 Yeah, I'm broadcasting now Kumi good afternoon everyone Welcome to the source festival of ideas and to our poetry masterclass My name is Harris last bus and I work in the alumni office here at source As someone whose day job is to be in touch with our old students. I'm delighted to introduce our alumna Suheema Mansookan who will run our poetry masterclass today Suheema is an educator writer and poet from West Yorkshire in the UK Her writing ask questions about questions of history race knowledge and power Interrogate narratives about Muslims migrant gender and violence in her works She's less interested in this grouping such narratives than asking who benefits for them Suheema has won the run-up for the roundhouse washing slump in 2017 with a viral poem This is not a humanizing poem which gained two million views and she was shortlisted for the outspoken price of poetry in 2018 in 2019 she was a Nicola Thorow fellow at the roundhouse and she's currently an associate artist at the theater company freedom soon did studios that is for 2021 She's the author of the poetry collection post-colonial banter and co-author of the anthology a fly girl's guide to the university being a woman of color at Cambridge and other institutions of power and See also hosts the breaking binary's podcast Welcome Suheema and thank you so much for being with us Thanks, thanks so much Harris Hi everybody, Assalamu alaikum peace good afternoon I'm really excited to be here today. I didn't quite realize the format was a webinar So I'm definitely feeling a lack of ability to engage with you All but we can engage with each other and we will be doing so in the chat function So I just wanted to say Before we start please feel free to just chat as much as you want in the chat function Hopefully you can see it access from the bottom of your screens And if you just make sure you're writing to all attendees then we can all kind of interact with each other So this masterclass as some of you know is part of decolonizing it's not just the buzzword festival at Sawas and I think it's interesting To kind of situate this masterclass in that setting I'm gonna spend a bit of time sort of framing what I how I see poetry to fit within that And I just want to say before I do you know Have a notebook handy or your word app or whatever is that you're using today to kind of write poetry make notes. I Am of the opinion that you know try and note down whatever any steps of phrases words anything that sticks out to you Even in this kind of preamble or just anything that comes to your own mind from maybe anything that I provoke for you and I'll probably ask Also at some point for us to just like intro ourselves even just in the chat because it's nice to know who's here But yeah to begin with I Think it's interesting to think about poetry in this context of decolonizing And I think for me this immediately evokes You know the notion of decolonizing is not just the metaphor I think it's important for us to remember that in this context that decolonizing If it is to have any meaning has to have a material meaning it has to you know Functionally change relationships change systems of extraction of exploitation of power and so I think it would be easy to say that in that context then poetry Doesn't you know it doesn't have a place. What place does poetry have? But to the contrary actually I would say that When we know that language has been so central to upholding coloniality when we know that language has been What limits or allows for our imaginations but also what has been You know made to define us we have been made to define ourselves through language You know nations have been named we give language to decide kind of the categories of existence of people human value ontology all these different things you know language has a really important function and Even on a very basic level of you know the English language as a tool of colonizing as a tool of kind of capturing minds It's as a tool of assimilation of people into a certain bureaucracy hierarchy, etc. So With language being that I think poetry does have a place and I think it does have a place in kind of fracturing dismantling disrupting Relationships of power and a coercion domination. So I Mean just a few quick points before we start I mean we will get into the poetry in a second But I think it's important to situate poetry then more broadly in the way that I like to approach poetry So for me poetry was always something that you know, I grew up in the UK At school when we did poetry, you know, it wasn't particularly interesting. It was something that felt very classed It was very inaccessible It was in a language that you know whilst it was English It was a very certain style of English that wasn't really you know vernacular wasn't really something I shared with You know wasn't it shared with me and my classmates And I think there's a there was a formality with it as well that kind of asserted that this is something that isn't for you It's not something that people like you do and I mean that in both like a not even both But in a you know racialized way in a classed way and even in a gendered way and I think Poetry sort of has all these connotations about what it was on the other hand I think where I am now, you know, I acknowledge and understand poetry to be something very different to that And when I think of poetry, I'm thinking of a tradition of prison poets of anti-colonial resistors I'm thinking of a global tradition of you know guzzles of songs of different types of literature, you know, we think of Somalia is the Nation of poets we think of Persian we think of indigenous peoples across the world I Think when I think of poetry, I'm thinking of oral traditions. I'm thinking about the fact that The majority of people for the majority of time have not experienced poetry as a written and read allowed Medium but as something that was always oral that it was always audible that was shared that was Spoken and performed and so I I think it's also important to think about poetry as Disruptive to the Eurocentric logics of history so something that was used to archive our histories right to tell stories We call this thing storytelling right but storytelling has always been a medium of archiving I would say and of kind of Avading what the the colonizing kind of gaze of what history is you have all these disruptive Memories, oral histories, testimonies, records, songs, poems That tell us something else that tell us I would say that kind of disruptive underbelly of history So I think of that and I think Poetry is a form of speaking Lends itself to disruption and to fracturing and so that's where I want us to situate ourselves today And so if a colonial gaze or a colonial language is one that seeks to flatten us to Define us and divide us then I think poetry can push back at that it can question it can You know through form through style through content and and through performance and through so much more Through the ways we embody it and we don't I think poetry can become a kind of a language that is other and I know obviously I'm not the first person to say this but this is the tradition that I'm trying to situate today in And I think also of Audre Lorde's litany for survival when she says that you know poetry is also about survival, right? And I think there's there's an essence and an essence in which poetry has always been about survival about resistance and I think in this moment it's exciting to think of it also as Maybe one of the few spaces that we can imagine alternative visions of the future And I say that because you know, it's I think we are trapped by the language and the images that we often see repeated around us and I think poetry provides a place for us to kind of Speak back and push back and kind of provide our own So the way that this session will work It's quite simple. I'm going to provide a series of prompts I'm going to be sharing some resources some poems some ideas and I'm just going to give you the time to to write basically and In the last half hour I'm hoping that people might want to share some of their work And if so, you'll kind of be able to be facilitated to come up here where in this Bit of the internet that I'm in this space and be able to share your work And I think we can also probably you know, if you wanted to do that I'm sure we can stop the recording for that part or whatever and you know, I'm sure we can make a way for that happen I think yeah, the main just I'm just looking in the box now for a second. So I can see some of you introduced yourselves and it would be great, you know to hear from others too. So I'm hearing, you know Really interesting point about yet poetry as folklore nursery rhymes that can be used to explore childhood trauma. That's really fascinating. And I think That's also that thing of poetry being a form of embodied knowledge. Like I think there's a way in which we Are able to express types of knowledge that are not really Recognized as legitimate whether it's an educational institutions or elsewhere because you know, it's not a Kind of empirical knowledge, right? It's a knowledge that's embodied and I think poetry allows us to express that Yes, in Nigeria poetry has been used as a tool for recording revolution history facilitating protest exactly And this is a tradition I want us to tap into today If other people would like to just maybe just like say your name Yeah, if you just say, you know, your first name. Hi, I'm such and such. Maybe where you're watching from today I'm in Leeds not particularly interesting weather outside It would just be nice for me to, you know, feel like I'm not talking to myself So please do so And I'll move into the the first kind of section Hi Hibba. Hi Kelsey. Hi Francis Hi Leah from Newcastle. Great Wow Montreal amazing. We're really glad to have you here. Hi Saffa That's cool. Nice to East London, of course. Good to have East London in the mix. Hi Tanha Hi Sheffali. Sorry if I said your name wrong From Chelmsford. Zoya from Birmingham. Hi Maya from SOAS. From SOAS. That looks just like another city Um, cool Sheffali. Sorry. Thank you. Nida from India. Watching in London right now. Okay, awesome Ashika, history of art student. Awesome. Somerset, Selma Praveen from India Awesome I can't tell if that's Ayanto or Lanto. Sorry, really sorry Kelsey from South West London studying. Awesome I hate it everyone. Yeah, I'm not surprised Yeah, I'm really sorry to hear that and Simultaneously not surprised Alfie, okay Awesome. Keep him coming. I'm gonna jump in so To begin with I think I just want us to be able to kind of Get in the zone. So wherever you are. I don't know what space you're in I don't know if you you know if it's quiet. It's noisy If you're on your phone or your laptop computer, whatever I think just try to like create a bit of space for you in this moment I'm just gonna get us to do free write basically. So if I'm sure a lot of you do know But if anyone who doesn't know what free write is the goal is basically to not have a goal I think a lot of times when we write particularly as adults and I find this a lot when I do workshops with Young people and children They can write they don't need permission. I think sometimes as adults we maybe Feel that we need permission to write So the goal of a free write is just to actually write with nothing There's no kind of no one's gonna read this. You have to give it to anybody. You don't even have to read it back It's just to get your kind of mind in that creative space And I would say one of the good things about free write as well is is not to stop. So when you're writing Don't you know often I think we would kind of stop to think like what's the next word that should come Is it's going to make sense? Well, you know, is that conveying the right feeling the idea here is not to really stop just write really and I'm going to give you some prompts because I think I want us to start in a space where we are kind of In the same headspace But these prompts are to get us really thinking outside of today's goal I think it's really gets thinking outside of the lenses that are upon us so to move to finding our own voice And what I mean by that is that I think there's a tendency to kind of write within either paradigms or labels or speak back to categories that We've been told that we we are or we should And that's fine. And what I mean by that is, you know sometimes As an example, I guess people who are of a certain diaspora If that's the thing that people, you know, feel that they are then they I think there's a tendency to kind of write about, you know, what it means to be just to ask for what it means to be And I think there's the space for that. I think that's our opinion. I think it's important but what I also want us to think about today is What it means to to to not think about writing to a particular In a language or to an audience that I think can voyeuristically kind of consume our traumas or the different experiences that we have Um And I'm not interested in underwriting kind of I am not poems and what I mean by that is often we Spend a lot of time. Yeah, I think about Toni Morrison's quote a lot where she said Um, they will tell you you have no history. So you spend 20 years proving that you do They will tell you your skulls are too small to spend 20 years proving that they're not and after that, you know 40 years have gone by and I'm paraphrasing the quote is much more beautiful But the point being I think I'm not interested in today. I was writing those poems Poems that kind of are pushed back and explain and say I'm not what you say I am I'm much more interested in us finding who we say we are and then that's it and there's no Justification there's no disclaimer. There's no caveats Um, and you can take that, you know to mean whatever it means for you wherever you are So I'm just going to share some prompts With you and you could use these to prompt your free write Alternatively, you can just write your own free write. I'm going to share them in the chat But I'm also just going to read them to you so The first prompt and this is just like what you would write on your piece of paper and then keep writing and don't stop for five minutes Um, so I've just come up with four. They're a bit random, but I hopefully might tap into something for you. So um, the first one is When nobody is looking I can be The second one is when I turn away from the usual questions asked of me I find The third one is if I could find my own words to describe myself, I would say And the fourth one is when I listen to my inner voice I hear dot dot dot So I'll just put them in here in the chat and I'm going to give us um There we go, uh five minutes. So till three 23 24 Um, I'm going to put myself on mute feel free to play music if that's how you write But I would actually say for this free write maybe just tap into the quiet Um, listen to yourself. So get your paper get your pen laptop whatever Don't stop writing. No one's going to read it. Um five minutes off you go Take the next 30 to 40 seconds to Finish up wherever you're at and don't feel pressured like that was just If you got something out, but you got something out, but if you didn't at least move over in something now So, um, I just saw a couple of more comments in the in the chat as well So hi to those people. I didn't say hi to um, and uh, those Yeah, two just two interesting things I wanted to pick up on and one was um, hoping to use poetry as propagation and I think like that's definitely what I want us to get out of Today it's to some extent to whatever extent you want to bring that into your work And the other was around um, English language itself and kind of how that's you know English has been such a tyrannical um experience for so many of us um And I I would really encourage you to write in whatever language feels comfortable And definitely write in English even if you don't you know, if you kind of feel that imposter syndrome or whatever it is because you know English is definitely not there shouldn't be at this stage. I think any ownership over a language that his has kind of so Uh So mutated but also been I hope kind of transformed into different things in different places. So yeah That's just a note. So I'm going to move us into um, the next exercise. Well done. You've all got something on your pages already So that's just because I know we'll all be at different um stages with this So the next poem um, sorry the the first poem I'm going to share with you guys Is by Asata Shakur and um, I'm sure most of you know who she is and if you don't Just give you a quick background. So Asata Shakur was born in 1947. Um, she's still alive She's in cuba in hiding from the us government because she was a member of what was called the black liberation army in the us and a freedom fighter basically who exposed the tyrannies of the us capitalist white supremacist machine and she was targeted pursued harassed by the fbi for years um, she was then charged with several crimes. Um It was a huge manhunt for her until they eventually um got her and she was held in, you know, awful psychologically terrorizing conditions, um, she was charged with murder armed robbery kidnapping and this is all despite kind of medical evidence To the contrary kind of suggesting, you know, she couldn't have done these things clearly. She was political Prisoner and attacked due to her politics, but she escaped prison in 1979 and since then she has been in political asylum in cuba Or she sought political asylum in cuba Um, but yeah, it's quite extraordinary. I mean, she's still on the fbi's most wanted terrorist list Um, and so I think it's it's important to um, you know, situate her work there What does it mean to be so politically threatening to the status quo to, you know, the imperialist? center, um, so we're gonna look at her poem affirmations I'm gonna put it up on screen share. Um, I'm saying that I'm not like doing it And then I just want us I'll weed it out. Um, and just in the chat box feel free to kind of just Respond with anything that stood out to you what lines you like any thoughts any responses any reflections. Um So here we go. Let me actually Just share it So, uh, hopefully you can all see that Uh, I'll weed it out. Um, I don't know if it's too small. So I'll just zoom in Um, so it's called affirmation I believe in living I believe in the spectrum of better days and gamma people I believe in sunshine in windmills and waterfalls tricycles and rocking chairs And I believe that seeds grow into sprouts and sprouts grow into trees I believe in the magic of the hands and in the wisdom of the eyes I believe in rain and tears and in the blood of infinity I believe in life And I have seen the death parade march through the torso of the earth Sculpting mud bodies in its path I have seen the destruction of the daylight and seen bloodthirsty maggots prayed to and saluted I have seen the kind become the blind and the blind become the bind in one easy lesson I have walked on cut glass. I have eaten crow and blunderbread and breathe this stench of indifference I have been locked by the lawless handcuffed by the haters gagged by the greedy And if I know anything at all, it's that a wall is just a wall and nothing more at all. It can be broken down I believe in living. I believe in birth I believe in the sweat of love and in the fire of truth And I believe that a lost ship Steered by tired seasick sailors can still be guided home to port So I'm just going to see if I can actually still access the chat. Yeah, here it is. So yeah, um Feel free to kind of respond with what maybe stands out to you what lines you like. Oh, I can't seem to Okay, I will just have to stop share. No, that can't be right. Can I Uh, I found it. Okay. Yeah, um feel free to friend. Yeah sharing the chat like any lines that stood out to you anything that you found interesting any imagery I mean, what is what is going on here? Yeah, a wall is just a wall I think that's one of the most famous um lines of the poem that a wall is what are just a wall and nothing more at all It can be broken down. Um Locked by the lawless. Yeah, I think that's really strong and so applicable always Um that anything man may can be undone. Absolutely What stood out to me was the theme of contrast extremes of human experience But life prevails and continues despite everything absolutely I think you have on the one hand this imagery of seeds growing into sprouts sprouts going into trees and the kind of Inevitability of I would say like natural resistance and then at the same time you have like maggots bloodthirsty maggots You have you know people trying to destroy daylight itself And I think yeah, I think there's something really Interesting and that is anything else the people Um, yeah, I mean anything else that stood out or that that kind of linked to anything else that you're thinking about um So I think this is a really strong, um poem. I'm gonna Leave it here. Um, I have seen the death parade sculpting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's such a strong But sculpting with bodies in its path so visual and powerful. Yeah otherworldly Transition from kind to blind to bind really very clear to me. Absolutely. Um So what I actually want us to do um is Uh, oh, yeah, so I think oh gosh, sorry. It's actually kind of chaotic to have screen showing yet so What what stands out to me as a kind of essence of this poem and the reason I selected it Is that I think this embodies in a way and there's many different ways it could look What I see as kind of a turning away from Um answering type of poem and what I mean by that is I think a lot of times a lot of poetry Particularly when it's to do I suppose with Power dynamics and particularly racial and kind of global colonial power dynamics I think it sometimes can can be a lot about Answering this question of you know, um, what what we are not so what I like about this poem is that it is not I am not da da da. I am not this. Um, I do not believe that I think by by it being an I believe poem an affirmative poem. I think This takes us into that space of Rather than turning just rather than just turning away from it's turning to something And I think as after she called has kind of embodied this thing or it doesn't she she's kind of Done away with I would say the colonial trap of answering to this colonial gaze this voyeur who always demands that you answer Right explain yourself make yourself intelligible rather than making herself intelligible to you know any kind of colonial technologies Whether that's through language or through anything else I see this as she's saying forget that I don't care I'm this poem is about me and what I believe in and how how belief itself has a kind of fire to it um And I think that for me is what I'm interested in in here. And so I'm gonna Set you kind of two different tasks um And I would suggest you do them in this order Um and take 10 minutes for both both of them And you know if you're a free sticker break in the middle or whatever and grab a cup of tea or whatever you need to do But for the first 10 minutes I would like you to take any image from this poem Take any any image and and use that as a prompt to write your own poem So It could be as somebody said earlier that you know the visceral image is really um the visceral imagery. Sorry is really um good So, you know, maybe it's you take the line by just seeing the destruction of the daylight Right and you take that and now you apply that to your experiences your life Whatever it is that you you know that I vote for you and from there you you use that as the first line of your poem you see what I mean so Now I've seen the destruction of the daylight and now turn that into whatever piece that is for you You know, maybe that you would just extend one of her metaphors It may be that you move on and you take that poem somewhere else It may be that you use it to tell a story that you need to tell But I would like as I say to I would like you to situate in that this kind of feeling that we're talking about right now Where we're not answering to anybody. We're kind of situating ourselves What I don't need to do is choose the line I believe in because the second prompt and the second activity I want you to do for 10 minutes is take I believe in And I want you to essentially write your own Version of this poem and I say that not in the sense that I want you to copy You know, it's style content or anything like that. But the notion that I talked about earlier is affirmative Like using our own Language imagery word definitions to talk about ourselves because I think one of the most violent parts of colonialism And what you know, what justifies and enables those material extractions that material kind of, you know Domination is Defining things as yours, right? So Europeans say this is ours or the Europeans say this is lesser This is uncivilized. This is barbaric. We are superior. We are whatever the words in the language are this language Has allowed and affirmed violence, right? And so on the other hand, I want us to use language to affirm our own You know, definitional paradigms. Basically, what is it that we believe in who are we so I'll put that in the chat I'll try and yeah, I'll I'll leave this up at the chat. So Hopefully that makes sense So I'll give you basically, um There we go. So first test take one line use it's a prompt to begin your own poem Um continue for 10 minutes and the second one begin with I believe and write your own version So if you have any questions Let me know otherwise I'll bring us all back together and you know about 20 minutes. Um Yeah, I'll be here again Put yourself in the context that you need to be in if you need music if you don't whatever I'll leave this up so you can take the lines and you can refer back to it It's a bit blurry. Okay. Um I think you can I think you actually have the option if you're on zoom to Um, select how you're viewing the screen so you can actually zoom it you can choose for it to be zoomed in on Because the only thing is if I zoom in Um, you'll lose part of the poem So if you can find that option Um, you'll see you are able to zoom in Otherwise if you actually if you just yeah, thank you Zoya. Yeah, if you just um google search it then You'll have it so just to say that you might want to move into the second exercise now if you've Um been working on the first one um, and again with this, um Just begin with you can begin with either I believe in living or just I believe and Don't feel tied to the structure. Um of this poem yours might literally just be a list of things you believe but it might be moving you towards Something that is a space of not just what we don't stand for but what you do You guys still have a few minutes. Um, if you're finding it really hard Honestly, just make a list like I believe in it. I believe in I believe in and it can start with really basic things And it can move into things that you might be surprised about um But yeah, try not to do it with too much pressure on yourself And if you find it difficult go have a cup of tea Leave your computer try writing in a paper pad instead. You know, I mean just give yourself options and don't be hard on yourself We've got maybe two more minutes Okay, one more minute guys, um Me included just finish your last the last sentence you run. Oh, no worries. Thank you. Um Thanks for being here and take care um Yeah, okay guys, so, um if we all come back now, um I don't know how people found that let me know in the chat like how was that? I know some people said it was a bit difficult. Um I'd be interested to know if it was um Yeah, how it was for you um, I also just had to go, um writing on my phone notes and it was Yeah, it wasn't I think the point isn't like you're trying to write the best thing ever But I think I found it interesting to try and think about It's really tempting to keep writing about, you know, what I Don't agree or believe when um, but I think it's interesting to write like this. Um I tend to try and read something that I've also just written in the workshop just to prove that we don't exp like I find it really hard to write under pressure and time too. Um, and I think that's really natural But hopefully if I read this it will encourage some of you to share um what you've written, um At the end too. So yeah, I don't really know like how much of this makes sense. But these were some of the things I wrote um I believe in people I believe in their stories of unimaginable feats and unevidenced reasons I believe in trust in needing only the presence of a person to invite them into your home I believe in generosity and I've seen people hoard what is not theirs in order to keep it from who's it was I have seen the beach become the border and the border become the prison making empty shells of storytellers making us make cages of each other I believe in disobedience. I believe in holding hands The even a life jacket filled with lead cannot bring you to the ocean floor if someone is holding your hand I believe in holding. I believe in not letting go. I have seen children hold onto promises years past the time They were broken. I have seen dreams birth and desolation set fire to the waking nights of tyranny So I believe in imagination I believe in other possibilities and the even as deep as a line has been dug into sand It can be washed away For the sea moves to its own rhythm and I believe a multitude of people holding hands is a type of sea I believe in motion. I believe in practice. I believe in the work of love and our best ideas cannot happen alone I believe in beginnings because I believe in ends and I believe anything with the beginning can be brought to an end I believe in people So yeah, not not not not something that I would necessarily Keep as that, but it's like something to work from I think whatever you've written today. Hopefully you can see it as A draft to build on. Um, so I hope you at least have a couple of lines in what you've written that you you are happy with um so thinking on the same theme of Asking questions back Revealing structures and not focusing so much on ourselves Not having to explain ourselves, but instead just revealing what we see what we experience what we hear what we know And I would like to emphasize on that as well revealing what we know. I think poetry and this idea of I think particularly as artists focus on belief like believing is as a A kind of validation of the truth that we know to be true Even when the whole world says it is not and I think that is inherently a practice of of of decoloniality in that sense of If colonization and coloniality Tells us there is only one truth and that truth is a truth that has never benefited us Then I think decolonizing and decoloniality and thinking and speaking in that way Is about saying that our embodied knowledge our feelings what we believe what we see what we Experience in the world is of an in itself a truth And that through sharing that truth We can hold a mirror up to The world and so rather than a kind of the truth itself being the focus that this is inherently Where I want you to look it's through my personal truth I am showing you there is something wrong in this world. I'm showing you the structures. I'm revealing the system So I hope that makes some sense And I thought a good example of kind of the different at the like the way I differentiate between a poem that kind of moves us to that Looking holding up the mirror. Basically. That's how I see it So there's poems that look in the mirror and then there's poems that hold up the mirror to the onlooker to the listener and That's what I'm interested in that second one how we move there um, and I think an interesting example of this a lot of poems, um, I think It's like I think it's a lot of poems that um, I've heard um Kind of sense on names like people's names, right? And sometimes when we're thinking around white supremacy, but particularly colonialism, um, I think we think about things like Names being mispronounced. Um, and we're thinking about language. We think about this as well and I think that's Fine and it has its place But I think what I'm saying when I say like the difference between looking in the mirror and holding the mirror up Is there's a difference between a poem that focuses on the pain or the kind of erasure of a mispronounced or Misunderstood name and then there's another poem that says the mispronunciation is not the problem There's something else going on and it's that that I want to bring your attention to and I want to Deindividualize the issue essentially and shed my light on the systems. So I've chosen a poem to share with you that um, it's a slam poem. It's a group slam poem. Um, I I really enjoy slam poetry. I think it's really important and I think it's um, you know, I I think it's often seen as like a Derivative of like real poetry, but obviously throughout the history of the world The majority of poetry has been performance and storytelling and performative in that sense. So, um I'm gonna share this poem on my screen. Hope you can all hear it Um, and I think just to say try to watch for that shift where I think it starts in a way of kind of Oh, you know, here's the personal story and then I think there's a real shift where it moves to We're revealing something about the coloniality of the world through The experience we have of having names Um, and so I'm going to share that um on my screen. So hopefully this work Um, give me one second No, that is not it And again, just feel free to note down anything that sort of stands out to you. Um, what you think is useful and bear in mind that um I'm obviously going to be using this as a prompt Oh, sorry, sorry Prompt the next exercise. So I'm going to share my screen in just a second Yeah Right, sorry, that's a bit chaotic. So hopefully you can see that can anybody just put in the chat box that you can see that So I Know what's happening Yeah, you can see. Okay, great. So here we go. And can you hear as well Teachers used to say your behavior is just like your last name Unforgettable in school. I learned a lot more about other people's names rather than the ones closer to my own as if madam We're so much harder to say then Shikovsky Michelangelo Eisenhower like our last names were made of barb wire Shipping the flesh of those trying to conquer the meanings in their mouths See my parents named me george, but honestly, I always hated the name george It reminds me of some old dead white guy being a young alive asian boy. It was hard for me to make the connection I realized my first name didn't match my background before I knew how to spell assimilation I always wanted a name that set the bar high that tumbled out of mouths So I'm assaulted into a room in split the air a name like socchi or anakaona But although I must have punched inside the placenta my parents decided on something placid Elizabeth a name for princesses pampered women and perfume a name full of grace a name easily washed down with milk patrick Meaning leader etymology irish and although I speak french I am from cameroon by mille que et voilà un lyon and domtab I would rather a name that will make a throat swell into a song rather than a sigh your name is a song So now I call myself pages so I can write my own story It is the only name that I have ever owned and I wanted a name of dominican hills rising And campesinos uprising instead of long lived the queen but shortened my name to live so colonizers had less to hold on to You see in japan in japan your last name comes first There's an emphasis on family but in america your nickname comes first because there's an emphasis on accessibility Our parents have to dumb down our identity to our family to fit into a straight jacket society You're on countless occasions. I've introduced myself and people would say shit like But what's your real name though? That don't sound very ethnic. You don't look like a george or a patrick and elizabeth That's because my name wasn't given to me. It was given to the rest of the country because when Because when they hear because when they hear names like george patrick elizabeth what they hear is power class intellect but names like pettimonte Corvangene Sound like foreign impoverished illegal what they hear is go back where you came from your name is a dirt pit It is a black hole But what they don't know is that black holes be the brightest source of light I've always wished my name was dressed in chain mail that it was a heavy name of thick died syllables Shopped down with short blades. So when I have my own children, I'ma name them something special Something to make people stumble on and guilt shift over something to make their skin a little thicker than mine Something to remind their classmates of the last samurai instead of the first president something powerful something real real ethnic Something unforgettable So I I love that poem I've listened to it so many times, but um, I do. I think it's really um I really feel like it does. Yeah It is amazing. I I'm glad I'm actually doing that. That's not just me. Um I mean I before I go into what I love it. I mean did any what stood out like why is it why is it so moving? Why people saying they've got you know, they're moved Um, yeah, definitely. I'll share the link of course But yeah, let me know why why why it's so moving Yeah, that's the link in case you want to you know, share it Yeah, their voices the energy definitely, um and I think Going back to the like the actual content itself like I think for me I mean, there's so many lines that stand out, you know, even just a lot, you know Some are sorted out of mouths and split the air Um princesses pampered women in perfume. There's a real alliteration. They put like a lot of effort Um, I think it's really powerful when um pages the third guy when he Um erupts into not speaking English because we suddenly like lose the kind of Um intelligibility again, we can't control we can't understand and I think that speaks to that wider thing of the poem Um, and I think this idea of them imagining their own names that you know, that these are the names we've now given ourselves It's about imagining an alternative relationship to modernity to white supremacy where they are invading You know, she said my name is now too too. Um short. It's lizz. It's lizz rather than elizabeth So I made it short so they can't be kind of caught as easily and um, you know The guy called patrick he's changed his name to pages so he can kind of reclaim it and I think The reason for me the line that stood out the most I mean tell me if you agree or disagree but was the the line where they say Um, that's because my name wasn't given to me. It was given to the rest of the country And what I call those moments in poems are yeah exactly my exactly I call those moments revelatory moments in poems where There's a kind of story a story has been told a personal story. This is a story about people's names You know, oh people say is that really your name? Okay, that that's that's a poem in of itself Right, but when they move that poem to that revelatory moment where they they they exposed to us through this kind of This this kind of symbolic twist they exposed this poem you thought was about me thought is about my name is about us It's about you society about a system of white supremacy of colonialism Of linguistic authority of of language of assimilation of all these kinds of they've managed to touch on a huge birth of things and I think That to me is what I'm trying to get at here when I'm talking about this move that we can make in our poems Where I think This goes back to what somebody said at the beginning about can we use poetry to provoke to disrupt and then that's what I think I think we can is the answer and I think we can disrupt through that through kind of this this use of words to reveal And it doesn't take I think sometimes people think That takes writing something really huge really grand Um, but I would suggest instead We all poems are that are powerful are powerful because they are personal And you know as we all know the personal is inherently political But sometimes that inherent politicalness has to be revealed. I think Um, and I think that's the beauty of it So I wasn't quite sure if this prompt would work for everybody, but I think that it can Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's such a universal experience people mispronouncing Ethnic names exactly exactly I completely agree and I think That's why it works as well. It's something that we kind of I feel like you kind of think you know where that poem is going and then It becomes something slightly different and to be honest You know, I I didn't expect that when I heard it the first time and I think that's why I love it so much Is that it's like, oh, it takes me to that place and didn't know it's going to take me um, so as an exercise as a prompt What I would like um you to do or us all to do um is So take I would say take your own name If this feels not applicable Then take a part something Personal to you or take something a line from that poem perhaps watch that poem And use a line from that but otherwise I would say take your own name as a prompt and just for um 10 minutes I'll say I want you to use a similar notion of Everybody I think has a story to do with their name, right? Everybody has something And whether that's just even explaining the meaning of your name, right? Some people have really like complex meanings for their names or it can be an interaction to do with your name A story a time it was you know, whatever something to do with your name A story but through telling that story. I want you to expose a power dynamic I don't want the poem to to kind of begin and end on that same Story if you see what I mean through telling that story. I want you to tell Something else. How do you come along with that revelatory moment? So I think it's actually about you delving into that story and its deepest depth because I think sometimes when we delve into our own stories We get we kind of fixate on the feeling as the kind of end of it in itself But I think if you push past the feeling and you ask there's certain questions you can ask and I'm about to tell you now I think that will help you right so And I'll put this in the chat afterwards as well But I think what I want you to kind of see this this prompt as is Tell us about the world that we live in Through telling us about your name. Okay, and that might sound complex, but I think what I would ask you to do is Try to start begin and it may be as simple as beginning with my name is xyz. My name is tahima tahima means da da da And now move into a story and the questions I would ask to maybe help you revealing revelatory moment is Who benefits so in the story who benefits what is justified and what is hidden And these are questions I ask about lots of things all the time because I think when it comes to language and words in general We can always ask this, you know, who benefits from this narrative. What does it justify? What does it hide and the same thing can be said of this So, you know what they asked is essentially that in their poem, you know people are mispronouncing my name Who benefits from that? What does it justify? What does it hide? I was given a name elizabeth I don't seem like an elizabeth who benefits from my name being elizabeth. Ah, it's not me It's the world. So do you see what I mean? So I think that's these are the two questions. I'll just Who benefits? What does it justify? What does it hide? And the exercise as I say Is just using your name if that doesn't feel like it can work for you Think about maybe someone else in your family's name or a story to do with kind of name giving or Or some sort. I think we all have a story or a context, right to do that name and and it should reveal some sort of power dynamic If you're really struggling then, you know Feel free to put in the chat and I can kind of come up with a different prompt But otherwise just just find your own prompt through that poem Does that make sense? So using your name you're trying to tell us something about the world Yeah Yeah, and sometimes it's people themselves who will choose to provide You know a shortened version of their name and that's I think the We're not trying to pass judgment on whether that in of itself is good or bad But what that says about the world we live in and so I think that again Let's try and move it there. So 10 minutes beginning now And I'll just write up the the whole thing again in the chat box in case anyone missed it I think that is about 10 minutes. So just again bring to an end. Whatever you're doing and just remind you like These different bits of writing that you might have done today Feel free to expand on them afterwards like the hope I find when I'm kind of working with prompts and resources Is just that maybe one line or a couple of lines are something that I'm you know excited by and want to build on But I hope you have more than that. I hope maybe there's you know a whole 10 minutes worth of poem that you are happy with So Yeah, I don't know did anyone to reflect on that like was it difficult? Was it easy? Did anything come to mind? Yeah, how was that before we move on? Oh, and also somebody said earlier when you guys type in the chat box if you're able to do to all panelists and attendees then everybody can see Um, because I realized I must have been talking to people who other people can see Um, it was a powerful exercise. Amazing. It was cathartic. That's really good to hear. I'm really glad Um, quite difficult to apply those questions. That's fine. Um, I hope maybe you found some sort of other Way into your story. It was hard very weird thinking deeply about your name like looking in the mirror and re recognizing yourself Really interesting. Okay. Well, I hope some of you feel up to sharing Some of what you've written In the next kind of what before the end of the session I would love to hear some of it The final exercise. Oh, yeah, I was thinking about that for my name today. It was a really great exercise I really enjoyed it. I'm really glad to hear that. I'm really glad guys. That's that's really good. Um Yeah So much hiding when just supposed to be existing and I think that's that thing going back to Tony Morrison quote, right that like So much of um existence under Colonial modernity is just people explaining themselves and essentially justifying their existence Um, I think that in of itself is a trap, right? She says that you know, actually, this is what racism is. It distracts us. Um So, yeah, I wanted to move into the final exercise that I have Um have planned. Um And it's really the same premise here in the sense of, you know, using something questioning Questioning something that happened to us or that we hear or that we feel and using it to to reveal something about the world. Um and Again, this is about moving on from, you know, I'm not what you say I am or this, you know That's not true. And so the example I'm going to share with you is one of my own poems. Um I'm just going to share the youtube video of it because I like it's weird to perform to you guys Maybe it's more weird to share the video. I'm not sure But I'm just going to ask you to watch it and Again, note to yourself what stands out. Um, you don't need to tell me necessarily But just note to yourself in your notebook or whatever And I want you to think about a narrative that you hear a lot in relation to the way your identity is formed And that you want to speak back to Um, so not just saying this narrative is wrong or I'm going to disprove this narrative But trying to reveal the purpose of that narrative. Okay. So in this poem, I'll just kind of introduce it a bit before I show it The narrative that I had heard that I wanted to think about was, you know, this idea that Muslim people Are not British. They don't have British values or there's a lack of Britishness or something like this And rather than writing a poem that was like, oh Muslims are British too or no, that's not true I am British or something like that Um, I wanted because I felt like that would have just been that kind of, you know exhausting You know amplifying racism almost that Toni Morrison talks about instead it's going to the next level and saying Who benefits from this assertion? What does it allow to happen in the world? What does it hide and what does it justify and um I hope you see that I hope that makes sense like I'm sorry that I'm kind of hammering this message But I just think it's really exciting for us to be able to write like that because then we to obviously ask those questions Sorry, because then we can write in a more disruptive way. So just watch this Um I'll put the prompt in the chat and then try to think of a narrative as I say that it is relevant Um to your um life. So yeah, sorry, this is a bit weird to be showing you my own poem, but then again What can you do? All right, so let me bend the thing And then we go to this chess screen Share audio here it is Okay And hopefully this works like before so you can see in here There we go Young Muslims in Britain often straddle two worlds They appear to have put in each culture concerns revealed around the national identification of Muslims in Britain Review raises alarm over social integration and the UK schools to promote fundamental British values. The face of Britain is changing beyond recognition I look in the mirror It's not shattered I am whole No one for in one for out. No reason I've got to them Britishness from the somehow more devout I'm not on easy torn or straddling. It's not shattered. I am whole Yeah, the opposite is somehow all that you'll get told I mean, I guess because if it wasn't if we faced up to the glass You'd be left with the fact that I am inside. I am Britain now Because Britain is Bismillah Britain is basmati rice Britain is box braids and black barbers shops bollywood and bunga ruff Britain is body popping outside the tube Britain is brick lame before it was cool Britain is bilingual Britain is the broker Britain is praying in the changing rooms Britain has its feet in your sink Britain is bad at knowing itself belligerent and boring Britain has not changed beyond recognition Recognising was never one thing I am the inside you pretend is outside, but We have to stop pretending Pretending the rolling hills are just romantic Not remnants of injustices swept under a rug like the tea didn't come from Asia Like the sugar wasn't grown by slaves like dry humor isn't a way to just ridicule dissent and cues don't expose the way We're always told to wait for change rather than making it and it's funny that over apologizing is seen as a national trait Because half of history is still waiting I look in the mirror It's not shattered. I am whole there is no freak or turning point. I'm here Britain is barbaric. Oh, sorry. Did you think that was me barbaric bystanders straddling the boundary You're not quite inside so you could say I'm the things you forgot like you're modern, so I'm backwards you're democratic So you say I'm not when the truth is Britain is blood on its hands and back to the wall Britain is selling weapons to the most repressive regimes in the world Britain is the bombs the Saudis drop on Yemen Britain is building surveillance apparatus since 9 11 Britain is believing in human rights whilst removing them all Britain is yards wood brook house con brook and Morton Hall Britain is 1600 dead in or after police custody since 1990 and Britain is no qualms about detaining asylum seekers indefinitely Britain is suicide attempts secret courts and secret torture Britain is stopping you at the border Britain is seeing it saying it's sorting it which means Britain is also deporting it because What else do you do when you look in the mirror and find The sugar and tea had strings attached the factories on the rolling hills depended on our labor The bombs destroyed the homes of kids now at the border Britain is barbaric Britain is blindly patriotic Britain is built on false narratives slices of other people's dishes Britain is stolen artifacts in museums named after itself Britain is knife and fork polite stabbing you at will Britain is selective Yours till it's not in yours till it's not then blaming you Britain is borders Britain is brexit Britain is spending on weddings but not fireproofing homes Britain is cutting mental health services yet somehow strong and stable Britain is 40% of young people in custody being from ethnic minority backgrounds And Britain is blaming them for the statistic rather than asking difficult questions Because Britain is blaming the kids who aren't white Britain is blaming the immigrants Britain is blaming the Muslims Britain is blaming bureaucracy Britain is not listening Britain is not that great Britain is breaking But breaking everywhere except the place it puts the blame Because there's only a few things left that are great about Britain And there that Britain is Bismillah basmati and bilingual Bots braids and black barbershops bodywood and bungura Body popping outside the tube brick lane before it was cool Britain is the broker Britain is praying in the changing rooms Britain has its feet in your sink Britain is your greatest nightmare every repercussion you've never thought through Britain is the mind to be got inside Britain is the terror to be counted I am the great and great Britain now And aren't you terrified? Okay, so the purpose of that, as I said, is that you Take from that, I hope what I try to do in that poem is move away as you might have seen at the beginning I think there's a tendency that I was going into like I am Britain, you know, that's wrong. I'm not straddling any lines I'm not stuck between two cultures. That's not fair. And then I moved on from that into Who cares what I am? Well, let's actually analyze. What is Britain? What does this whole Britain thing mean? What does this narrative mean that I'm not this thing that you're saying is good to be? Well, actually, let's excavate and explore that. So what I want you to do, as I say, is take a narrative and it can be from political rhetoric, it could be from media, it could be from popular culture, it could be a film, TV, anywhere, and I'm sure we all have some narrative somewhere that is to do with some aspect of identity. And I want you to not write a poem that says this is not true. I want you instead to say, what does this narrative do? What does it allow for? And the writing, obviously, can be different. So as you saw in that poem, I do some of that is actually just very like fact based, right? And it's, it's empirical is literally just like, this is some statistics here, some facts. But I think the way that you present that can can make it okay, you know, it can work still. Or it can be you can use imagery, right? So you can, you know, there's the other angle, which is me saying, not Oh, I am British, but Britain is basmati bilingual, it's the broker, and I'm giving all these images of what Britain is, which disrupts this notion itself, right? So either through imagery, through narrative, through lists, through whatever form you want to use metaphors, through even just using, you know, non English, whatever, I'm sorry to use the word non English, I just feel like I don't, I don't want to like pick on any specific languages, but using any language other than English and kind of inverting, yeah, inverting those norms of poetry, you are going to do your version of kind of a questioning and narrative. So I'm going to give you 10 more minutes. So it's half past now. So you have till 22, I'm glad that makes sense, Frances, that's good. So you have 22. And then I'll just, I'm hoping some of you might want to share either this or some of the other writing that you've written. So I'll give us till 22. I'll put the prompt again in the chat box in case it hasn't made sense. Please make yourself, you know, you go for it, really put your heart and soul into this one, because we all have something we need to speak back to. And I think this way of speaking moves us beyond having to excavate our experiences and say, I'm going to prove myself and justify myself and explain myself, no, we're going to instead ask what it is that you are doing when you mobilise that narrative. Okay, yeah, so 10 minutes, off we go. Okay, so just two more minutes, guys, or one more minute, just rounding up. Hey, but it's the instructions were just there above. I don't know if you missed that, or if you've seen it now. It doesn't matter. We were just doing, I'll post a comment again. Okay, guys, so I'm going to encourage everybody to come to an end. Okay, I hope that felt useful. I hope that you've got something out of it. I feel like, yeah, I've tried to make it very clear obviously that the underlying principle here is, you know, if coloniality uses language, we also can use and subvert language. And if it uses defining and kind of reifying concepts through language, we can disrupt that by questioning the edges of those concepts questioning the validity of those narratives and who they benefit and what they hide and what they justify. So remembering those three questions. Would people like to just maybe just post in the chat so just so I can kind of get a sense of, you know, how that is, how you're feeling, how that was. And I would love to invite you to share your work. So the way that can work is that basically you should have how many pieces should you have. So you should have written, let me have a quick check. So you have your free work, that's for you. You should have two kind of poems based on the Assata Shakur poem. You should have something to do with your name. And you should have this final so you should have four pieces essentially ish. And you may have something completely other that you, you know, got distracted with and is kind of has excited you instead. So usually like when I do these workshops, I can see everybody and so they can kind of contribute in their own ways. But I would love to still hear from anybody and hear your work because I think that's a really nice way to end workshops usually. And I'm sure what we can facilitate if it makes people more comfortable is to just like stop the recording for if people do want to share. So would anybody be interested in sharing? And this is like, we're completely non like, you know, judgment free kind of space just to, I think a big part of sharing our work in these spaces is to kind of celebrate. Okay, so that's amazing. I think, okay, suffer. Okay, amazing. So I think Kumi, who is back backstage, I'm going to say backstage, is hopefully going to be able to facilitate elevating you to this space that I'm in. I don't know what to call these things to the panelists bit I'm in. And hopefully then you will be able to contribute and also suffer. And if anybody else hopefully that'll prompt other people also to contribute. So I really appreciate you guys being up for it. Kumi, are we able to do that? Amazing, looks like a bit is here. So if you want to unmute yourself, if you can. Asalaam. How was that for you? I'm excited to hear your work. Yeah, it was just, obviously, for so long. I've not for so long, obviously, but your book that you published, I've just followed you for quite a long time and it pumps me so much. And yeah, like, it's been great because, like, I think just this idea of wanting to change and really, like, disrupt. And just everything you thought you knew is wrong. Like, every thought, every, like, not obviously everything, but you know, a lot of things that were taught, it's, you don't have to necessarily agree with it. And I'm just like, yes, I'm here for it. I'm here for, because it's not necessarily like beneficial for the people that live here as well. Like, you know, our education system is not beneficial. It's not beneficial to aim for A stars when really it's just a grade. And like, I left education when I was 18, because I just couldn't do it. I was in the middle of my levels. I had about six months to go and I just left it. And you know, you, I'm from an Asian family, you get all that stigma. And, you know, it was so hard and I'm still struggling, but it's fine, right. And some of the most knowledgeable people never had form education. So I'm happy them that way. But yeah, it's still quite tough. Yeah, no, I really appreciate that. We can I ask you to share some of you or something, maybe anything that you feel comfortable that you wrote today? Yeah, sure. Can I start my video? Is that okay? Hi. Right now. But yeah, I don't know, maybe they'll check afterwards, but you okay with it being recorded? I'm okay. Right. Whenever you're ready? Yeah, okay. I asked you if I really wanted to read her biography. I lent it to someone before reading it. My mistake to read it. I don't know which one to do. I think I'll do the I believe one. And I read the guide by the greedy, like that was just a line, it's quite a short piece. And then I'll read the longer piece. Is that okay? Okay. Okay. I bought guide by the greedy. Isn't that what capital isn't is about this lifestyle we've adapted our supermarkets options too much, grossly unnecessary guide by the greedy to make strong a shattered country to pour us when you're done. Oh, quite a strong ending. All right. Nice. Nice. Nice. Next one. Go on. Okay. I believe in God's plan in what in waking every day and new and forgiving before sleeping. I believe in hope. Yes. We live a life because sub-curch has changed. I believe in reverse in the in the show. I can't read my handwriting. Okay. I'm going to see levels of insures settling in sea levels declining in trusting nature signs have foretold warnings. I believe in breathing, running outside to dawn song to morning exchanges to smiling to smiling more, even though it surely helps. I believe in revival of heritage of belonging of read my handwriting of letting go and putting down technology for it cannot give you compassion. I believe in Rahma like Allah Rahman, the compassionate. I believe in silence sitting down with oneself, being uncomfortable with yourself, explore one's mind for giving oneself because I believe you should aim for perfection. You should strive for it. But having the humility to know it shall never be attained. I believe in loving all and one and one and all the universe what encompasses and I believe in tolerance. Wow. I think there was some really beautiful lines in there. I really I really liked the stuff about nature as well, the kind of believing in like the natural world speaking to you and telling you it's giving us messages basically and also the yeah Rahma I believe. There are some beautiful lines in there. I wish I could have seen it written. Thank you so much for sharing that and yeah I'm very grateful to you being here. It's very messy so I value understood my own. It's beautiful. I think the beauty of these prompts anyways that you can go to that and you can move it and measure and change it and work on it however you like. But thank you so much Hibbe. You're welcome. I wrote a piece about my mother tongue like before this and I just wanted to share with you really quick. Not like the actual piece but you know the whole when you were recording in the park and you wrote like a little piece. I wrote a piece about how like my mother's tongue is English but she's not part English. She was just born to a country where she spoke it and it's quite a long piece and it was like yeah thank you. Do you share that? Yeah thank you so much Hibbe. I'm gonna because I can see a couple of other people saying they want to share so is it alright if I ask someone else too I think Safa looks like the next person and then Salma and you've got some nice comments there Hibbe as well from other people. Oh yeah thank you there is that a satirical autobiography is online as Safa has pointed out. Yeah if like again anybody else feel free also to share it's yeah oh here we go here's Safa. Feel free to unmute yourself and I'm video or video yourself there you. Hi. How are you? I'm lovely to see you too. I'm looking forward to hearing something. This this was really amazing thank you for the prompts they're really really good and they're very like deep like it took me a while to actually get started so I really appreciated that. The one that I wrote about was the Asara Shakur affirmation and it's kind of short but here I go. I believe in the one true God I believe that he watches over me I believe that I am not so small as to be inconsequential and unworthy of his attention. I believe that I have a family one that extends far beyond the four corners of this home. Each member's name I do not know but I love them fiercely and my heart burns at their hurt. I believe I belong to something bigger than myself. I believe I have purpose. I believe I hail from desert hunters, dune lovers, freedom fighters, men and women that become shadows when the sun's light flickers out that disappear amongst history books whose presence resonates when I think of home. I believe that the sun and the moon and all astral bodies are in our universe are suspended by the one I believe in good I believe in evil perhaps I could be both and I have seen his love I believe it may be all that I need. Well beautiful the imagery was so I love that bit about being from freedom fighters and then the history and the shadows sorry I'm being paraphrasing but it was really useful imagery and I think also just your poem is a really good reminder and and him as well of like how you know I think part of disrupting coloniality is also um you know giving voice to and legitimizing non-secular narratives because of course secularism is part of colonial modernity so really appreciate you sharing that stuff and um yeah really beautiful so thank you. Thank you for giving me the chance to share. Of course no we all appreciate it and you can see the comments people you're already loving it as well um I think there was someone else Salma I think is I right in remembering that name um I don't know how to do this yeah oh thank you so oh sorry that you disappeared um um I think now I can't see oh oh yeah oh everyone's name is sort of there we go now I can see here we go oh Salma there she is okay great hey can you hear me oh yeah we can hear you Salma there you go so thank you I'm good thank you um I came in late so I was only able to do the last one a little bit incomplete but um so it's basically about um my mother she has an accent because she speaks arabic's first language um and just sort of the it's kind of like my response to the narrative that people create with that here we go um can you dance the neck that is to say shrink the space between you and sky as your shoulder blades move like they have wings can you make syrup out of language that is to say to know every word your tongue is capable of and perform alchemy can you flavor meat and kill the animal that made it can you use a bundle of straw to sweep dust from dust to sweep sweat to salvation and that's it I love that that's so cool the images and that I just yeah I love that you also didn't specify it's very clear and subtle what you're saying who you're saying it to and I think it's a really beautiful um testament to your mom as well and I hope you can share that with her in some way thank you so much um yeah great responses in the comments so yeah normally to meet you as well thank you thank you for running this you're amazing um I think there was a couple of other people and the comments are coming in so fast I can't see um yeah it was absolutely stunning and you can yeah oh thanks guys to everyone who's shared I think somebody raised their hand I didn't know if that meant that you wanted to share I think Francis was that you um and there was someone else oh yeah okay so I think Francis Kumi if we're able to get Francis that would be good I think there was someone else but then I couldn't it will just pass so quickly I'm really glad people are feeling really inspired and I think listening to one another's poetry is one of the most inspiring things um it's fine um Francis you'll Kumi who is the helping with the technical support will bring sure you'll kind of see something come up um we've got five more minutes so I think we'll just hear from Francis and maybe one more person if this this can persuade anyone else um here you are Francis if you're able to unmute yourself um and turn on your video if you if you're up for it and then okay um let's see hello hey lovely to meet you hi nice to meet you thank you so much for all of this it's been really really interesting and um really has helped me think about some things in a different way yeah so um I guess I want to share like the prompt from the Assata Shakira piece like I wrote something on it um so yeah it's it's relatively short and it's very rough but um yeah yeah I have seen the kind become the blind and the blind become the bind in one easy lesson I have seen lies incinerate mindsets framed with falsehoods held up by gold chains and tales of sunsets on dread I have heard myself cry out struck silent by the shock stuff me with sugar cane stalks let sweetness choke me rip hope from my lips sorry wait rip hope from my lips let it drip and drop onto the pavement and shatter oh wow that's a really um I was just thinking the word choice with the drip and the tear and the rip and so it you're conveying a kind of I don't know it's a very evocative feeling and I think it's really interesting because it that first imagery that you give feels it just gives a different feeling so I don't know I found that quite painful almost but um yeah I really appreciate you sharing that thank you um I'm actually I'm Nigerian and right now there's like it was kind of like inspired by the um SARS protests that are happening the end SARS protests it makes a lot of sense thank you for explaining that actually that's a really important context thank you thank you thank you no not at all thank you for sharing um was that anybody else I want to share we have maybe like three more minutes I mean pushing it to the end uh to be honest okay yeah probably we don't have time in that case um so before I wrap it up um just to remind you the next event in the festival uh begins in three minutes and it's a cross cultural encounters panel discussion and um Kumi will share the link in the chat so feel free to tune into that move over to that there is a link um thank you so much to everybody who shared um I'm really actually really happy about that and it's always really lovely to see that like the prompts and stuff have gone in so many different directions for different people um you know whether that's like reflecting on really violent context right now of police brutality and state violence or it's reflecting on like our relationships with our mothers or reflecting on um relationships to God like I think all of those things sit within this realm of like us being able to speak for ourselves finding voices finding ways to to um define our experiences outside of the lens of coloniality so thank you also much for being here um feel free to stay in touch um I'll put my email in the um chat and um let me just see if I had any other notes that I wanted to say no I did not so thank you very much um I'd love to see any of the work that you wrote if you'd love to if you if you'd like to email it to me and um if not absolutely fine have a wonderful afternoon and I'll let you have a sip of some water before you move into the next event thank you so much guys um not sure if I yeah not sure how to end this but I'm sure that um Covey will help me