The Library with Mannie Mensah: Recent Episodes
Mannie & Nana
When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.
When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.
Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance, fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of
dark, cold
caves.
And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.
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Welcome to a special episode of the Library Podcast celebrating Black History Month in collaboration with the Feminist Library.
The Feminist Library now based at the Sojourner Truth Centre on Sumner Road, Peckham, has an exhibition titled WE ARE HERE: How Black Women have been the backbone to radical social movements.
Celebrating the work of Black Women using the libraries archival material. From Activists to Educators, Writers and artists if you would like to know more about the exhibition visit the Feminist Library’s website.
Today we will be reading some our favourite poems by Black Women Poets
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Falling in Love can be one of the most affirming feelings one can encounter.Staying in Love can be compared to writing a poem. In this episode we read the wonderful Nikki Giovanni's poem "Where do you enter?"Explore the poem for yourself below:Where do...
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