This year’s Deft Poetry Festival will take place on July 30 at Amaryllis Hotel in Blantyre. After announcing the return of the poetry festival which debuted last year, the organisers also unveiled a new partner, Centre for Sports, Arts and Culture (Cesca) who contributed K2 million towards the event. Our arts editor EDITH GONDWE caught up with Cesca chairperson Caleb Thole to shed more light on their involvement with the festival.
Q
: What motivated you to partner with organisers of Deft Poetry Festival?
A
: Poetry is a big thing in Malawi and we do have close to 500 poets. We believe poetry can be used for Malawi’s development to create jobs.
But we also believe that through poems we can raise awareness on various issues affecting our country such as agriculture, health, education and governance. Most importantly poetry is for recreational purposes and that it can heal someone.
We are talking about depression these days. There is a lot of depression which is leading to suicide and we believe that poetry can help improve people’s mental health.
If we start having star poets, Malawi can be appreciated globally. We have all seen how South Africa has been well known through a comedian Trevor Noah. The same can happen for Malawi maybe through a poet.
Q: You have given them K2 million. What exactly is it that you expect them to come up with at the end of the day?
A
: This is more of a small seed. We want them to reach out to up-and-coming poets and give them a platform to showcase their talents both male and female.
We want those up-and -coming poets to link up with those who are already established so that they can help them get settled in the industry.
We also want them to raise awareness during this festival on issues affecting Malawi and how we can address them.
In terms of hunger, HIV and Aids, governance and any other issues of public interest. So, it is not only laughter, but we want them to give key messages that can promote Malawian culture as well.
Q: The theme for this year’s festival is ‘Towards Sustainable Renewable Energy’. What is your take on the theme in connection with poetry?
A
: You will agree with me that when you look at statistics, only 10 percent of the Malawian population have access to electricity. And we have been like that for years. Renewable energy is one of the areas which we as a country have not fully exploited.
We are talking of solar, gas and other alternatives that are sustainable. We believe that the theme for this year’s festival is very good and as Malawians we can raise awareness that alternatively, apart from charcoal, firewood and electricity, we can use other renewable energies that are available.
We also want the poets to use this opportunity to call upon government to accelerate access to renewable energy. For example, in Malawi people scramble for electricity as if it is a free commodity and yet people pay for it. So, we believe that there is a huge market and it is also an area where people can create employment.
We, therefore, want to call on policies that should allow Malawians to flex and join the business and invest in the business and create employment for fellow Malawians. As we speak, more people are building houses, towns are being established but actually we still do not have enough energy in Malawi. And this is a very big issue.
We believe that this theme has come at the right time which art, in this case poetry, can play its role to raise awareness, educate and most importantly advocate for such important issues.
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