My dear friend Toni Stuart, founder of I Am Somebody!, an initiative to give South African youth a voice by helping them narrate their stories, is also a poet.
Here is a recording of one of her recent performances in Stellenbosch outside Cape Town. At 8m46s, she tells my story as it was in the wake of the financial crisis in late 2008, and recites a poem, ‘For Imad’. She certainly makes me feel like I am somebody.
I Am Somebody! Newsletter – USA
Toni’s profile of a graffiti artist on p24 of Word Up! eZine, Aug 2011 edition
for Imad
it is the uncertainty,
he said.
it is the autumn,
she thinks
…green leaves turn brittle brown
through shades of ochre, orange and fear
4 o’clock darkness pulls
mists of unspoken words from mute mouths
and hearts
rattle
inside seemingly empty
bodies rattling
inside seemingly bursting train carriages
empty of happiness and hope
it is the uncertainty,
he said.
it is the autumn,
she thinks
…green leaves turn brittle brown
through shades of ochre, orange and fear
river’s wind rustles
the forgotten within
and a heart rattles inside your sunken skeleton
your
sculptured silhouette
breaks free
its nude screams
pierce through
makeshift masterpieces
that turned your purple music banal
and as those voices fall to silence
their sound turns to ash
a waste of passion, black
like onyx
that now lines your insides.
the absurd
makes you
wild
it is the autumn,
she thinks.
come walk with me through this cold November grey
along the Southbank of our lives
and let the dusk mist
settle on the winter of our unknowing souls
it is the uncertainty,
he said.
I know, she smiles,
I know.
-Toni Stuart
energy and a just transition 