Relief funding is being provided for poets
Poets are being urged to apply for relief funding through the Hear My Voice initiative aimed at assisting poets across SA as they grapple with financial losses during lockdown.
Organisers are hoping to provide relief funding to 35 poets through applications for the second intake, which closes on July 12. The first application cycle was in April.
The intervention has been established by Hear My Voice, a nonprofit organisation that focuses on developing and supporting spoken word artists.
Hear My Voice executive director Ishmael Sibiya said poets were often overlooked by funding initiatives targeting the arts sector, and the Hear My Voice poetry relief fund aimed to fill that gap.
“Thousands of creative practitioners are currently sitting without the ability to earn an income and poets are often left out of funding opportunities.
“We wanted to find a simple yet effective way to help the sector, something that kept both poets and poetry lovers in mind,” Sibiya said.
After successfully completing the application process, poets are invited to perform on the organisation’s web-series of shows featuring five poets per episode. Each poet receives R1,500 for an online event.
The Eastern Cape made up only 2% of applicants in the previous cycle and the North West had none.
Sibiya said poets from the two provinces were encouraged, in particular, to apply as the current round of open-calls targeted provinces and languages that were under-represented in previous episodes.
Aliwal North’s Refiloe “Qamata” Thoane, 32, was among the 2% of Eastern Cape poets who received funding in the first round.
Poetry is Thoane’s bread and butter and the lockdown had taken away his only source of income, he said.
He said he had found out about the initiative on social media.
“Given the situation we’re in, where we find ourselves with no jobs, we are very grateful that opportunities are making means to come to us.
“The funding has made a big difference to me because I am an artist through and through, with no side job.
“I spend all my days on my art, so to have someone out there recognise that [and give me money] makes all the difference,” Thoane said.
Thoane said he had split the
R1,500 between rent and buying essentials for himself and his two children.
He said performing on an online space was a new experience for him.
“It was a completely new experience and it was a bit weird but I loved every moment of it.”
Port Elizabeth poet Lelethu “Poeticsoul” Mahambehlala said yesterday she had no prior knowledge of the initiative.
She said it was needed in the poetry sector as poets, particularly performance poets, tended to be sidelined.
“One hardly finds spaces that give funding to performance poets because there is that distinction between performance poetry and written poetry, which most times fall under literature.
“Most of the time [poetry funding] falls under literature, as if everyone is going to publish books, but some poets will put together a CD and not a book,” Mahambehlala said.
The poet said she would consider applying before the deadline of July 12.
Applications may be submitted via the Hear My Voice website at www.hearmyvoice.co.za