portraits

Taken by Cato Lein at WALTIC in Stockholm last year.

Back by popular demand. A couple of readers asked me to put these portraits at the top of this page, rather than letting them slide into the archives. Although for those of you with time to spare, a ramble through the archives throws up all sorts of poetic gems and thoughtful morsels. Not to mention sashimi satire.

A new exhibition of Cato's portraits of writers will run from June 17th to July 31st at Hedengrens, Stockholm's largest and best-known bookshop. It will include the photos above, and others of Dennis Lehane, Zadie Smith, Le Clézio, Alaa al-Aswany, and more.

Delight

in the multiple creative geniuses who inhabit the body of my friend Lisa Martinovic.

The artist's eye that makes luscious flower cards - Linguaflora.

The ambidextrous wit of her Doubloons.

The razor-sharp language and analysis of her Slaminatrix poems, essays, and radio commentaries.

Lisa educated me about neuroplasticiy - the capacity of the brain to change itself. She's also my living encyclopaedia on holistic health. When I'm in the Bay Area, she regularly drags me away from my computer for life-renewing hikes in the hills and woods.

What should I say about non-violence?

Philo, in an email this morning, wondering aloud about her talk at Nairobi's Goethe Institute next week, titled Towards A Just Society In Kenya: Non-violent Options

My response:

Non-violence, when invoked in the mainstream discourse, means

- only women get raped,
- only the poor and powerless get beaten,
- only those who don't own property or control capital get killed.

Poverty is violence. Daily, unremitting violence.

When people preach non-violence to oppressed populations, what they're really saying is

"Why can't you die quietly, like the Tibetans, instead of forcing us to see your suffering, like those infuriating Palestinians?"

Anyone who's serious about non-violence should begin with dismantling the military-industrial complex, the arms trade, the armies of imperialism and occupation, and the violence of poverty.

So I'm looking forward to an interesting discussion at the Goethe Institute next week :-)


Date: 2 July 2009, 6.00 pm.
Place: Goethe Institut, Loita/Monrovia streets

Speakers: Mwalimu Mati, Philo Ikonya
Moderator: Paul Oyier

Nairobi reading of Bwagamoyo

has just been finalized.

Thursday June 9th. Full details on my calendar.

It will be the next iteration of what I presented at the Slottsbiografen in Uppsala. Can't believe that was less than three weeks ago - it feels like I've packed in three months of activity and motion since then.

What do Samuel Kivuitu's neck, Ngugi wa Thiong'o's ribcage, William Ruto's abdomen, and the hands of a Nairobi "grease monkey" all have in common?

Find out on this poetic journey, from colonial Zanzibar to Kenya's post-election violence, by way of the male body.

A powerful, heartbreaking, hilarious exploration of how patriots become patriarchs, muscles break down masculinities, and daughters confront fathers.

An anthemic call for a new generation of Kenyans to reconnect gut to heart to voice.
To challenge icons and claim our own power.
To sing ourselves back from our violent histories to new ways of knowing and living the truth.

This reading is dedicated to the memory of Bantu Mwaura (1969 - 2009). Brother, friend, truth teller. Mourned and deeply missed.

I'm both thrilled and terrified.

If you tweet

protect Iranian bloggers by setting your location to Tehran and your timezone to GMT + 3.30

State security forces are searching for pro-democracy bloggers in Iran using location and timezone, so this helps create a logjam.

Lovers Melody

in Rag Zila Kafi, by virtuouso Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.

Here it is on Youtube.

He died yesterday, at 87.

Tällberg-ho

I'd hadn't heard of the Tällberg Forum until the invitation plopped into my inbox.

Dear Shailja,

At the recommendation of Aya de Leon, it is with great pleasure that we invite you to the Tällberg Forum 2009, which will take place in Tällberg, Sweden on 24-28 June 2009.

Since 1981, conversations at Tällberg have been foreseeing that the integration of governance, environment, energy, economy and equity would be a decisive factor in reducing risks and producing a more sustainable formula for progress.

The Tällberg method is unique: it gathers diverse participants, encourages reflection, explorative conversations, and cross-sectors design sessions, and it integrates fully the experience of arts and nature. This provides leaders with a space to question their thinking and assumptions about the future, and to gain new insights into risks and opportunities.

Poetry at Tällberg is always deeply embedded in our conversation. Bring your passion, your words to Tällberg. We need your voice!

When I told colleagues at NAI about the invitation, they got very excited.

This is a big deal!

When I read the list of guest speakers this year my eyebrows climbed. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda. Luis Moreno Ocampo, prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. In previous years, Al Gore.

Tällberg seems to be Sweden's answer to Davos. A saner alternative. With art and nature in the mix. I am there.

Thank you, Aya.

Iran

Shades of Kenya burning 18 months ago.

Thinking how it must feel to be in Iran right now, desperately trying to get the truth out. Witnessing and experiencing violent state suppression of peaceful protest.

Hoping against hope that the Iranian people will achieve what they voted for. Something approaching the justice that was denied to Kenyans.

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)