It was such a privilege to meet Roleka Putuma on the 20th of September. It is one thing to interpret poetry in your own view or to discuss it in about in class, but to actually see and experience it from the poet themselves is amazing. It is like meeting the artist behind an inspiring painting. It adds so much color to grey areas of understanding and fills up gaps. Putuma performed many poems that was discussed in class and that I have blogged about. That was my favorite. Giving even more life to than my own interpretation of 'words on a paper'.

It was such a real experience to hear the back ground behind her train of thought of the poems and how she brought it to life. The same rawness that reflects in her poetry is present in her personality. Key concepts that was evident was the issue of women of color, color in general, having your own voice, rape and patriarchy in general. Two topics that stood out personally was our discussion regarding why we took Writing as healing as an elective and the issue regarding rape and a patriarchal society. When we were asked the question about why we chose this specific elective, it started with being deep in thought and really wondering what persuaded us. It resulted in a deep discussion regarding many challenges all races in South Africa experience. In a multi-racial class this was a interesting yet great discussion and experience for it is not common in South Africa to have many races and cultures sit around the same table and have conversations as such.  One statement I made was that as a white, South African, Afrikaans speaking female I feel as if whatever I say regarding these topics are disregarded for “what does she know”. That is both an internally and externally conflict that I experience. Have many individuals collaborating on this statement with many views was enlightening. This is also where we discussed what is your voice. I can only have my own voice by being who I am and being open and educated towards those that do not have the same path as me.

Regarding rape, we had a discussion about patriarchy and feminism and rape culture. Here we referred to Putuma’s poem Oh dear God, not another poem about rape. She explained that this title popped up in her head for at slam poetry competitions when a poet does a poem about rape then some in the audiences’ eyes role.  What was particularly interesting was to hear the perspectives of the two male students in our class. To them realizing that it is quite different being a female than being a male. We discussed that what you wear does not give consent to rape. We discussed that from a young age especially girls are told to greet and hug or kiss other adults. That it would be disrespectful to not greet in this manner. That when a girl rejects being kind to a male or not greeting by hugging, that it is disrespectful and rude. We discussed that this practice created that girls are silent towards sexual violence and sexually and emotionally abused.