Stars over Uppsala

on Tuesday night, when five fabulous artists, from three corners of Africa, take the stage at the Slottsbiografen for a night of music and poetry.

I'll have the pleasure of MC-ing, and do a 20 minute set as well.

You'll hear poetry from two of the three previous Guest Writers at the Nordic Africa Institute: South Africa's stellar Gabeba Baderoon, and Nigeria's power-blogger, Tolu Ogunlesi. We'd hoped that the inaugural Guest Writer, the Grande Dame herself, Ama Ata Aidoo, would be here too. Sadly, she's committed elsewhere.

However, Jennifer Ferguson, singer-songwriter-former MP from South Africa, and Ahmadu Jarr and his band, from Sierra Leone, will more than fill the gap, with uniquely different but equally compelling musical sets. Both will appear on stage twice, in the first and second halves of the show.

I'm feeling melancholy about saying goodbye to Uppsala, in ten days time. So it's good to have something this rich and sparkling for my final public performance here.

rainy day poem

I like poems with punchlines that make me laugh - and make me forward them to sixteen people who need that exact flavour of laughter.

For over a decade, Judy Grahn's poems have been, variously, incantation, prayer, fiesta, dirge,and manifesto to me.

Last week, these lines of hers floated up from my cells and walked me through the countdown to Wednesday's show:

my lovers teeth are white geese flying above me
my lovers muscles are rope ladders under my hands

we left, as we have left all of our lovers
as all lovers leave all lovers
much too soon to get the real loving done.

They come from her mindblowing nine-part poem, A Woman Is Talking To Death. A work which captures the race, class and gender faultlines of the USA with power, precision, pain, beauty, and technical skill that leave me wordless.

But the poem that made me laugh today, and forward madly, is Love rode 1500 miles. It starts:

Love rode 1500 miles on a grey
hound bus & climbed in my window

and wraps up with:

..........Love
like anybody else, comes to those who
wait actively
and leave their windows open.

It's from the collection Lesbein'. Download it and read the rest.

Time Of The Writer

Taken by Victor Dlamini, at last year's Time Of The Writer in Durban.

I am totally enamoured of black and white photography these days. This one evokes images of 1960s Nairobi parties, in newly-independent Kenya; morsels of history I've pored over in albums carefully assembled and preserved by my eldest aunt.

From Left to Right:
Emmanuel Dongala (Congo)
Ananda Devi (Mauritius)
Max Du Preez (South Africa)
Charles Mungoshi (Zimbabwe)
Dayo Forster (Gambia)
Shailja Patel (Kenya)
David Evans (South Africa)
Irene Staunton (Zimbabwe)
Kopano Matlwa (South Africa)
Angelina Sithebe (South Africa)
Kirsten Miller (South Africa)

This week

Keynote speech this evening for the annual meeting of Sweden PEN - a huge and exciting honour.

Poetry reading in Uppsala on Thursday evening, at the English Bookshop.