'To be a Man' Anthology Review

'To be a Man' comprises of poems from the Kwani Poetry Competition 2007-2008 of the same title but also poems on sexuality, gender and human rights. Judged by John Sibi-Okumo, Stephen Derwent Partington, Muthoni Garland and Garnette Oluoch-Olunya, it brings out the best and the most stark perspectives on manhood with poems such as _____ revealing the sickness of debased humanity, with "Mercy Don't You Understand That I Am A Man" by Samuel Munene and _______ by ______ detailing the skewed priorities men have of their role and importance in marriage, fatherhood and society at large.

Tom Odhiambo, Professor of English at the University of Nairobi asserts in an AMKA forum that our poets are our historians and that they take a special importance where our history is not being written. This anthology presents a snapshot of Kenya's "disturbed masculinities" with poems such as ______ providing the reverse of our expectations of men, in our forbidding them to cry or to fall in love, in our disapproval of their empathy for women.

'To be a Man" is important for pronouncing our societal norms and ills as regards the role of our men and our women and in Part 2 for denouncing the gender and human rights abuses that occur only too often.

I hope to see more iniatives of this kind from Kwani and other publishers in the future. Poems from this collection will also be performed at the next Kwani Open Mic.

[author's apology: i have lost my anthology :( but once i buy another copy, i'll fill in the blanks. but i thought i should put it the draft up anyway to encourage debate]

Giles Elie-dit-cosaque

Elie-dit-cosaque blew me away today with his documentary "Zetwal" (Twinkl). Firstly because he successfully conveyed Robert Saint-Rose's conviction to go to the moon with a space shuttle fuelled by the force of Aime Cesaire's poetry. And secondly because it was a fiction documentary which not only impels you to think more critically about what you consume but inspires you to go to lengths with art, to push new boundaries and to test new methods.

The subject, Robert Saint-Rose dreams of going to the moon, dreams of being the first Martinican to step foot on it. And so he builds a spaceshuttle. He consults with friends and professors (albeit an English professor), he calculates and he designs and it is this energy that is reminiscent of our secret yearnings and our abandoned potentiality, as Patrick Chamoiseau (or the character of Patrick Chamoiseau) describes.

The scientist (I forget his name) or again the character of the scientist validates Saint-Rose's aspirations by explaining them as theories that we have not succeeded at "as yet", which effectively redeems Saint-Rose from appearing to be a fool to being a dreamer, a man before his time who believes in things that have not yet been proved, in things that have not yet been accepted by the greater public.

Primarily a tribute to Cesaire's poetry, Elie-dit-Cosaque aims as well to express a feel for the West Indies, the spirit of its people and the relationship between France and the DOM-TOMs. He fulfils as such with the storytelling skill of the interviewees, with the Martinican hope for seeing beyond the island and most importantly, with audience members moved to read Cesaire.

We are dared to think again about the thin line between fiction and truth and enlivened to possess as much belief and determination as our Robert Saint-Rose, who though fictional is now listed in some sites as among
men of achievement in Martinique. "And why not?" shrugs Elie-dit Cosaque.

'Why not?' exactly as the film concludes with a quotation from Jorge Luis Borges;

... All this is true because I invented it...

Kaha Mohamed Aden

Kaha performs "The Fourth Way" next Weds 27th October at the UoN, Education Building, rm 213, 3F from 0900-1100.

The Italian Institute of Culture posts her presentation as;

words, a song and pictures. It starts with a metaphor of the town - my home town - Mogadishu, that I left twenty four years ago and that in nineteen years of non-civil war takes on multiple meanings symbolised by four ways or roads. The first way is Mogadishu’s heart, facing the Indian Ocean and acting as a bridge to the East: almost a myth, in the nostalgic words of Ibn Battuta, the Marco Polo of the Islamic world. A past made of trade and commerce, cultural exchanges, knowledge and the scent of a thousand spices from Puntland becomes the starting point toward our contemporaneity. The second way introduces a less mythical but important stage in the development of the town where it has impressed a strong mark: the colonial period, with its monuments and the signs left by the Italian domination. The identity of the town and the Somali people is reshaped in the confrontation with colonialism and its ways, and so we have the third way, born out of the struggle against colonialism: the way of socialism, hope and emancipation as exemplified by the deeply changed role of women. The pictures of women from the ‘70s tell a tale of projects of emancipation, cultural mélange, opening to the outside world. A popular song dating from those years reminds us of those years: male voices criticizing the new habits, and feminine voices refusing a return to the past. But the future can be a dangerous joker and presents us with a leap back in to the past. Such words as “clan”, that seemed forgotten and finished, surface back in our life and tragically mark human relationships. From dictatorship, the fourth way leads straight to a bloody war among brothers, and to destruction as a total project. Women cast off the clothes of hope and freedom and lock themselves up, covering their slender bodies as if they were trying to protect themselves from a situation of violence and unpredictable danger.

and a bio of Kaha Mohamed Aden as being born in Mogadishu (Somalia). She graduated in economics at University of Pavia and took her Master degree at the European School for Advanced Studies in Cooperation and Development-IUSS in Pavia (Italy).

At the moment she is involved in the field of immigration and intercultural understanding including numerous conferences, seminars and roundtables throughout Italy.

In September 2010, the first collection of her short stories, Fra-intendimenti, was published by Nottetempo, Rome.

Sounds interesting! Check it out :)

Jane Bussman

 

I attended Jane Bussman's show tonight at the Vineyard and Wine Bar and was so glad I went! Well, I love comedy and would go anytime but what I loved most about the show was how she married entertainment with international affairs. How she brought out the conflict in Uganda but still managed to make us laugh about the small things; whether they be the indiosyncracies of the developing world (she described one NO sign at her hotel, preventing, army uniform, machetes, guns in the same circle as coca cola and slippers) or the ironies of the business of development ("the hotel was so expensive," she says, "you had to work at a charity to be able to afford to stay there.")

Perhaps a little nervous at first, she was a lot more relaxed during the second half. And it was only then that it dawned on me that perhaps this was a real story! Everyone knows that comedians make up, borrow or twist their anecdotes, so when I realised that she managed to make comedy out of truth/tragedy and some serious issues, that was when she really impressed me.

the addiction of music

there's two kinds of music they say. one that goes with your breathing (like the didgeridoos) and one that goes with the beat of your heart. the latter is the more common. to me, it explains why music is so influential, why music is so addictive. it's hard not to be drawn to or to remain removed from something that beats with you.

[BC music cites studies linking musical choices to personality types]

Self-Sacrifice

He finds it unattractive but I consider it the highest form of love. There's this quote (I don't remember where from) that I used to love sharing. It goes;

The world takes us to the silver screen, where couples kiss and says "this is love." God takes us to the foot of a cross where a man hangs for us and says "this is love."

Perhaps he means that I take it too far, that I lose myself in loving him more than loving myself. Only Asian films latch on to this I find, coupling their virtues like reservation and silence with the self-sacrifice kind of love. The Koreans particularly employ this with films such as, The Old Garden or (to be continued)

Fantasy Revenge

In my ideal scenario, I am the heroine. I get my just deserts. I punish the man.

In my less than ideal scenario but fantasy nonetheless, I smash the windows and slash the tyres of his car. That would be satisfying I think. Immature but satisfying.

I know women who bake dog shit into cakes for him, stir his toothbrush round and round the toilet bowl and sabotage his career a-la-"Addicted to Love" or "The First Wives Club". 

But in reality, I'm likely to stay around and to let him pummel me. Either I walk around and act like an open, desperate wound or I retreat so far into myself that I am unrecognisable. Our love like all gifts is our Achilles' heel. 

But the car destruction sounds good :)

That's the liberty of art, the ability to play God, to orchestrate fate and to exact just deserts and in so doing present a point, a reason for showing the world otherwise.