Repolla Reading Series I
(Close)Reading & Ritual
What work can poetry do, in the endlessly genocidal present, and the burning after-now? How can poetry teach us not to look away? And not only that, how can poetry teach us to look closer?
RGC is thrilled to announce the first iteration of the Repolla Reading Series - (Close)Reading & Ritual - curated by feminist writer, poet and RGC Research Associate Maneo Mohale.
In each of the five sessions (July-October) participants will engage with the work of one poet, and one poem, from one region currently affected by genocide and imperialist violence. In these close gatherings, we hope to foster rituals of solidarity, care, rage, hope and imagination within the otherwise spaces poetry affords us. Each session will be further supported by a curated selection of transdisciplinary resources and associated practices of black-being-well (extending the politics of vigilance, community and care foregrounded in our 2023 Summer School programme).
The Repolla Reading Series follows closely in the footsteps of grounded, innovative queer reading series such as REVERB and The Lesser Violence Reading Group, , and takes further inspiration from current activations of poetry in the face of genocidal catastrophe, such as the 2024 Freedom Boat intervention at the Venice Biennale preview week, and the accompanying Gaza Reader, Vol 1. (Poetry) publication, produced by Artists Against Apartheid, Bidoun; WAWOG (Writers Against the War on Gaza); and the Kamel Lazaar Foundation. Extending this activation and activism of the poetic, Repolla is a series oriented towards action, and underpinned by creative expression, invention, trans-national solidarities, and community magic.
On (Close)Reading & Ritual - a note from Maneo:
We hold it close and true, that “art and ritual are related”.* We nod, and breathe alongside CAConrad, who, “cannot stress enough how much this mechanistic world, as it becomes more and more efficient, resulting in ever-increasing brutality, has required me to FIND MY BODY to FIND MY PLANET in order to find my poetry”.** We also recognise the power of poetry as enunciated sound, as text in air & rhythm, as activated thought-sensation. And as such, over the course of a season, we will gather in spaces both physical and virtual, in the hopes of (re)linking the sonic & the somatic; building and nurturing trans-national solidarities; and activating poetry in the pursuit of a better world.
* "Shopping Bag, Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflections on Ritual Space" dir. by Barbara McCullough
** "DON'T TAKE ANY SHIT!! A (Soma)tic Poetics Primer by CAConrad
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I. Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying
with Noor Hindi
PALESTINE | WED 24 JULY, 18:00 - click HERE for session details
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II. A Burial Hymn
with Sarah Lubala
DRC | THURS 15 AUGUST, 18:00 - click HERE for session details
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III. Poem for the Poorest Country in the Western Hemisphere
with Danielle Legros Georges
HAITI | WED 11 SEPTEMBER, 18:00 - click HERE for session details
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V. PALESTINE IS A FUTURISM: PANDEMONIUM
with George Abraham & Fargo Tbakhi
PALESTINE | WED 23 OCTOBER, 18:00 - details forthcoming…
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On Repolla…
Conceived by award-winning South African poet Maneo Mohale, Repolla is a transdisciplinary collaborative inquiry into what poetry can do. The platform draws its meaning and praxis from the word itself - “Repolla” - a Sesotho neologism and verb meaning, “to challenge power through creative expression”. The word is attributed to the BA RE Dictionary, a crowd-sourced digital collection of invented words in Sesotho, run by BA RE E NE RE, an arts education organisation in Lesotho that promotes critical pedagogy, literacy and creative storytelling.
Maneo Refiloe Mohale is a South African editor, feminist writer and poet. They have been long-listed twice for the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Anthology Award, and their debut collection of poetry, Everything is a Deathly Flower was published with uHlanga press in September 2019. The book was shortlisted for the Ingrid Jonker Poetry Prize, later winning the 2020 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. They currently serve as a research associate at the Centre for the Study of Race, Gender and Class at the University of Johannesburg.