About the poet:

Lebo Mashile (2 July, 1979)

 The daughter of exiled South African parents, Mashile was born in the United
States and returned to South Africa in the mid-1990s after the end
of apartheid. She began to study law and international relations at
the University of the Witwatersrand but became more interested in the arts.
With Myesha Jenkins, Ntsiki Mazwai and Napo Masheane, she founded the
poetry group Feela Sistah. (Wikipedia)
 The teenage Mashile would belong and then not belong as an American
transplant in Africa. She was often adrift in these in-between places with only
journalling and writing to keep her moored. It was a case of being both the
insider and the outsider.
 She would go on to study and earn her law degree at Wits University, but her
real teacher would be underground Joburg. The throb of the city at its edges
met her talent, already bursting in words and rhythm. Mashile found a platform
and a community and would become a pioneer of spoken word poetry in SA,
which was oral art in her hands. She would also become an acclaimed
actress, TV presenter, author and columnist.Poetry, though, is her first love,
also her refuge and her weapon. She says: “Poetry has deep historical reach
especially in a country like ours. Poetry enshrines memory and culture. It’s
always been a tool for resistance and revolution.”
 Mashile embraces duality; she loves the messy, she says, with all its collision
points and contradictions. Creativity resides here for her as it does in
speaking with her authentic voice. Authenticity is her big laugh, her
compulsion to seek out what resonates. It’s made her endure in a fickle
industry that gets tangled and strangled in a cult of celebrity.
 Authenticity is about owning her life challenges, from her weight wars, to
needing to do the deep dives into privilege, race and the dark legacy of
colonialism. She’s also been speaking up for mental health support as she
journeys through her own therapy. (Check out her discussions and
conversations on mental health at www.myhealthtv.com.)
 Despite being born in the United States as a result of her parents’ exile, Lebo
Mashile has become a household name in the field of oral poetry in her home
country, South Africa.
 She is also a presenter, actress and a committed to supporting human rights,
diversity and feminism. She wrote and produced the documentary series The
Attitude (L’Attitude) and the children’s television programme Great
Expectations. She made her acting début in the 2004 film Hotel Rwanda and,
alongside choreographer Sylvia Glasser, wrote and starred in Threads, a
fusion of poetry, music and dance widely regarded as a driving cultural force
in South Africa. In February 2018 she made her theatre début with a piece
about Saartjie Baartman, an African woman she uses to explain racism in
twenty-first-century Europe. Her first book of poems In a Ribbon of Rhythm
(2005) received a NOMA, one of the most highly-regarded awards in African
literature. She is also known for her poetry book Flying Above The Sky (2008)
and the albums Lebo Mashile Live! and Moya (2016), produced in
collaboration with the singer and composer Majola.
Poem: Tell your story by Lebo Mashile

After they've fed off of your memories

Erased dreams from your eyes
Broken the seams of sanity
And glued what's left together with lies
After the choices and voices have left you alone
And silence grows solid
Adhering like flesh to your bones

They've always known your spirit's home

Lay in your gentle sway
To light and substance
But jaded mirrors and false prophets have a way
Of removing you from yourself
You who lives with seven names
You who walks with seven faces
None can eliminate your pain

Tell your story

Let it nourish you
Sustain you
And claim you
Tell your story
Let it feed you
Heal you
And release you
Tell your story
Let it twist and remix your shattered heart

Tell your story

Until your past stops tearing your present apart