Hair & Poetry XII
Recently I discovered Poetry Africa and was thrilled to see a poetry festival held in South Africa. So whenever I have a moment to listen to another poet I listen, and I'm inspired. Today I listened to Lebo Mashile and was captured right away. Not only by her words, but by her stage presence, she looks like she's at home on stage. Thanks to Google and YouTube I've realized she's well-known and has done a lot of inspiring work in SA and outside SA. She's born in the US by South African parents and moved back to SA at the age of 16. Find out more about her here.
(Side note: She reminds me a lot of Judy Holiday both in looks and in charisma.)
This poem brought tears to my eyes. I love dancing, I used to be a dancer, I know exactly what she means, I know that feeling very well.
This is a beautiful picture, love the head wrap!
I struggled with choosing YouTube Clips for this post,
they were all so good!
I'd like to read her books; does she have any? If not she needs to write some :)
Not anyone can pull off blonde, but Lebo does make it look good.
Read this great interview with Lebo Mashile in Divas Inc.
Lebo mashile has two books,"in the ribbon of rhythm",and "flying above the sky".lebo mashile holds the NOMa award,for best book in africa.you can order her books,mashile is a lion in a literature's forest,when she writes,she roars,when she sleeps,she makes other creatures to walk gingerly
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tips, anon! I will see if I can find them on my side of the world. :)
DeleteHmm, thank you for this! loved it. Many parallels to writing in her poem on dancing, I think. I write for all those reasons. Also got inspired by the blond hair. Been loonking for something nice to do with my short hair. Don't know that I can pull off blond, but certainly got inspire :-).
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