Black Women’s Blueprint and the Spelman Women’s Research and Resource Center are convening a conference in Atlanta, Georgia to recognize the first anniversary of the groundbreaking Black Women’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Sexual Assault (BWTRC). Vangile, a poet and cultural activist, who uses poetry as healing, for herself and others, has been invited to be a part of this breakthrough conference. Her poems are packed. Mpepho burned. But flight tickets and accommodation… Dololo!
Do you feel safe? Do you feel safe inside you do you feel safe?
“Words of Fire reinvigorates a call for resistance and urgent communal care on behalf of all Black women, girls, and transgender/gender nonconforming people so that we can move, thriving and surviving, with full momentum into the next phase of Black feminist futurity. Word of Fire are voices inside all of us, they are our experience, our history in our DNA, our stories, our ancestors — they are our truth, our individual uniqueness and our collective strength and power. Words of Fire continues to be the heat within our bodies, the passion with which we live our lives, the destruction of oppression, the sparks of ideas, art and vision, the color of transformation, the flame of unity, the fire of inevitability.”
Coming from very different bodies and backgrounds, we have forged a common political understanding that is aware of the politics of our differences and similarities, particularly regarding learned sexual behaviour.
This interactive poetry reading explores the umbilical cord that silences black and brown non-binary womxn, both as a form of resistance, and survival.
It raises questions around silence and unlearning. How have we learned to be silent? Who does our silence serve? When is silence powerful, fire, and when are brown womxn violently silenced through others’ words or bodies?
Most importantly, this reading asks: how can we heal ourselves? How can we feel safe inside ourselves?
Vangile Gantsho is a South African-born and based poet. She has performed in and conducted workshops at poetry events and festivals in South Africa and around the world, including Libreville, Lilongwe, Washington DC and New York. Vangile’s poems have been published in a number of literary publications including Sable (UK 2010), Botsotso (JHB 2015) and New Contrast (2017). Self-published her debut collection Undressing in front of the window(PTA 2015) and holds an MA in Creative Writing, with distinction from the University Currently Known as Rhodes.
Vangile has also participated in and facilitated work centered around healing through art, particularly focused on the multi-layered challenges of navigating the world (the African continent in particular) as a non-binary brown-skinned womxn. This work includes workshops, and conversations through poetry and music: When the Kats Cum Out to Play (2009), I Miss you Today (2010), Secrets with the Moon (2013) and Human4Human (2014-2015).
https://www.facebook.com/vangi…
CATCH A DREAM OF COURSE!!!
But more practically:
Flights and airport transfers.
Accommodation
On the ground transport
Food and daily expenses
Conference Gala Dinner
WELLLLL…..
Depending on how quickly we reach our targets,
R15 000 GETS VANGI ACROSS THE OCEAN
R20 000 GETS VANGI ACROSS THE OCEAN AND PUTS A ROOF OVER HER HEAD
R25 000 GETS VANGI ACROSS THE OCEAN. AND PUTS A ROOF OVER HER HEAD. AND FEEDS HER. AND MAKES SURE SHE CAN MOVE AROUND.
AND POSSIBLY INTRODUCES HER TO ANGELA DAVIS! (We live in hope!)
Vangile Gantsho holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University Currently Known as Rhodes. She is a South African poet and cultural activist with a strong passion for using writing as a form of healing, and issues surrounding black and brown womxn in South Africa. Her self-published collection “Undressing in front of the window” was released in 2015.
Sarah Godsell is a Johannesburg-born South African poet with a PHD in History from Wits University. She has performed on various South African stages and teaches poetry at the Mzansi Poetry Academy. She is also a post grad fellow, teaching history at the University of Johannesburg. Her first collection of poems “Seaweed Sky” was published by Poetree Publications in 2015.
Vangile and Sarah have worked on, participated in and produced a number of conversations around race, gender and sexuality together, including When the Kats Cum Out to Play (2009), I Miss you Today (2010), Secrets with the Moon (2013) Ungatsho (2014) and Human4Human (2014-2015).