I have never been a firm believer of poetry as a form of healing. I think it is the relatability of poems, how they make us feel like we are not alone, that brings strength to its readers. We all need something to hold on to, to believe in, a beacon of hope. And sometimes a poem is all of that.
. . .if you look at history, many places we now call developed were, to paraphrase a line from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, one of the dark places of the earth. . .
There is a rawness and a tangibility to this struggle, asserting itself like a shawl over the spirit and engendering a gradual fading away of the substantial, particular (in)carnation we occupy. Essentially, we become apologists in an oppression we neither deserve nor comprehend but in which we are too lost to realize the extent of our performance in the disservice.
I like Dis Poem because of the courage and aura behind the poem itself and the author in the person of Mutabaruka. I envy the bold and beautiful way with which it challenges inequality, racism, slavery, murder and injustices around the world.
Most people are wearing cloth made masks they lower to their chins when they want to talk to you – there is something about the need to communicate with the lips visible, moving. Some are wearing matching Ankara and facemask prints, in a fashion statement that even Covid-19 cannot mask.