Badilisha Poetry X-Change on the Road Again in Search of Poets

Two years ago, Badilisha Poetry X-Change travelled to eight African cities to meet and record the work of the poets there. The 2015 #BPXRoadTrip visited cities in South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania and Ethiopia. During the road trip, Badilisha interacted with over 246 poets and recorded 184, of which they now feature 100 on their growing archive. This year, Badilisha is pleased to announce a new edition of their poetic journey. The collective is going on the road again, this time with the specific intention of meeting with emerging and seasoned poets working in indigenous languages.

Badilisha's aspiration for this new road trip is to marry the language diversity of the continent with that represented on the Badilisha platform. Poets will also have the opportunity to participate in poetry workshops with poetry professionals from the different regions. Badilisha is specifically targeting poets who write and recite in Setswana, Sepedi, Sesotho, Zulu, Afrikaans and Ndebele. To connect with these poets, the collective will be travelling to Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape, North West, the Northern Cape and the Free State in South Africa.

Badilisha will announce the specific tour dates for each province via Facebook and Twitter. In the meantime, poets from the above-mentioned regions or whose poetry is in any of the languages mentioned, please submit two written poetry samples in any of the eligible languages, one audio poetry sample - which need not be professionally recorded and could comprise a voice note or other mobile phone recordings, a brief biography and a high-resolution photograph. Badilisha will also share further information on their social media platforms.

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