Reflecting on Women’s Day, Toni Giselle Stuart says that “we are more powerful and have more agency than we have been led to believe... our voices hold power.”
Toni Giselle Stuart is a poet, performer and creative writing teacher who believes in the power of collaboration to enrich our lives and heal intergenerational trauma. Her poems have been published in various anthologies and magazines, and she has performed her own work on stages, both locally and abroad.
“All forms of creative expression offer us a medium to work with our wounds and trauma, to alchemise them into wisdom. Poetry is simply the medium I work with, because words are what I know intimately, and they have always called me. But I do think poetry has a particular, in-built mechanism that shows up what is not true, what is contrived, what hasn’t quite touched the bone-raw truth of things.”
One particularly impressive recent collaboration involved a jazz suite in three movements, created with South African filmmaker Kurt Orderson, on the life of Krotoa (Eva), a Khoikhoi woman who played a pivotal role as an interpreter during the early years of Dutch rule.
“I wrote it to show South African women, and particularly Creole South African women, that we are more powerful and have more agency than we have been led to believe and that our voices hold power. Krotoa spoke three languages, that we know of. She was a central figure in negotiations between the Dutch and the Khoikhoi during the Dutch-Khoikhoi Cattle Wars.”
Asked how she came to collaborate with others at such a high level, Stuart explains, “I never set out to do this work. I came up in the Cape Town cultural scene in the early 2000s. Poets, musicians, filmmakers, artists were creating work together. It was just how we moved. Poetry became the place I turned to ask the questions I was afraid to ask out loud. Questions about who I am, where my people come from, as a Creole South African woman, and just who I am as a soul in a human body. Through poetry, I found communities of like-hearted people who were willing to express, ask the right questions, and feel deeply.”
Commenting on Women’s Month, she states, “I feel the questions we have to ask ourselves most urgently is: ‘Am I living from my heart, rooted in my body, or am I only living from my head? Where have I erected a mask and a shield as a form of protection?’ When we truly remember and reclaim our creative power, our lives become ours, and our ability to positively impact our community and the world around us grows exponentially.”
“In the wake of colonialism and patriarchy, there is work to be done around retrieving what was lost, writing through the wounds that were never tended to and healed, and restoring ancient wisdoms, especially between mothers and daughters.”
Stuart runs a company called The Firefly Garden, which supports writers while they find their own voices. Not surprisingly, it takes a community to create a nurturing environment in which to tell stories well. This is how, slowly but surely, writers are changing the world.
In the coming days, try writing a poem in collaboration with a practitioner of another art form: music, dance, drawing, etc. Allow the conversation between you to bring your words and images to life on the page.
Supplied by the AVBOB Poetry Project. The AVBOB Poetry Competition opened its doors on 1 August 2024. Visit www.avbobpoetry.co.za to familiarise yourself with the competition rules and editorial guidelines.
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