Badilisha Poetry X-Change.
Story highlights- Badilisha Poetry X-Change is the world's largest archive of African poets
- Poets featured on the "mobile first" site must be African or have a strong link to the continent
- 70% of mobile users in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to Ericsson consumer report
- Each poet profile includes a bio, photo, text poems and audio podcasts
(CNN)Linda
Kaoma is on the hunt in East Africa. Her tour of the region will see
her travel to Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.
Not in search of lions, rhinos
or other big game. Rather she's on a quest for a much more elusive
creature -- the African poet.
"We
have a rich oral tradition and it's important that we document what is
happening in history poetry-wise," she explains. "Africa has a history
of a lack of documentation and we really didn't want this to happen to
our poets."
Kaoma, 29, is part of the team behind the Badilisha Poetry X-Change, the largest online archive of African poetry, accessible via mobile phone, in the world.
The
Badilisha project was originally conceived as an annual poetry festival
overseen by the Africa Centre, a pan-African organization based in Cape
Town in 2008. Over the following years it grew to become a powerful
mouthpiece for showcasing African wordsmiths. And by 2012, the
institution decided to move online in an effort to break down
geographical borders and open up their diverse anthology to a wider
audience in Africa.
Poetry in your phone
Following
an overhaul of the site last year, Badilisha relaunched in September,
making its immersive archive accessible to a broader international
following through a "mobile-first" site.
It's a shrewd move on a continent where mobile phones have revolutionized critical sectors such as education, healthcare and agriculture.
Adoption of mobile phone use has been prolific in Africa with mobile
data services going from strength to strength. Seven out of 10 mobile
users in sub-Saharan Africa use their phones to browse the web, according to a recent report from Ericsson. Elsewhere, a study by analyst firm Ovum predicted in November that "mobile
broadband connections in Africa are set to rise from 96 million in 2013
to 950 million to cover 77.3% of all mobile subscriptions in the
continent by the end of 2019."
Kaoma
adds: "A lot of Africans use their mobiles to go on the Internet and
because they are own main target audience, we had to cater for them and
make it easy for them to access this content."
To
date, the project has collected almost 400 African poets from 31
countries in Africa and across the diaspora, in 14 different languages.
Since the relaunch, users are able to navigate the site through a myriad
of options including by theme, poet, country, language, emotion or by
their "Top 10" list, a popular feature curated by a guest poet each
month.
And
it seems their following has embraced the organization's decision to go
forward on mobile with an average of 3,000 visitors to the site
monthly.
"We want the archive to be a
place where people can come and get educated about what other African
poets are saying. A place for them to interact with one another," says
Kaoma. "There is great value in a Kenyan interacting with a Nigerian. A
Nigerian interacting with a South African...
"Also
the archive has now reached an international status and it has become a
global stage. Poets can get the exposure that they usually do not get."
Cape Town-based poet Toni Stuart,
who compiled this month's "Top 10" list, says: "I don't think the
importance of an archive like this can be overstated. It is the first
'living archive' focusing solely on poets from Africa and the diaspora.
"The
archive serves a number of purposes: it makes poets available to an
international audience -- and for less known poets, this is a chance to
be heard beyond their own community, city or country. It raises the the
profile of poetry from and of the continent, while allowing people to
engage with the words through hearing and reading them."
Hot on the trail of poets
Two
poets are introduced to the platform weekly and each poet profile
features a short biography, two text poems, a photograph and audio
podcast recordings of the wordsmith reading their works.
Kaoma,
a poet and writer herself, says: "It adds so much value to actually
hear the poet's voice recite their work. It adds a different dimension,
it adds a texture. We really want to give our audience a holistic
experience of poetry.
"If some people
just choose to read it, that's fine. But if others want to hear it, (the
podcast) really brings the work to life."
Meanwhile,
Stuart, who also runs poetry and performance workshops, says the
multi-layered format "democratizes poetry" by "offering an equal
platform to poets working in all languages on the continent, and to
established and emerging poets."
Poets can supply their work directly to the organization via the project's submissions page. It is then evaluated by a rolling judging panel who determine whether the work is suitable for Badilisha.
"At
any given time we have two or three poets sitting on the panel," says
Kaoma. "We try to have a mix of people so we will invite poets to come
curate for us. It keeps the selection process exciting and diverse."
Conversely,
the team also approach poets directly to inquire if they are interested
in adding their work to the collection. Additionally, they travel to
various nations in search of poets to connect with.
"We
write to publishers or anybody who has access to these poets and build
those profiles. We do, from time to time, have to travel to a specific
country. We really have to do a lot of ploughing and digging of the
poetry scene and that space."
One such voice on the platform is Ghanaian-born Jamaican poet Kwame Dawes.
Having first encountered Badilisha while visiting Cape Town several
years ago, he is thrilled to see how the organization has created a
burgeoning poetry scene online.
"I had
the chance to visit their studios and to learn more about what they
intended to do. It was exciting to see this fledgling idea blossom into
what is simply one of the best things to happen to African poetry in a
long time.
"The concept is simple, but the impact is massive."
Existing in an online space
Dawes, who is also a distinguished actor, documentary writer and founder of the prestigious African Poetry Book Fund, has not only curated content for the site but he's also featured in this month's "Top 10," compiled by South Africa's Toni Stuart.
He
adds: "Of course it feels good to see that other poets are engaged by
my work. I am not sure what it means really (to be included in the Top
10), but I have to think that the few poems on the site resonate with
people in positive ways. I am in good company, frankly, and I find that
an honor."
It's a sentiment project manager Kaoma says many poets share about their inclusion in Badilisha.
"When
we first started there was obviously a bit of resistance. People not
understanding how being online works. Now as a society, we are more
accustomed to being online, a lot of our activities are based online --
we shop online -- so as society becomes more comfortable with the idea
of the web, so do poets," explains the curator.
"Poets are very open to it and they appreciate having such a space there they can engage with one another."
Badilisha
is principally funded by Spier, a South African wine estate, with
additional financing from applications to the government and other
private institutions. And in a time when traditional publishers are
shying away from printing poetry due to lack of sales, the project
offers poets a new outlet for presenting their work in a digital age.
But Kaoma is quick to clarify Badilisha's position as an alternative
literary publisher.
"A lot of
publishers right now aren't publishing a lot of poetry, (and) we don't
want that to be what stops us as poets from having thriving careers. I
think we can exist online and maybe when people see how popular poetry
really is, they can start increasing the number of books being
published. I think we can coexist and work with one another."
cnn.
