kagablog

Central Library, Drill Hall, c/o Darling and Parade Street, Cape Town

The Chimurenga Library is an online archive of pan African, independent periodicals. It is also the exhibition concept devised by the editors of Chimurenga for Cape Africa Platform 2009.

Presented in and around the newly launched Cape Town Central Library from May 2 - June 21, the project embodies the proposition evoked by the title by “finding oneself,” as Moses Molelekwa put it, on the shelves of the Central Library; or quietly encroaching upon its classification system; or proposing a navigation system, clearly subjective and affective, for content found both in Chimurenga and the collection of the Central Library.

The project includes a multimedia investigation into independent pan African periodicals from around the world; “Why Must A Black Writer Write About Sex”, an exhibition of sex scenes from African literature that contest cliched inscriptions of literature and sexuality; and reading routes and sound posts that re-imagine the Library as a laboratory for extended curiosity, new adventures, critical thinking, daydreaming, socio-political involvement, partying and random perusal.

In addition, weekly Chimurenga Sessions will take place inside the Library. Dissolving the boundaries between text, sound, city, culture, and media, the Chimurenga Sessions will feature music and poetry performances, dialogues, screenings, and more.

The Chimurenga Library also traverses the division between the street and the Library with Chimurenganyana a series of solos excerpted from Chimurenga that will be distributed on the streets of Cape Town.

more information here

Time’s licked me nut, and right to the bone.

Once, strange hands furred us down
and we were the nodes on furious mice.

Now, I operate from this, the dust-kitchen of my lap,
like a cook on conference call,

stellactating. I am bed iced, and sore.
A splinter, but sopping.

Little girl, climbed right between the nubs,
fretted my belly till it caved, loved me knowing

and unknowing I had grown our blood
sequestered. In rows, like mushrooms.

When you were a child we played clean as kettles
and I prized the printpress of your limbs, and skin,

because my looking read your living out-
Face fleshy little pig’s toe, fanny furled into a truffle.

But now, you’ve woken up foot wrinkled, and steaming

with the old game, caught arm down, wearing bite rungs
like chromosomes, saying

there are more ways to sully a sheet than with sleeping,
hey! as if I had chopped you out of nothing.

You asked the wrong question when you asked about the wolf.

first published on african-writing.com

(dedicated to my brother, father, mentor and dog souldier lance henson)

a cool wind blows with solemnity
as sun has moved to dusk
quiet
from the suffering green silence

rain over a letter
written in autumn
where the past is scattered
like a butterfly
struggling
on a dusty road

ravens sleep
while the ark resurrects
from ancient ashes
and a storm of birds
sad like yellow leaves
flies clueless
in a sky of blues

clouds whisper words in my ear
words that slide down onto me
like rivers on a rocky cave
and gently
timidly
disappear

sun is awake no more
and with clenched hands
i salute the rising
maternal
moon

“Ink is handicapped, in a way, because you can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book. But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries.”

- Christopher Morley

city library, cape town
commissioned by chimurenga magazine
completed 9:45am, tuesday 28 april 2009