Existing Within Poetry: Love Letters from Africa, Asia and the Diaspora
When living in BIPOC bodies, we are constantly reminded that we are sites of the political. We navigate our lives in very specific ways due to the confines of the margins we are pushed into. In these instances, for those of us who live poetry, it becomes our tool of resistance. We translate our bodily experiences into words and our poetry becomes the political. It is a call to arms which tells us that even when we are drowning in a world that refuses to create space for us, there are those who are ever-willing to constantly do that for us. What is revealed to us when we live poetry is that the earth we occupy is the earth we were gifted and belong to. We like to believe that if we look carefully in every poem written by Black and Indigenous poets, and poets of Colour, we will find hidden love letters that tell us that even in moments where the world unloves us, we are endlessly shown that we are loved, seen, heard, and felt.
In this series, we will spotlight our favourite contemporary poets and their poems from Africa, Asia, and the Diaspora. In a variety of written and visual manifestations we open the floor of discussion. Our vision for this space is to remind those of us on the periphery that really, one of the biggest scams in writing history is the idea that we do not belong to or in poetry. By living in poetry by poets from Africa, Asia and the Diaspora, we bring to life realities that are often too difficult for us to envision alone and that is truly where the excitement lies.
We invite readers to discover the poet in the verse, engage with the love, and join our conversation. Join us on this beautiful journey of learning and living poets and their poetry from the margins, who seek to reimagine our place and our existence in this world.
In Solidarity,
Thokozani & Brittany
Collage by Gabriela Rodriguez Conliffe
Image Sources: Our Magic (1911), flickr / bikesandbooks, unknown
Thokozani Mbwana is a queer African Studies scholar by day and an Ancestor-summoning poet and writer by night. They have written a number of essays for both online and print zines such as Shades of Noir UK and the African Gender Institute, South Africa and self-publish their work at writtenbyflora.com. Their work explores issues of race, sexuality, displacement and Ancestral connections. When they are not writing, reading or attempting to finish their thesis, you can find them baking, hula-hooping, swinging on silks or eating copious amounts of pizza.
Brittany Nguyen is a poet and translator from Walnut, California. She translates from the Korean and the Vietnamese but sometimes ventures into the Chinese and the Japanese, often incorporating them into her own work. She is the 2018 recipient of the Academy of American Poets: The Piri Thomas Poetry Prize and has a piece in the upcoming issue of the Notre Dame Review! She currently lives in New York City working on her MFA at Columbia University.