When was the last time you felt the warm scalp of a woman Run your fingers through her hair Twisted her natural locks through your fingers Or walked your fingers through the rows of braids Just like walking through the fields of corn When did you see the true beauty of your African Woman? Or…
Born To Gain or To Suffer
Grandmother! Our sage of our grandmother gathered us Beneath the big oak tree On a very beautiful night She began to sing: Born to gain or Born to suffer Born to gain or Born to suffer She began to utter to us: Great men are sons of good men Whose hearts are walls Weak men…
Have You Been Lonely Before?
Cheap perfume Misted over greying wool Lightly pressing against his chest Concealing that grizzly beastly self Sculpted around those not-so voluptuous Muscles rounding his gentle beastly self Do you ever sleep with your eyes wide open Wake bright and early inflated red-eyed Do you ever imagine shadows marching on the walls Wake ankles toes wobbly…
Black List
Merge discrete metals to smithereens blacksmith who ain’t black and don’t smith Black Africa a golden ring with a diamond a diamond ring with a golden rim? I am Black not because I am African Black is what I feel an explicit soul speaking lingo a never melting candle lighting deeper character Africa is my…
My Crush, for Many Years
Melanin ambience, 6’3, broad chest, well defined arms wet round scarlet puckered lips, enlivenly gleamy eyes I looked at him as he walked my way The appearance of the earth in the galaxy like a band of light seen in the night’s skies and formed from the stars which cannot be distinguished with the naked…
Jambula tree
When Sylvie and I are six we eat jambula till our tongues turn indigo then we travel home with night licking our heels. In the morning, our foreheads still anointed in violet blessings, we twine our stick-arms around its branches and stuff banana fibre dolls in the hollows of its roots. We swaddle make-believe babies…
vangile gantsho
vangile gantsho is a poet, healer and co-founder of impepho press. Unapologetically black woman, she has partecipated in literary events and festivals both in Africa and abroad. She is the author of two poetry collections: Undressing in front of the window (2015) and red cotton (2018). She holds an MA from the University currently known…
Oh, Woman
Woman, I see a woman Everyday in the mirror I see a woman And anytime I look at mama I see a woman Wonderful woman, an African woman, mother of nature Yeeea yea Beautiful woman, Yeeea yea Beautiful woman, Yeeea yea Yeeea yea…Yeeea yea… And so the storyteller tells his tales His tales of an…
Piece of advice
Don’t give feelings names Don’t name your moods Don’t give it anything that will make it seem even more real don’t humanize it We get more attached to things when we name them, but without truly understanding what they are, we make our own misery from scratch Because sometimes we find ourselves calling for it…
Black Photosynthesis
Deforestation isn’t just the cutting down of trees. It’s the cutting down of black women’s self esteem. It’s when you turn us into pretty furniture to sit on. Make textbooks out of our bodies And then use our broken spines to bind them It’s when you pull us out of the earth We were so…