Africa Is a Country

African poets for Africa

African poets for Africa

By
Liz Timbs

Badilisha is rare: an African project funded by a mix of government and private art donors, facilitating media access to African poets.

Badilisha Poetry X-Change (via Wiki Commons).

Back in 2011, Badilisha Poetry X-Change was previously featured on this platform with a spotlight on its podcast, Badilisha Poetry Radio. But, there is a lot more to Badilisha than just the podcast. This is a digital poetry archive, preserving African poetry in both its written and oral forms. This dynamic archive is managed by Linda Kaoma (a poet in her own right) and is a product of the Cape Town-based Africa Centre, a pan-Africanist collective that aims to use culture as a means for social change (some other projects from Africa Centre that you might have come across include the Infecting the City festival and WikiAfrica).

Badilisha is rare, in a sense, because it is completely funded by South African donors, including the National Lottery, the National Arts Council of South Africa, and Spier Wine Farm. If you look back through most of the Digital Archive posts, the majority of African digital projects are either based in the U.S/Europe or funded by backers from these regions. But, this is an African project, aiming to broaden the access to African poets for Africans in particular who, without a forum such as this, have limited ability to be “inspired and influenced by their own writers and poets – negatively impacting their personal growth, identity, development and sense of place.” The initiative is also intended to bring African authors’ work to a wider audience, which it most certainly does.

Though this is a South African-based project, it’s content certainly isn’t limited to South Africa.  Content comes from around the world, from the United Kingdom to Senegal to Sri Lanka to Zimbabwe. You can also search for poets by language, with poems in major European languages (like English, French, German, and Portuguese) as well as African languages (like Xhosa, Zulu, Pedi, Venda, and Swahili, to name a few). You can also navigate the nearly work of the over 350 poets by theme and emotion. I lost myself in the History-themed poems for quite a while, especially “Things Fall Apart” by Hector Kunene.

Follow Badilisha on Facebook and Twitter. Explore this awesome collection and let us know what you think in the comments below. As always, feel free to send me suggestions in the comments or via Twitter of sites you might like to see covered in future editions of the series.

Further Reading

Not exactly at arm’s length

Despite South Africa’s ban on arms exports to Israel and its condemnation of Israel’s actions in Palestine, local arms companies continue to send weapons to Israel’s allies and its major arms suppliers.

Ruto’s Kenya

Since June’s anti-finance bill protests, dozens of people remain unaccounted for—a stark reminder of the Kenyan state’s long history of abductions and assassinations.

Between Harlem and home

African postcolonial cinema serves as a mirror, revealing the limits of escape—whether through migration or personal defiance—and exposing the tensions between dreams and reality.

The real Rwanda

The world is slowly opening its eyes to how Paul Kagame’s regime abuses human rights, suppresses dissent, and exploits neighboring countries.

In the shadow of Mondlane

After a historic election and on the eve of celebrating fifty years of independence, Mozambicans need to ask whether the values, symbols, and institutions created to give shape to “national unity” are still legitimate today.

À sombra de Mondlane

Depois de uma eleição histórica e em vésperas de celebrar os 50 anos de independência, os moçambicanos precisam de perguntar se os valores, símbolos e instituições criados para dar forma à “unidade nacional” ainda são legítimos hoje.