Vuyokazi Ngemntu invites LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs and Sihle Ntuli to reflect on their poetic practice, language and dispossession, literacies, influences, rootedness, Black women’s histories and music. 

Vuyokazi Ngemntu is a writer-performer situated in Cape Town. She has received awards for her short stories and her work has appeared in The Kalahari Review, Herri, Ake Review and elsewhere.

LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs is a writer, vocalist and performance/sound artist. She is the author of the poetry collections TwERK (Belladonna, 2013) and Village (Coffee House Press, 2023). She lives in Harlem and teaches part-time at Brooklyn College and Stetson University.

Sihle Ntuli is a poet from Durban and a recipient of the 2023 JIAS Writing Fellowship for his poetry. He is the editor-in-chief of New Contrast.  He is the author of the poetry chapbooks Rumblin’ (Uhlanga, 2020) and The Nation (River Glass Books, 2023) in addition to the full-length poetry collection Zabalaza Republic (Botsotso, 2023).

In this episode we are in solidarity with writer and activist Wai Moe Naing. We call on the authorities in Myanmar to free him. You can read more about his case here: https://www.pen-international.org/news/myanmar-pen-member-now-serving-54-year-prison-sentence

As tributes to him, LaTasha reads “American Sonnet 61” by Wanda Coleman, Sihle reads his poem “The National Screening of Sarafina, Every Year on June 16th” and Vuyokazi reads her own untitled poem.

PEN South Africa joins the PEN community in mourning the passing of writer, photographer, artist, and President of PEN Myanmar, Nyein Chan (known by his pen name, Nyi Pu Lay). You can read more about him here: https://www.pen-international.org/news/myanmar-pen-mourns-the-passing-of-pen-myanmar-president-nyi-pu-lay

This podcast series is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa to promote open conversation and highlight shared histories.