Koleka Putuma

“One of the conundrums I was fiddling with was that my body and who I am is not a neutral space”

“I think that that’s the beauty and power of poetry – it cuts through the bullsh*t – it gets people to talk instantly about what it is that the poem’s trying to say, what it’s saying to them”

“I think that at the heart of activism is dialogue”

“I’d like to believe that no matter what period I was born into, my writing or poetry would still have been my chosen way of contributing to liberation and contributing to conversations”

“It’s important to have a dialogue about the things that are plaguing us, or disturbing our peace and our freedom”

“We are more than these bodies that live in patriarchal societies that have been affected by our histories in our past.”

“I feel as a Black queer woman in South Africa, I’m confronted with a lot of those issues that are rooted in capitalism and whiteness and patriarchy on a daily basis”

“I found myself negotiating with what it meant to be Black and queer and South African, and viewing my body in those kinds of spaces”