CONSTIMOCRAZY is a story of Africa weaved by an African poet patriot, a slinger wielding the spear, his pen, against treachery perpetrated by history and its cruelty. The same pen wielder rebukes Africa for frying its own beauty, dignity and morality in copper-roasting furnaces of disgrace and despotism. The African poet patriot traverses with us around, from African natural landscapes, up to the climes of the slave master where Africans are bleached in English syntax and spaghetti culture. The poet and his poetry are an experience of Africa, her story and his story. Though the poet seems intoxicated by pessimistic verbal concoction, the poet patriot does not completely relegate the reader to wallow in pastures ridden by slavery nagana, valleys smitten by colonial whooping cough and pathways strewn by African despotism. The poet is a natural wanderer, a traveller of course. Nsah Mala brings to the fore a dose of optimism as he drags us through mystic endowments of Africa and natural wonders of mother Earth, shifting our minds off from tragedies and economic ailments to the mysterious beauty the earth carries in its belly, especially if it was given more time to heal from scars poised by history and bruises of present-day scuffles. The African poet patriot is a master of word economics and a dexter in carving paradoxical verses.

CONSTIMOCRAZY is divided into two parts. This graphical arrangement is supposedly intentional by the writer poet who wants us to follow through his story weaved in poetry like trackers in a journey alongside a great river. The collection is truly great river, whose waters flow both vile and pure: we meet whispering crocodiles, hissing snakes, beautiful fish, gurgling streams, singing birds, dancing mermaids and their rituals, fishermen and their lines, hippos and rotting carcasses, beautiful valleys, gowns of mist, stunning gorges and laughing waterfalls.

Mala interrogates the present day African with a poetic whip in his hand; his pen is his whip. The poem “Refugees” reflects the rot that stinks in the African rondavel: “Out of their abodes, something pulled them: natural – earthquake, flood, eruption, tsunami… man-made – strike, coup, war, terrorism… War and terror are the worst of them all.” The poem grapples with pain, displacement, identity crisis and lack of belongingness. And these are contemporary African crises, which have become generational, even after the calamities of slavery and colonialism. These tragic crises mainly come from within; they are perpetuated by warlords, poor governance, terrorism, banditry, despotism and corruption by the post-independent African leadership. In the same poem, the poet also points out how the angry finger of God contributes to nature-caused tragedies: earthquakes, floods, eruptions and tsunamis. These natural tragedies are not only threatening the African child but also go beyond African borders. However, in Africa they are extremely severe, as they are inherited again from generation to generation due to carelessness, poverty, poor resource management and lack of preparedness and then the refugee tragedy becomes an African totem problem. Mala also reminds Africa to get organized and walk in the path of light as her children suffer as underdogs in alien lands. Most of the poems in the first section exhibit political decadence, economic malaise and moral rot in Africa. In most cases, in the closing lines of his poems, Mala reminds the reader, the perpetrator and the victim that light can still show up if we remain resilient and correct our past hurdles; that we can also reshape our present.

In the poem “Forced into Oblivion”, Mala plays the role of a traditionalist, a griot, a ritualist. He pays tribute to a national fallen hero through a soul-nipping poetry rite. Thus, his role as an African griot, a beacon of religious light. The poem identifies Africa as a hub of religious diversity. Africa is a calabash frothing with super-concoctions of diverse beliefs, traditions and sacred rites we perform for the dead: praises, songs, poems, dances, the animal blood we spill for them and the millet brew we spit on their fresh graves in the spirit that they will rise again to live with us, protect us and be at peace with us. It is again our show of respect to the reputed departed who might be silenced by death but still linger among us. Here the poet becomes a traditional ambassador of his people; he becomes a cultural diplomat who serves the audience with a menu of sacred rituals of a departed family or national hero in his land:

… I trod across seas of dust

to pour on your tomb my buckets of tears

and clear away the labyrinth of aching fears

which have haunted me since you left in 1989

‘coz we did not unfeather fowls on your tomb!

We did not tear family sackcloth after your burial.

We did not tie the gods’ fowl above your corpse.

The African poet patriot in Mala also knocks heavily on the iron-buckled doors, whose tenants are dictators, despots and autocrats, through his poem “Sonnet for Dictators.” In this poem, the African poet patriot renews himself into the African word slinger. The poet is candid and brutally honest; his verses know no sacred cow. He reminds despots that they are a minority and they thrive on using the masses to gain popularity and benefit from power. Because of their negative energy extremes, they munch constitutions and they become constitutions themselves. They squash law under their feet and they become law themselves. The poem is rather ironical on its tail as the poet bemoans the absence of Gadhafi, assuming that he was a better dictator who led a rich country while other African leaders drink and suck everything out of their earth – the real dictators. The poet here plays teacher and counsellor. He is trying to rehabilitate rabid African leaders who have since become unrepentant and infected their countries with deadly autocratic rabies, not so easy to heal, and dictatorship has since become endemic in Africa: “After polls, all governments are a dictating minority,// but chosen by and answerable to an electoral majority.”

In conclusion, Africa is blessed to have birthed the calibre of such candid and brutal-honest word slingers and griots of our black continent like Nsah Mala. Africa will never be the same as the poet rebukes the bastardization of Africa by colonial trendsetters. The patriot poet voices against the tragedy of dictatorship, political and moral decadence. The poet Nsah Mala is a true African patriot, a story teller, a teacher, a cultural activist and an overseer of African dignity.

Mbizo  Chirasha,  is the Originator  of  the Zimbabwe We Want Poetry Campaign( www.tuckmagazine.com/mbizochirasha) ,the 100 Thousand Poets for Change-Zimbabwe Resident Coordinator. 2017 African Participant of the International Human Rights and Arts Festival , New York United States of America, a Global Political and Arts Alliance solidarity Member.Chirasha is  a magazine editor ,blog journals  publisher .He  works  as  a  Poet and Writer in Residence, Arts Projects Catalyst and Opinion maker, www.wikipedia/wiki.com/mbizochirasha

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Photograph from exhibition ‘Looking for Langston’ by Isaac Julien at The Vinyl Factory July 2017.

Queercircle

The group of LGBTQIA+ young Londoners promoting inclusivity in queer contemporary arts.

There’s a grass roots, raw energy to Queercircle events. It’s a no-money, all-energy enterprise of a group of young passionate devotees committed to promoting an inclusive queer arts scene in London. Their platform is to help “… support and celebrate all forms of Queer expression, engage in conversation and build a collaborative, creative community.” Despite having only launched last year, from exhibition openings to queer cabaret, Queercircle confidently blends the old and the new, and mixes it all up together.

And this is exactly what makes groups like Queercircle different to the culture of queer events that have preceded it – spaces which were once the sole haven for a sub culture of a persecuted social minority. This was a time when being gay was illegal, and marriage equality was a pipe-dream. These were important, valuable spaces for queer people to convene and support each other, but they came along with the unfortunate side effect of exclusivity. This was the one safe space away from a tough and dangerous world. Straight people were not welcome to these spaces that were, and are still, so vital to the queer community.

Artist Travis Albanza, a non-gender conforming performance poet who performed at the Queercircle Launch in Oct 2016.

Now it’s 2017. A larger attitude shift towards the way gay people are treated within society has been a slow and growing wave. Year after year, gay marriage has become legal in more and more countries around the world, with England and Wales joining the list in 2014. Now, these events are about bringing people together and celebrating their humanity in all their weird and wonderful varieties of queerness.

The name itself, the reclamation of the word ‘queer’ – formerly a derogatory term – is representative of a young and growing generation who expect and encourage inclusivity in the community. This is a time where gender binary is seen as old-fashioned, and you no longer have to be just ‘straight’ or ‘gay’. A big, beautiful spectrum of identifiers is available to us all, and this kind of attitudinal change is reflected by more general terms such as ‘queer’, which allow more nuanced senses of identity to play with everyone else. Nowadays, we’re all invited to the party.

Collaboration between Dominic Hyatt and Mert Alas for Love Magazine 2016.

Not only in London but in many cities all over the world, this kind of queer celebration of love, to which everyone is welcome, has increasingly become the standard. A general sense of inevitability prevails amongst younger generations, tinged perhaps with a frustration that equal rights aren’t yet universal but obviously will be. The hardships of the past that have caused rifts between different sub-sects of the gay community, such as the prejudice of the greater gay community against the legitimacy of the bisexual community for example, now seem to be a distant memory.

We are all involved, we are all connected and Queercircle wants to provide a space to appreciate the artists amongst us, who are using their work to help break down the barriers that once kept us apart, and most importantly celebrate our differences – together.

You can find more information about Queercircle on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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First things first: this is a very personal post and therefore isn’t scientific at all (as I am not a scientist myself). But what could be more political and artistic than to express yourself?

I want to introduce English speakers to a German term: weltschmerz. It literally translates to “world-pain” and expresses the feeling of sadness and melancholy for all the evil and bad in the world. And without wanting to be all pretentious I must say that this feeling accompanies me in my life. I read about the slow (but hastening) dying of our environment, slavery, poverty, terrorism and war. And I experience social pressure, homophobia, sexism (towards all the women I care so much for, but also against my own femininity) and emotional apathy in my personal life. And maybe you can relate to this, dear reader. If so, I know this can be a heavy burden and some people will mock you for your “naive” craving for a better world with less suffering. And you might be willing to accept the cynicism and surrender to the weltschmerz and just stop caring.

But sometimes, if you pay attention, you can see (and more importantly, feel) that there is more than “schmerz” in our world. There are people that dedicate their whole lives to the protection of our environment; there are organisations fighting against the violation of human rights; June is pride month and all over the world the LGBTQ+ community and allies are fighting for rights and owning and celebrating their own lives and achievements. There are passionate people fighting for women’s-rights and femininity all over the world. And most importantly, there are so many kind and caring people all over the world, true humanitarians that oppose the cynicism.

You might ask yourself why I am writing this. Well, today was a very painful day (on a personal level) for me, and I could feel myself getting cynical and hateful, but then I met a friend. We talked about all the pain in the world, but more importantly, we talked about love and caring about others. She helped me to stay true to myself, to preserve my humanism – and my humanity. And maybe I can share some of this with you, because despite all the weltschmerz, we are so many! There is hope! There is a reason to be optimistic! And together we can fight pain and misery in this world.

Florian Pock has been GAPA’s Treasurer since its founding in 2015. He currently lives in Graz, Austria.

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I must confess my guilty secret. I’ve never protested. I feel fake when I shout out about an indignation or a societal wrong that should be put right. Even though I lean towards the left and dream of truly fair wages and work practices across the world I have yet to galvanise myself into action.

While studying for a degree at the age of 42 (a protest in itself), I could see that many of my ideas, dreams, arguments and dissatisfaction towards the world were channelled into my writing. I always admired the staples; Brave New World, 1984 and Animal Farm, but could see how these books were now antiques of the past. They were books to be read, closed, discussed and then forgotten. “Big Brother” was a term taken from 1984 and turned into the title of a glitzy celebrity programme heralding the arrival of a sexy surveillance society. I wondered if I could write another book that mirrored the changing world around me and that would make the reader look up from the page and realise how close we were to losing our cherished freedoms.

Once When We Were Human is part homage to the aforementioned classics and part warning of the world that is quickly approaching – with Britain after Brexit now leaning towards the right and alt-right and Trump in the White House, leaning in a direction we have yet to imagine. The so-called “liberal army” might ask themselves how we can defeat an aggressive ideology hell-bent on destroying freedoms only recently established?

How much would you put up with before you act?

Once When we Were Human is an animal allegorical tale. The world has been divided between the wolves our masters and the rest of us the dogs. Justin, the protagonist, is relaxed as totalitarian measures are voted in, in exchange for an easy working week and free food. Any dissent is immediately crushed and people are “voluntarily” sent to re-education camps or summer camps. Karl is the antagonist who, as a conceptual artist, upsets the status quo with his challenging art now deemed illegal by the state.

The book takes parallel themes from the rise of fascism before and during Word War II and asks  how these things could occur in modern times. Justin is the book’s apathetic character who asks the question, “How much would you put up with before you act?” The education camp Sunshine Valley acts as a microcosm in a world where we can have all our material goods if we surrender our creativity.  This allows the story look at the importance of creativity in the human spirit through the eyes of Karl. There is the experience of the surveillance society and education lessons designed to brainwash its citizens, and also a mock funeral for those deemed too elderly, that asks further questions about the dangers of euthanasia. The way we can dress up a horror to appear as an act of compassion.

In a totalitarian society, its people can never truly be free, and therefore can never truly create.

As I reflect on this story months later. I see deeper meaning in the roles of Justin and Karl. The latter a fearless creator. The other fearful of his own power subdued by the oppressive environment around him. Karl is the God-like creator much like the artist prior to the creative act. An artist sits poised with a blank mind waiting for an idea to form. The idea forms and takes shape on the canvas.  The formless moving into the formed. The other characters while less in presence provide food to the varying arguments in the story.

In a totalitarian society, its people can never truly be free, and therefore can never truly create. This means a totalitarian society will only ever reach a fraction of its true potential. So China can never fully be China, as long people are oppressed, and the same goes with Russia. Fundamentally these systems are closed systems and closed minds. The West is also in danger of losing its creativity as it imposes draconian spying measures it has to bring in to protect itself from its own aggressive measures abroad.

With the death of creativity read the death of business, of art, of economies, of the Facebooks and Googles; and as we speak the death of the human spirit. The future may look bright and shiny but we will be dead inside without our creativity.

David Swan worked in technology for 15 years before deciding to pursue a Creative Writing degree at Bangor University. He has travelled to many different countries such as Nepal and India and he has worked in Holland and China. He also has an interest in Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, but has taken a break in the “need-to-believe-in-things” for now. David has had one of his short stories published in Philosophy Now magazine and is now looking for a home for Once When We Were Human. He hopes that, in addition to making a living from his writing, he can make people think, feel, and commit to action.

Visit David’s blog here or download his e-book here.

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