Poetry Africa 2025, with the theme “Poetry: An Architecture For Social Justice,” will be held in Durban, South Africa, from October 6 – 11, 2025.
Poetry Africa is an international poetry festival first hosted by the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa in 1996. Since then, Durban and other cities have hosted some of the leading names in poetry across Africa and abroad in this poetry extravaganza. It features poets in performances, panel discussions, campus and school visits, poetry exchanges, book launches, open mic sessions, and a slam jam competition.
The 2025 edition with the theme “Poetry: An Architecture For Social Justice” will be hosted at the Seabrookes Theatre at Durban High School from October 6 – 11. The theme is a call to build, disrupt, dream, and reimagine the world through the spoken and written word. Organisers promise groundbreaking performances, unfiltered voices, and electrifying conversations that shake the status quo in the city in KwaZulu-Natal province.
The featured poet is sociologist, poet, dramatist, writer, ensemble leader, and civic activist Ari Sitas, who was one of the founders of the Congress of South African Writers (COSAW), the COSATU’s Culture and Working Life Unit and the Natal Culture Congress. He was also a key author and creator of the Charter and of the Institute that looks after the Humanities and the Social Sciences in the country. His latest books are Maps of Sorrow (2023, with Sumangala Damodaran) on the movement of precolonial music in AfroAsia, Music Notebook (2023) published by Chimurenga and a new poetry collection, Surplus Values (his tenth poetry collection). He was also one of the founders of the Award-winning Insurrections Ensemble, which combined the compositional and poetic crafts of AfroAsia. He has just directed the musical oratorio Must Gandhi Fall?, which premiered in Cape Town’s Homecoming Centre of District Six. His work has been translated into many languages. His other poetry books are Tropical Scars (1989), Songs, Shoeshne and Piano (1991), Slave Trades (2000), RDP Poems (2004), Around the World in 80 Days (2013), Rough Music (2014), Vespa Diaries (2018), Oratorio for Small Things that Fall (2020), and Mapping Gondwana (2022).
Including the featured guest, seventy poets from South Africa, Mexico, Nigeria, Kenya, Sudan, Palestine, Somalia, Uganda, Reunion Island, Slovenia, the UK, the US, Jamaica, Canada, India, Côte d’Ivoire, Ukraine, and Brussels will star. They include Nick Makoha, Kwame Dawes, Vuyokazi Ngemntu, vangile gantsho, Tishani Doshi, Thompson Emate, Zama Madinana, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, Tawhida Tanya Evanson, Sebastien Refesse, Sarah Uheida, Sabelo Soko, Rogelio Guedea, Olive Olusegun, Olena Huseynova, Raphael d’Abdon, Mvuzo Sibiya, Lethu Nkwanyana, Moses Kiptoo aka Dominion, Mitja Lovše, Ladan Osman, Malika Ndlovu, N’Gondie Kouamé Marie Linda Olivia, known as L’Encre Des Étoiles (The Ink of Stars), Kaloune, Kirsten Deane, Karsten Harry Robert Steinmetz, Huda the Goddess, Hope Netshivhambe, Thandiwe Nqanda, Grace Storm, Chanda Katonga, Celia Turner, Angela Thandizwe Mthembu, Kole Odutola, among others.
The festival is brought to you by the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Sports, Arts, and Culture, the University of Johannesburg Arts and Culture Centre, and the French Institute of South Africa.
To keep up with Poetry Africa, check out their official website or follow them on Instagram.
Leave a Reply