and raised in both the Bronx and Mashpee, MA, Mwalim was immersed in the oral traditions of both his Bajan (Barbados) mother and Mashpee Wampanoag father.

Emerging on the east-coast spoken-word scene in the early 1990’s as a storyteller, performance poet and theater artist, Mwalim’s work is known throughout the USA, Canada, the UK and the Caribbean. A contributor to numerous edited volumes and periodicals, Mwalim is the author of one short fiction collection, A Mixed Medicine Bag (2007, Talking Drum Press) and over 25 plays, and several sound recordings. His latest CD, The Liberation Sessions features collaborations with a host of A-List artists. He is a tenured Associate Professor of English and African/ African American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Musa Okwonga

United Kingdom No Comments

Musa Okwonga is an Oxford University graduate who since then has practised both law and football, with the emphasis on the latter. He won the Junior Bridport Prize for fiction in 1994, for poetry in 1995, and the WH Smith Young Writers competition a year later. He lives in South London.

Okwonga considers himself a poet, a sportswriter, a PR professional, an author, and an occasional MC. Okwonga’s poetry, which he often writes on London buses, travelling entire routes in order to be immersed in humanity, displays astonishing subtlety of observation. “The language has to be a vehicle for the story, the message,” Okwonga says. “Otherwise, it’s just intellectual showboating. People go to poetry gigs to hear intellectual honesty.” In his poetry, as in his life, that is exactly what they get. Okwonga is also a founding member of Poetry collective “A poem in between people” (PIP).

Muki Garang

Kenya No Comments

Muki is committed to the Kenyan art scene because he believes he can utilise the power of entertainment to provide education on different key issues affecting the Kenyan population.

Over the past few years he has conducted interviews at The Hampshire College addressing various topics on East African Hip Hop, including the historical context, the role of popular culture as a mode of expression and tool for public education and the possibilities of using the avenue to address various community needs.

More importantly his work utilises music as a tool for community empowerment, this work is captured in Prof. Mwenda Ntaragwis book titled East African Hiphop: Youth, culture and globolization.

In his tenure as an activist, he has engaged in a number of socially conscious projects, collaborating with institutions such as the Sarakasi Trust, French Cultural Centre, Goethe Institute and the British council.

More than being a poet and Hiphop artist, Muki is the co-founder of Words and Pictures (WAPI) – an acclaimed youth arts project in Nairobi which serves as a monthly platform for upcoming artists (for which he was nominated for the British Council’s International Youth Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2006).

He convened a project called ‘Hip Hop Parliament’ in the midst of the post-election violence 2007/2008 in Kenya, as a means to engage Nairobi’s youth in positive dialogue across ethnic lines. In addition he is the founder of Maisha Yetu – a non-profit arts organization for youth, and he also worked at Ghetto Radio 89.5fm as an editor for their online journal www.ghettoradio.nl.

 

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.

Mthetheleli Michael Mqutheni

South Africa No Comments

Mthetheleli Michael Mqutheni was born in 1963 in Whittlesea, Eastern Cape, South Africa. In 1989 he completed his Diploma in Education at the University of Pretoria. He is currently completing his B.Ed Honours with the University of North West. He is the co-author of the book Ubuncwane Besihobe edited by Professor Z.S Gebeda.

Mpho Ya Badimo

South Africa No Comments

South African- born artist Mpho ya Badimo, which translates into Gift of/for the Gods, hails from South Africa’s North West Province’s capital, Mafikeng.

She expresses her art through an unconventional style of delivery which fuses her native tongue SeTswana, colloquialisms, music and the use of movements to interpret words. Through her use of localised expression, she challenges the audience to become actively involved in piecing together the meaning of the poetry as they would a puzzle – despite the absence of commonality in language.

She co-founded the 5th Grove Poetry Movement while studying towards her degree. She is a creative member, performer and at times program director of performance art foundations such as Lefoko Naughty West Hip Hop Movement and Xpressions under Lyv Records. These affiliations saw her perform for Mutabaruka and Haile Garima on their 2003 Sankofa Promotional Tour. She co-wrote the play Blood Love which was staged at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown (2007).
She is the creator and sole designer of Black Lezoti jewellery, bags and wall art.

Moses Serubiri

Uganda No Comments

Born in 1989, Moses Serubiri took to writing poems while in high school, for the AIDS Club. His poems and prose were first published in the Kibuli Secondary School Magazine in 2005. More recently his poem I Remember was selected for the Hay Poetry Festival’s Shortlist. He is a poet, photographer and pianist currently living in Kampala, Uganda.

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…

Mercy Dhliwayo

Zimbabwe No Comments

Mercy Dhliwayo (better known by her stage name, Xtreme Sanity) is a slam poet, emcee and an emerging writer and photographer. Born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Xtreme started off as a rapper in 1997 and later branched off into poetry and spoken word in 2005 as a first year student at the University of Limpopo.

Xtreme has performed on various platforms which include, but are not limited to, the Intwasa Festival, the University of Limpopo Heritage Festivals, The Black Market Ace’s Annual Charity events; the Canimambo Free Form Musical Festival as well as various festivals hosted by Shindig Awe and the Fire on the Mountain Festival. She has also taken part in the SABC 2’s Lentswe Poetry Project Competition in which, through her poem, Survival Techniques, she won under the HIV/AIDS Category in Limpopo Province (2007) and went on to represent the Limpopo Province under the same category at the national level of the Competition (2008).

She has further featured in the Black Markets PLK Hip Hop Mixtape (2006); Face the Music Hip hop Timeless Mixtape (2007), the Essential Words (2011), the Shindig Awe: Have we put out the fire Compilation (2012) and the African Fem MC’s Mixtape (2012).

Apart from recordings, her poetry has been published in the the Have We Put out The fire Journal, and in the Sunday News newspaper as well as online. Apart from being a poet and an emcee, Xtreme also writes short stories.

Megan Hall

South Africa No Comments

Currently Publishing Manager at Oxford University Press, Megan Hall has also edited poems and short stories for New Contrast. Her poetry was extensively published in numerous journals, before she launched her debut collection Fourth Child. The work received widespread acclaim, winning the 2008 Ingrid Jonker Prize for a debut collection. Her poems have been described as “moving and cathartic”, exploring emotions of despair, loss, love, resolution and healing.

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.

Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie

United States No Comments

Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie is a writer, educator, and performer. She has been a featured speaker at universities, festivals and events throughout Europe and North America. She is the Poetry Editor of the literary magazine African Voices.

Her work  deals with silence, sexism and racism and it has been published in Crab Orchard Review, BOMB, Paris/Atlantic, Go, Tell Michelle (SUNY), Listen Up! (One World Ballantine) and Revenge and Forgiveness (Henry Holt). Tallie’s work has been the subject of a short film “I Leave My Colors Everywhere.” Her first collection of poetry, Karma’s Footsteps, was released by Flipped Eye Publishing in September of 2011. She is the recipient of a 2010 Queens Council on the Arts grant for her research on herbalists of the African Diaspora. She has taught literature and composition  at York College and Medgar Evers College in New York City.

Marce Underwood

South Africa No Comments

Marce is a poet and classically trained singer from Cape Town, South Africa. Some of her poetry has been published in Sugar and Spice,  a South African Anthology. She is aslo a member of a trio called Project Escape, which fuses poetry and music.

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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.