THE EASTAFRICANPOET

Kwani Trust is inviting you to Kwani? Open Mic on Tuesday 3rd November 2009 7 pm at Club Soundd, Hamilton House Kaunda Street Entry: Ksh 100/- only. Featured Poet: Kennet B MC: Our lovely Cindy Ogana Born Odongo Kennedy Leakey at the shores of Lake Victoria,Kennet B wrote and recorded his first poetry piece in 2003 at Chuqua Records in Kisumu where he was also mentored to become a sound producer. He also gained music arrangement skills and mostly worked in underground studios helping young artists musically grow up. He moved to Nairobi after hearing of Slam Africa Spoken Word Poetry competitions; he won on his first trial. The win motivated him to produce a seven-track poetry album “Coming Of Age” of which he wrote the lyrics and was the chief sound producer. Each poem in the album is backed up with sound effects, which are skillfully placed to create the desired suspense to the listener. The authenticity of the album is supported by the fact that “Kitambi ya Sugar daddy” a poem dispel...

Few poems have been written as raw and truthfully as this,well according to me,but this here is an African masterpiece.. I wanted to write you a letter my love, a letter that would tell of this desire to see you of this fear of losing you of this more than benevolence that i feel of this indefiable ill that pursues me of this yearning to which i live in total surrender I wanted to write you a letter my love, a letter of intimate secrets a letter of memories of you of you of your lips as red as henna of your hair as black as mud of your eyes as sweet as honey of your breasts as hard as wild orange of your lynx* gait and of your caresses such that i can find no better here I wanted to write you a letter my love, that would recall the days in our haunts our nights lost in the long grass that would recall the shade falling on us from the plum trees the moon filtering the endless palm trees that would recall the madness of our passion and the bitterness of our separation... I wanted to writ...

Kwani Trust is inviting you to Kwani? Open Mic on Tuesday 7th July 2009 7pm at Club Soundd, Hamilton House Kaunda Street Entry ksh 100/- only. Featured Poet; Wanjiku Mwaurah “Spontaneity is my middle name and being a dreamer is a strength I have. I hail from central Kenya born was raised there! Poetry…? I like thinking a lot… the special thing about my thinking is that I like thinking in short sentences. And the best way to put that down is through poetry. Poetry is a way of relaying a message through in short and precise and sometimes intense manner. How did we get started…Poetry and I, go back a long way. As a kid, I would go for solo verses but there, I only experienced a prescribed form of the art, where I did as was asked and but not as I would have wanted. However, being on stage for poetry stopped for the four years I was in high school though I was composing poems, more of a way to express my self than for performance. Premier show: It started as a favor for a friend who needed...

There is a new Poetry Spot in town: the Discover Restaurant at the top of Kenol petrol station in Koinange Street First event this Saturday at 5pm, featuring speCified, reigning Slam Africa Champion Entry: 100ksh

I almost had her almost had one to stick by me, to lay low and run mad with me.. I almost had one to tell my issues, to listen to her issues and to share my issues.. I almost had her...

Mama didn't tell, she never taught me, she simply let me run and fly free.. but mama didnt tell she never taught me that to run and fly free; I must first know no peace

"They cook their hair with hot iron and pull it hard So that it may grow long. Then they rope the hair on wooden pens like a billy goat brought for the sacrifice struggling to free itself. They fry their hair in boiling oil as if it were locusts and the hair sizzles. It cries aloud in sharp pain as it is pulled and stretched and the vigorous and healthy hair, Curly, springy and thick that glistens in the sunshine Is left listless and dead." "The Graceful Giraffe Cannot Become a Monkey," Song of Lawino and Song of Ocol, 1988 Okot P 'Bitek,

She strums Like her snaky fingers were meant for no other than her guitar, While she sucks in the air In a way so divine then lets it all go In rhymes that marry her wailing guitar So faithfully and So truly.. so truly that her tears flow; tears that are her soul’s dew thawing away Washing, cleansing and bathing her.. Eroding away the muck that describes her life. The beats remain the only drug that her troubled world knows and understands Music…

The scene from his hotel room screen in Nakuru still fills his mind. Let’s call him M. He’s from Muranga, he still drives the Datsun 120 Y that he bought in 1972 when he was a twenty two year old boy, and he’s got a family in the outskirts of Eldoret where his wife runs the family farm (cows and wheat) that he bought in 1982 from a white man fleeing the coup that “never happened,” as he is fond of saying. “So I got the farm cheap.” That was 1982. M was a sharp hustler from Muranga, now he’s grown into an old-ish respectable farmer, 57 years in age, a bit of a sage and a scrooge who in-spite of his Shs.3 million in cash in Equity Bank (savings, he takes no loans) still drives a Datsun 120 Y, and why, till last night, he had never stayed at a hotel! He did now, in the fiery first days of 2008, at a place called Midlands Hotel because he has heard that the land is no longer safe. There was a television set in the hotel room with one of those fancy new satellites that one finds everywhere ...

Kwani Trust is inviting you to Kwani? Open Mic on 3rd March 2009 7pm at Club Soundd, Hamilton House Kaunda Street . Entry ksh 100/- only. Featured Poet will be Patroba a participant of Kwani? Krismas who came in 4th. Patroba is a 22 year old Nairobi based poet and a college student. He has been writing poems for the past three years, but started poetry perfomce in 2007. He has performed at forums such as Nu metro Poets club at the Junction, Kwani Open Mic at Clubb Soundd, Amplified Tongues at Mai Loan, WaPI amongst other venues. He has also participated in the Kwani Krismas slam and the Slam Africa poetry competitions. Open Mic slots are open from 6pm all are welcome to register. Also look out for Kwani? 5 part 1 launch on 5th March 2009 6.30pm at Nu Metro Junction, Ngong Rd. Entry free KARIBUNI NB: Books to be won at Kwani? Open Mic

Kwani? 05,Part 1,Editorial Written by Kwani · March 1, 2009 An Apprenticeship in Ethnicity: A Time Beyond The Writer Never let the facts get in the way of the truth. Old Creative Non-Fiction truism … In the first week of November 2007, Kwani Trust held a series of creative non-fiction workshops - the purpose: to discuss and reinforce elements of storytelling in of reporting the Kenyan elections of 2007. A group of budding journalists and writers unpublished in Kwani were invited. Though excited with the premise of using ‘fictive’ and ‘literary’ elements in reportage, the journalists present were firmly held in the thrall of the 5 W’s and a H, ‘objective journalism’ school’s mantra. With minds tuned to: ‘Police are investigating reports of a man who was reported to have bitten a dog on Kimathi Street yesterday’; they were skeptical of the whole ‘literary’ premise. The workshop, if anything, for them was a vacation from police/City Council beat reality; at best, some hoped the workshop w...

Truth does not set you free. Instead, truth sets loose. It risks what we hold dear. And there are no assurances. Daring truth entails risking all we might want to preserve. It means daring to break with family and friends. It means disturbing the fragile peace we inhabit by having difficult conversations. It means telling our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, lovers, and friends that their political choices are unpalatable.z When I speak with truth it creates opportunity for everyone. -Excerpt from ‘Daring Truth’ by Jeremeiah Okongo. I saw someone being killed in town at the matatu station called Kalenjin airport because the matatus there carry people heading into the North Rift. The IDPs who had been evicted from Eldoret were very bitter and were going around looking for Kalenjins to avenge their losses. They came to Kalenjin airport because they knew that’s where most of them board matatus to go home. Unfortunately, one man was caught by the group. They beat him up and stabbed him...

I've been gone for a minute but I'm now very back...

Kwani ? 05 Full Editorial Written by Kwani · February 10, 2009 An Apprenticeship in Ethnicity: A Time Beyond The Writer Never let the facts get in the way of the truth. Old Creative Non-Fiction truism … In the first week of November 2007, Kwani Trust held a series of creative non-fiction workshops - the purpose: to discuss and reinforce elements of storytelling in of reporting the Kenyan elections of 2007. A group of budding journalists and writers unpublished in Kwani were invited. Though excited with the premise of using ‘fictive’ and ‘literary’ elements in reportage, the journalists present were firmly held in the thrall of the 5 W’s and a H, ‘objective journalism’ school’s mantra. With minds tuned to: ‘Police are investigating reports of a man who was reported to have bitten a dog on Kimathi Street yesterday’; they were skeptical of the whole ‘literary’ premise. The workshop, if anything, for them was a vacation from police/City Council beat reality; at best, some hoped the worksho...