One Global Voice

Expressions – English

Mandela Matur

A pandemic of solitude which is silent, suffocating and like hunger

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“WHO has & WHO hasn’t!” is a poem selected from a collection by South Sudanese author Mandela Matur, known as Ade, written during the first phase of the spread of Covid-19. The poem deals with those human conditions often hidden behind the silence produced by stigma or isolation, and that have been aggravated by the present situation. A frail mental health becomes a heavier burden to carry and accept; reaching out one’s hand through the fog of pain to ask for help seems to be beyond one’s power. Ade’s poem unveils what lay hidden in the corners of the mind and encourages us not to let these invisible and pervasive malaises strike us.

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Abigail George, when the word confronts the darkness of paranoia

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“Please help revise the jalapeños and Theodore Roethke” is the title of this poem that introduces us into an unusual yet familiar world. It is a wild territory where reality and dreams meet, where everyday elements remind us of their symbolic dimension and where the voices in our heads start a dialogue with the voices of authors whose books we have read or composers whose music we have listened to. Far from being a mere juxtaposition of images and sounds, Abigail George’s is an accurately structured poem that reveals the struggle for mental well-being and for becoming an independent, emotionally stable woman.

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“Andolo, the Talented Albino”, an interview with author Nsah Mala

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In the African continent, hostility and discrimination against people with albinism are widely spread. In order to celebrate albinos and help overcome stigma, more and more authors have been writing and publishing stories about this issue. Such is the case of “Andolo: the Talented Albino“, a children’s book written by Cameroonian author Nsah Mala. As detailed in the interview by Pina Piccolo of The Dreaming Machine, the author was inspired by the experience of his relatives to tell the engaging story of a child with albinism, with the aim of entertaining and educating his young readers.

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“Living Death”, a hopeless life with sadness weaved into the bones

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One Global Voice reaches Botswana with this poem dedicated to the fatigue of living. When not engaged in her work, Maipelo M Zambane dedicates herself to reading and above all to writing: she keeps a very active profile on Twitter and collaborates with the digital magazine Afrolutionist, which aims to contribute to inclusive development in Africa and in the African diaspora through the perspective of human rights. “I don’t remember the day i stopped embracing hope,” thus ends this painful piece from her recent Life and Everything in Between collection.

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“Like a candle in the wind”, so we blow out the flame of our life

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“It’s so difficult, this living thing / two decades sometimes / are more than one can bear”, this is the beginning of this moving poem composed about the sudden death of a very young and talented poet. It is the author herself to explain it, vangile gantsho, South African poet and healer who started to write and create at a young age and developed an interest into confessional and political writing. Although “some scars are too deep / even for poetry”, this poem enlightens the darkest emotions of the human soul that can lead to suicide, a choice no one should quickly label as coward and selfish, the author says.

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“No title”, when words dissolve in the whirlpool of deep depression

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A poem entitled “No title”, because when one suffers from depression there seem to be no words to describe it. The world around seems to dissolve and words are deprived of their meaning and unfit to describe one’s feelings. This is the theme at the heart of the poem by Alum Comfort Anne, a young and talented Ugandian poet who has been inspired by her personal struggle with depression. She takes us in the middle of a stormy night, torn by the desire both to live and to die, until the break of dawn. The final verses convey not only the despair behind a suicide attempt but also the invincible faith in human solidarity and mutual support, because “we are all just human, anyway”.

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“Left without”, a woman inside the imaginery cave of depression

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Akimana Divine is a Rwandan poet, mental healthcare advocate and human rights activist. Her works have been published on numerous magazines and anthologies. The poem “Left without” allow us into that imaginery cave that is depression: a dark place where one is left without anything but his/her ghosts and fears. Divine has had her own hardships in life, first as a young girl being bullied for her weight and then as a single mother raising her boy alone. These painful experiences led her to find comfort in poetry and to write her own poems as a way of struggling against depression.

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“My mother’s depression”, inherited on the night of the blood moon

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Carolyne M. Acen, aka Afroetry, is a Ugandan Spoken word poet, writer and counselor. She has dedicated her life to poetry, which for her has become a form of activism to raise consciousness about delicate and complex issues: among these the condition of women, the search for freedom and all the prejudices coming from a patriarchal and macho mentality, not only African one. In this text, “My mother’s depression” she explores the theme of psychological distress linked to the family situation and, in fact, to a form of life oppressed by social constraining.

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“I am a refugee in my mind”, when the sense of belonging is lost

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In his poem “I am a refugee in my mind”, Alex Kitaka describes the sense of estrangement from the world and even oneself brought by mental distress. Bad thoughts represented by house flies buzz in our head and keep saying that there is no place for us, anywhere. But Alex reminds us that there is always a chance for us to bloom like roses and to heal through sharing: “I believe that writing creates a safer place to let out and let go of feelings that endanger someone’s mental health. Like always, writing is therapy!”

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Baya Osborn, “Ocean Eyes”, where there is no past, no history

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Baya Osborn is a Kenyan born poet and writer and use the pen name Bayable Word. He is just 18 years old. “My life journey has been poetic” he told us. We also asked how come he has written poems on mental health: “Mental illness is something that is really affecting any people. Mostly people of the young age, and it is we writers that are supposed to wake and encourage those people going through tough times through our writings that we care about them, we will speak for them and their lives will change”.

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