Call for an Archive of AfroSonics
The collective improvisations of black America – and their profound impact on poetry and sound – are near impossible to find in the annals of US academe. In fact, their absence is as stark as the control of archiving is white, writes Harmony Holiday. Since the 1950s, jazz music and the literary imagination have […]
Imprinting Afrosonics
The collective improvisations of black America – and their profound impact on poetry and sound – are near impossible to find in the annals of US academe. In fact, their absence is as stark as the control of archiving is white, writes Harmony Holiday in her Call for an Archive of AfroSonics, first published in […]
Beautiful Voices – a call for AstroandAfrosonics recordings
In the spirit of National Poetry Month in America, Harmony Holiday‘s AstroandAfrosonics project is inaugurating a by-us-for-us iteration of an audio archive of poems and poetry-related material: We hope to record at least one poem or related-excerpt or piece of writing each day this month, with an emphasis on poems and texts by Black, Brown […]
Letters to Hillbrow
As part of a walk-in research project inspired by the novels Welcome to My Hillbrow (Phaswane Mpe) and The Quiet Violence of Dreams (K Sello Duiker), as well as Moses Taiwa Molelekwa’s solo-album Darkness Pass, the Johannesburg-based Keleketla! Library invited participating schoolchildren to write letters starting with the phrase “Dear Hillbrow”. The letter below is […]
Is Biko’s legacy being besmirched?
In October 2002, 25 years since Stephen Bantu Biko‘s death, poet James Matthews penned a letter questioning the segregation and infighting amongst political parties and “groupings” who professed “to hold true to his commitment.” We reread his missive, more than ten year later, as battles over Biko continue to rage. This letter first appeared in […]