Affirming our memories: Experiences and realities of feminist poets through the radio

abstract

“For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.”

Audre Lorde (1984:37)

Using Audre Lorde’s (1984) arguments about poetry as a “vital necessity of our existence” that moves us to “tangible action” and Toni Morrison's (1995) concept of ‘re-memory’, this article explores feminist poetry as a form of feminist media activism. The article examines SAfm’s Poetry in the Air (PitA) programme which aired between 2012 and 2016 and the ways in which it helped to share the realities of feminist poets to a wider audience. On this radio programme the presenter and featured poets demonstrated the use of poetry as a tool that attempts to affirm women and the community of feminists in South Africa.

Through the theoretical frame of feminist media theory and Black feminist thought it is highlighted how SAfm’s PitA contributed to dispelling the dangerous stereotype that feminists hate men and children. In this perspective piece the author highlights how feminist poetry is about the eradication of misogyny and heteropatriarchy in order to build thriving communities that benefit all who live in them, and are especially safe spaces for women and girls and feminised people of all genders. By exploring how feminist writers present their poetry on the radio programme it is concluded that SAfm’s PitA operated as a community builder concerned with the disruption of a hegemonic discourse that erases mainly the narratives of Black and Queer women. Viewed in this way, poetry becomes agency for the unheard, and places the unheard in public fora. Poetry thus can be used in the promotion of feminist activism and increased visibility for the fight for women's rights. Building on the author’s childhood reflections about radio as a consciousness-raising tool, this perspective piece goes on to demonstrate how radio continues to be a site for struggle, expression of political interests, mobilising collective action, and hailing political actors – in this case, feminist political actors.

keywords:

• poetry
• feminist media theory
• re-memory
• black feminist thought
• Poetry in the Air (PitA)

Notes

1. Madise and Lebeloane (2008) define the women’s Manyano as “prayer movements or organisations within the church. These organisations may be incorporative or exclusive. “

2. In Beloved, the main character Sethe is caught off guard by the rememory of something she did not remember that she knew. Through rememory, the writer is able to reconstruct past realities.

3. Poetry in the Air was broadcast on SAfm from 2012 to 2016 during each August month from Monday to Thursday, as a programme dedicated to women in South Africa.

4. Myesha Jenkins is an award-winning feminist poet and editor based in South Africa. She is the author of two collections of poems, Breaking the Surface and Dreams of Flight. She is the editor of To breathe into another Voice, an anthology of jazz poems.

5. Media activism is a broad category of activism that utilises media and communication technologies for social and political movements.

6. Black feminism thought was made popular by Patricia Hill Collins, whereby sexism, class oppression, gender identity and racism are inextricably bound together by Black women scholars, artists and intellectuals in an effort to privilege the lives and cultural productions of Black women. The way in which these concepts relate to each other was coined ‘intersectionality’ by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989.

7. “I love the word survival, it always sounds to me like a promise. It makes me wonder sometimes though, how do I define the shape of my impact upon this earth?” – reflection cut from an early draft of Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred and Anger by Audre Lorde (1983) (Audre Lorde Papers, Spelman College Archive). Similarly, in The Shape of My Impact Alexis Pauline Gumps (2012) says about survival “I love the word survival. Survival has never meant, bare minimum, mere straggling breath, the small space next to the line of death.”

8. Poem published in Mashile (2008:16).

9. Poem published in Mashile (2008:11).

10. Poem published in Mashile (2008:30).

11. Poem published in Mashile (2005:6).

12. Poem published in Mashile (2008:123).

13. Poem published in Xaba (2008:23).

14. The full poem can be read in Xaba (2008:7).

15. Poem published in Xaba (2008:45).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Natalia Molebatsi

NATALIA MOLEBATSI is a South African poet, singer and cultural worker. Her books are We Are: A Poetry Anthology, as editor (Penguin books) Sardo Dance (Ge’ko) and Elephant Woman Song (Forum). Her poetry and music CDs include Natalia Molebatsi & the Soul Making (2015) and Come as You Are: Poems for Four Strings (2013), both available on iTunes. Her academic writing is included in, among other journals, Scrutiny2, Rhodes Journalism Review, and Muziki. She is currently writing her MA thesis on ‘Women’s poetic representations on the radio’ through the University of South Africa. For more information visit: www.nataliamolebatsi.com. Email: [email protected]