On the back of the Centre’s ‘Long Minute’ series, we created ‘The Poetry Minute’, curated by performance artist, musician and writer Bongile Lecoge-Zulu. The focus here is on the physical text of poetry performed as miniature animated films. The project is interested in how text might perform itself outside of more familiar spoken and embodied forms.

In Bongile’s words: ‘Poets and writers have been invited to create or find an intriguing piece, fragment, or moment of text. The ask is then that they explore the treatment of it so that it comes to life as a text film to present on the rather transient stage of social media. I’m intrigued by how the text itself may want to collaborate and in which ways a poetic text can be read in the constraints of a minute.

An initial incubative workshop discovered animating fonts and typographies, cinematographic devices and punctuating music and sound design. Text began to appear, disappear, float, and scratch itself out, it crumpled, was thrown, etched, dissolved and shuffled. The text was inviting play and through it we followed the impulses beyond the initial idea, we distilled and decluttered and sought out the less good idea.

Over 3 months we regularly shared the outcomes of these negotiations and balances between form, meaning, scale, depth, lightness, quirk, profundity and the broader conversation that the pieces have with one another. Everything packed into a series of poems in a form of unspoken poetry that can not exist as print or spoken word.

Cinematography and Editing by | Noah Cohen
Sound Recording & Mixing | Zain Vally

PRODUCTION FOR THE CENTRE

CO-DIRECTOR | Bronwyn Lace
ANIMATEUR | Phala O Phala
STAGE MANAGER | Dimakatso Motholo
LIGHTING DESIGNERS | Wesley France & Matthews Phala
SOUND ENGINEER | Zain Vally
CINEMATOGRAPHER & EDITOR | Noah Cohen

PHOTOGRAPHER | ZIVANAI MATANGI

The first Poetry Minute ‘Let Black Girls Be’ was a collaboration between Malawian storyteller, poet and researcher Upile Chisala, and self-taught illustrator, artist and designer Neo Phage.

Upile is known for her short and powerful poems on memory, black womanhood and self-love which can be found in her poetry collections 'Soft Magic', 'Nectar' and 'A Fire Like You'.

Neo explores parallel themes of identity, femininity, mental health, and social activism in her own practice. Her channels of expression range from traditional mediums to digital iterations.

This Poetry Minute collaboration is both tender and bold. Holding and acknowledging a world of diversity in a colourful moment of shared experience. It honours how the text itself wanted to collaborate.

Upile’s text brings to life what she describes as, “the experience of black girlhood. When you are taught silence and smallness from a very young age by a society that others you, it is easy to succumb to it. This poem is about disowning some of the untruths that systems of oppression continue to gift black girls and black women”.

Neo’s poignant and precise imagery carries the text. For Neo, “the aim for this project was to visually explore Upile's poem as a story. We follow the narrative of what it means to be a black girl navigating a society that is against you, and fighting to come out the other end true to yourself. I used a mixture of physical elements (pieces of text that were cut, pasted, and played with) as well as digital elements to create a hybrid visual diary. This felt true to the complexity of the text as well as the complexity of what it means to be a black girl”.

LET BLACK GIRLS BE
Written by| Upile Chisala
Illustration artwork and editing by | Neo Phage

A Poetry Minute is curated by Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu

This Poetry Minute is by Alfred Motlhapi. A theatre practitioner and overall multi-disciplinarian who graduated from the Market Theatre Laboratory. He has recently ventured into visual arts as a medium of investigating structural shifts in his process of making. Alfred describes his craft as “a way to find healing and enlightenment in his life by exploring ways of knowing using art as a tool”.

Such is the case with ‘Come Close Range - I Am The Source’. The original text was a response to his environment and landscape of encounters and experience. He observed judgements being passed without knowledge or understanding of the hidden beauty of a given thing or sentient being. The writing was his reaction to discovering the parts that are left out resulting in misunderstood symbols and signifiers of behaviour. In his own words, “This text was intended to interrogate and understand my part in my environment … To understand what is presented in front of you is to become part of seeing yourself through what it is; and to comprehend your own sense of meaning. And the writing formed itself into a prayer or a form of meditation”.

Following a rather involved process which took him through various artistic expressions (visual art, digital soundscapes and sensory stimulus), Alfred arrived at this distilled albeit captivating moment of the text, which keeps circling back to source and self.

COME CLOSE RANGE - I AM THE SOURCE
Created by | Alfred Motlhapi
Cinematography and Editing by | Noah Cohen
Sound Recording | Zain Vally

A Poetry Minute is curated by Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu

In celebration of Freedom Day, we shared a collaborative Poetry Minute by Koleka Putuma, Clem Carr and Thabang Lehobye.

Here, the text meets music and visual art to hold both memory and contemporary experiences which are etched deeply in many a South African’s narrative. There are nostalgic echoes of absence, waiting and loss; with a subtle thread celebrating the power of women who stand through it all.

The descriptions and thoughts of the collaborators candidly capture their intent and the impulses driving their choices and expression.

‘The poem is an ode to women who know too intimately the ritual of waiting, of raising children in the absence of fathers, women who will men into existence from all the places they go missing. We live in a country where television shows that specialise in looking for men / fathers who do not want to be found are not only produced, but popular. ’ - Koleka Putuma.

‘Having been raised by a single mother, I was truly moved by Koleka's striking poem. Words have the power to paint a complete picture. Mine was to give a sense of time passing by as she stood still, waiting. One of the most difficult things to do is to be still. She becomes a statue, a monument of strength and patience’ - Thabang Lehobye.

‘Creating the music for this poem took me back to my first year in music college, I was struggling with identity and father issues and I wrote a small theme that has stuck in my heart ever since. When I read Koleka's poem it took me straight back. I expanded the harmony and adapted it for the video. The chords are in the tradition of South African vocal gospel and jazz and express a feeling I associate with African fatherhood’ - Clem Carr.

‘Koleka’s poem has such weight and texture … The collaborating artists contribute the same depth and richness in their creative expressions’ - With Love The Agency.

THE LAND OF MILK & HONEY
Koleka Putuma | Text
Thabang Lehobye | Artist and Animator
Clem Carr | Musical Director
With Love The Agency | Creative Producer

A Poetry Minute is curated by Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu

‘There’s Something to be Said’ is by Johannesburg-based writer, editor, and arts journalist David Mann.

The Centre for the Less Good Idea’s ‘writer on the wall’ - witness to much of the processes, workshops and incubators - as artists make sense of their ideas and impulses through action. Dave Mann holds the seemingly impossible task of finding concreter words for the flowing action in the room.

It has been wonderful to watch Dave take ‘his’ moment in the foreground. To see his personal process of observation, recollection and description of the Centre’s goings on, translate into a Poetry Minute. One which also speaks true to his interest in alternative modes of producing and publishing text-based work, particularly within the public realm.

Through Dave’s tactile engagement with his text and tools of writing; we become privy to the cycle of drafting and editing, the weighing of words, and the invasive peripheral thoughts that interrupt a writer’s process.

Dave Mann elaborates by saying: “‘There is Something to be Said’ looks at the act of writing in response to an artwork, performance, or event, and the subsequent tensions and navigations of language, memory, knowledge, doubt, and certainty that emerge through the process. These tensions find resonance in the tearing of the page, line by line, in a search for better words, as well as the disruption of the narrative through periphery or secondary thought – a tussle between writer and editor, or artist and critic”.

THERE IS SOMETHING TO BE SAID
Created by | David Mann
Cinematography and Editing by | Noah Cohen
Sound Recording by | Zain Vally

A Poetry Minute is curated by Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu

This Poetry Minute is an experimental collaboration by Napo Masheane and Daniel ‘Stompie’ Selibe. Napo is a poet, playwright, producer, director, cultural activist and performer; Stompie a visual artist, social activist and musician.

Oa Lelemela is our first multilingual offering fusing Napo’s mother tongue Sesotho with English. The text itself came together in sessions of play and experimentation between the artists. Here, the anthropomorphism of the element of water, together with sound evokes a vast metaphoric landscape.

In conversations with Napo and Stompie, the discovered multiplicity of meaning came to light:

‘The poem in the water symbolises that even when words, your voice, your art form, your being is suppressed, violated, muted, censored; it can always rise above force. Water takes a different shape depending on its landscape, container or movement. When Stompie blows his pipes into the water, the words are amplified and echoed, they swim and rise above the force of the water. The sound is distorted - eerily, hauntingly. Like an echo of the unknown, potentially making the listener uneasy. The most interesting thing for me was the sound of the wind pipes becoming the sound of the poem and the poet, as well as that listeners/readers can make out their own poem. The poem that I wrote is not necessarily the poem that is going to be read’ - Napo.

‘It feels profound, this improvised experimentation of finding methods, a figuring out of new ways of using words without having someone reciting poetry. Our collaboration began in the imagination, what we imagined felt clear in our heads but when we began to actually make it changed and became more interesting. I think this often applies to a process that doesn't have an ending, it is continuous work that allows other elements and ideas to unfold. What I found using different instruments blown into water is a new metaphor for sound. A new sound that can be interpreted to make a new meaning. In collaborating with Napo, we discovered a healing, the sound in the water created a kind of meditative reading’ - Stompie.

OA LELEMELA
Created by | Napo Masheane & Daniel “Stompie” Selibe
Cinematography and Editing by | Noah Cohen
Sound recording by | Zain Vally

A Poetry Minute is curated by Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu

‘Lesea’ by actor, director, facilitator and writer Katlego ‘Kaygee’ Letsholonyana is another vernacular Poetry Minute offering. Kaygee was born in Dinokana (North West Province) and much of his writing is in his mother tongue - Setswana.

The making of ‘Lesea’ sparked an animated discussion around the act and nature of translation. Furthermore the effect it has on authorship. As Kaygee reflects: ‘Many of my ideas of how I wanted this piece to turn out were already being explored by other Poetry Minute participants. I got stuck. One day my daughter, Warona, took my bicycle lights and we started playing. Flickering them in a dark room, creating different shadows ... I then started writing ‘Lesea’. Translating it was simple, but the poem lost its meaning altogether. I thought "die den gae dire sense". I was confused and troubled. How would I share the same understanding of my text with people who do not speak Setswana? A dear friend of mine introduced me to Frances Gillis Webber's translations. It was fulfilling to learn that translation does not always have to lose the writer’s intention. After playing and exploring, I decided to go with a direct translation of select lines of the poem - constantly trying (very hard) to keep the meaning’.

The clumsy, literal translation is light and comical. It makes sense of the Setswana text without relying on English idioms, proverbs and adages that run somewhat parallel. The shadows, while playful, point to something more poignant. The potential for the author’s intent to recede into the distance where it remains an echo that reverberates somewhere between language and meaning.

LESEA
Created by | Katlego “Kaygee” Letsholonyana
Cinematography and Editing by | Noah Cohen
Sound recording by | Zain Vally

A Poetry Minute is curated by Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu

This Poetry Minute is by acclaimed poet, performer and project manager Mutinta Bbenkele Simelane; with video art by Neo Phage who is an artist, designer and illustrator.

The text was originally written for the Global Citizens Festival. In conversations about the work, Mutinta talked me through her intention for the text to express the essence of womanhood in an accessible way for the unconventional platform where it was first performed. Deliberately moving away from the depth come abstractions that are often associated with this form of writing - to use simple language and messaging.

The poem has no title. It’s silent, unnamed entry is apt given the path it takes us on.

‘Mutinta's poem is straightforward and blunt in its representation of the black woman's experience. She's deliberate and intentional in her delivery. But it is only through being a black woman that you understand the layers camouflaged underneath the bluntness. It was this layering that I wanted to visually represent. Through collage and mixed media, the viewer comes to see how "Woman...Is a collision of fire and feeling"’ - Neo.

Neo and Mutinta’s process of finding a common pulse - a shared language, has embedded itself in every frame of the video. Each from their own context to meet a mutual end.

‘This process stretches creatives in such a necessary and profound way. We spend so much time fantasizing and dreaming about the mediums through which our work will find relevance. Handing my intention over to Neo, who speaks through a different medium, was a trust fall that happened several times over. I could have never anticipated the images that my words inspired her to bring forward. I could have never imagined that the complexity of Being Woman could be in some way captured. We are validated and seen through this body of work’ - Mutinta.

Created by | Mutinta Bbenkele Simelane
Video Art by | Neo Phage

A Poetry Minute is curated by Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu

This Poetry Minute is by William Kentridge. This was shared to coincide with the opening of ‘Sibyl’ at the Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg in June 2021, as part of the Red Bridge Project. The performance is for three dancers and a choral ensemble of six, divided in two parts, part one being a twenty-two-minute film with live score entitled ‘The Moment Has Gone’ and part two the forty-two-minute chamber opera ‘Waiting for the Sibyl’. I, together with a number of invited collaborators from The Centre for the Less Good Idea had the opportunity to travel to Luxembourg earlier this month and join William in the showing of existing work and the incubating of new work in Luxembourg’s ‘TalentLAB’ and the ‘Red Bridge Project’.

William took quite a bit of time to put this minute together. I naively thought that this was simply because he was busy with all the other projects and engagements on his plate - only getting to this one in stolen pockets of “free” time. And this may indeed have some truth to this assumption of mine. BUT…! Having had the opportunity to experience William’s work so closely in Luxembourg, I observed the dedication with which he attends to his works, and this is likely to remain with me for a while to come. There is an unparalleled involvement, attention to detail and commitment to his craft. No slapdash jobs. As is the case with “Let Me Live”.

‘The poem is made up of lines culled and collaged from Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poems and plays. The lines sought to make a libretto for a film for a performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 10. Images and texts laid out a table in a random order and then selected and rearranged. These are some fifteen lines of the final text which will be 8 or 9 times longer. A testing of a writing technique’ - William Kentridge.

LET ME LIVE AGAIN
Created by | William Kentridge
Music from | Dmitri Shostakovich - ‘The Nose’
Editing by | Octavia Sontane

A Poetry Minute is curated by Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu

“Afriqaui Hasam” was the first Poetry Minute with spoken text, breaking the general rule of ‘unspoken poetry’. That being said, the entire minute is anchored in the act of writing and mark-making, and voice does not correlate with what is being written. The drawing of the line plays itself out as a determining of boundaries and identities.

Nava Derakhshani is a New York-based multimedia artist. A graduate of the International Center for Photography, she turned her lens onto herself exploring her identity through research, photography, video, and collage. Her other work includes varied expressions of self-portraiture and the nuances of her exploration into identity, migration, gender and belonging. There is an intrinsically political act in Nava’s place-making which is both feminist and decolonial.

‘I think of the history and meaning of text in my personal and geographic histories. Born to Iranian parents in Eswatini, I constantly grapple with my identity, placelessness, and legitimacy to be an African. Arabic text is examined as a transcultural anchor. A language brought to South Africa through slavery which became the first script to record Afrikaans. It was brought to Persia through colonial conquest and replaced the ancient Farsi script. Arabic text has a tremendous and nuanced history. It has been adapted into new traditions of art, calligraphy, poetry, and language. This piece invites us to look beyond a limiting idea of what it is to be an African. It invites us to claim our rich history of cultural diversity, exchange, and spirituality’ - Nava.

While entrancing, there is a devastating futility about the transience of Nava’s writing. Witnessing the meditation on what it is to write herself in water, into the water and into the sand. As a person of mixed identity, the questions are, ‘what is heritage in relation to language, skin, hair, and being? And how to find a sense of belonging in each context?

AFRIQUAI HASAM
Created by | Nava Derakhshani
Cinematography and Editing by | Nava Derakhshani

A Poetry Minute is curated by Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu

Nicci Haynes lives in Canberra, Australia. In her own words she “does performance, printmaking, drawing, animation, makes mad-scientist constructions and sometimes makes ‘films’ from joined image sequences made from drawings, sheets of paper and objects, which is a strategy to unify separate parts of a diverse art practice”.

The title of this Poetry Minute “Journey Home … For The Last Time”, immediately conveys a sense of loss ... of transitioning from a place of familiarity and routine, to one of reminiscence. Nicci captures the passage of becoming estranged from this familiarity. Where you find yourself in the vacant space, the commute. Watching as what was once home becomes “just the names of places”.

‘Many times in the past 25 years I have made the flight from Australia to London, and by train to Nottingham where I grew up. As my parents grew older I knew the time would come when I would no longer have the need to make that journey. The footage taken for ‘Journey home’ was taken in 2019 to be with my mother for, what turned out to be, her final days. It is the last time I can really think of that journey as going home’ - Nicci.

JOURNEY HOME FOR THE LAST TIME
Created by | Nicci Haynes
Video by | Nicci Haynes

A Poetry Minute is curated by Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu

Frank Meintjies is a writer based in Johannesburg known for his creative writing and poetry. Frank’s poetry collections are ‘Unfettered Days’, ‘Connexions’ and ‘My Rainbow’. He has also written several children’s stories and short stories.

Winter is a time for hibernation. For slowing down. For conservation, containment and reflection. Covid-19 forced us into a protracted state of winter and today’s Poetry Minute “Winter Tree” is a reflection on this unforeseen winter. Frank shared a description of the behaviours brought about by the state of emergency and South Africa’s hard lockdown. The clawing sense of desperation, the scratchiness or tetchiness of being unsettled and annoyed by the many restrictions and instructions. I am often struck by how Frank is able to tell direct (and often harrowing) truths with his words - his turn of phrase drives straight to the core with unexpected simplicity.

‘The effect, for someone living alone, was a withering away. A drying up caused by lack of contact, worry and anxiety. There was less laughter. But the season will pass; all is not lost. That is the secret in the title ... it refers only to a specific period. "I write" refers to creativity. I wrote about the virus, about miners being forced to be the first to return to work without PPE. I wrote poems about the ways in which Covid showed the cracks in the bones of our society. These are the “gaunt shadows”. My creativity focused a great deal on the shadow side. Sure, we like the sunny side; but we need to be in the immediate, confront the current pressures, deal with 'the moment'. This creates a stronger basis for moving forward, when the moving forward moment comes’ - Frank.

WINTER TREE
Created by | Frank Meintjies
Cinematography and Editing by | Noah Cohen
Sound recording by | Zain Vally

A Poetry Minute is curated by Bongile Gorata Lecoge-Zulu

“Where Does the Air Go?” marked the end of our first series of Poetry Minutes. I am in awe, and sit with deep gratitude to all of the collaborators and the Centre team for this curatorial experience.

We have witnessed various styles, themes, ideas and ways of making - each giving the text the space to perform. It has been a joy and an inspiration to work with all of the artists and each text.

Before curating the Poetry Minute my outlook on poetry was quite fixed, especially when it came to my own writing. In my view poetry had to be evocative, succinct, highly expressive or descriptive, with a solid rhythmical flow. These aren’t necessarily descriptors I would use for my own writing and far be it from me to actually utter the words ‘I am a poet’. But before me lay the task of poet-ing.

I set out to write something profound and beautiful. Instead, I wound up with arbitrary words sneaking into my mind out of nowhere and often out of context (as per usual). I eventually gave in to the words that were happening to me in place of the ones I had intended. As we gear ourselves up for Season 8, I’ve also had persistent thoughts around the provocation of ‘Breath/Breathing Again’: what is the quality of breath, what happens to it inside and outside of the body? I allowed these thoughts and the collage of phrases to thread themselves together. Somehow my haphazard process resulted in a piece that holds relevance (or is perhaps just an unconscious reflection) in these times of isolation, grief, self-confrontation and breathlessness.

WHERE DOES THE AIR GO?
Created by | Bongile Lecoge-Zulu
Cinematography and Editing by | Noah Cohen
Sound Recording & Mix by | Zain Vally