Poetry enthusiasts worldwide now have local artist poetry work at their finger tips, thanks to the latest technical gadgets.
Dubbed “Digi-Poetry”, the movement, which is a creation of Mo Script owned by two female poets, is expected to expose local poets to international audiences.
The duo, Ophadile Tau and Maipelo Zambane, who are the brains behind Mo Scripts, are hopeful that the poetry movement will build a culture of reading and writing among the young generation.
Tau and Zambane have already captured the world with their amazing poetic artistry where their poems have already been downloaded.
Their poems are available on smart phones, such as Blackberry 10, Samsung, Ericson, HTC and other handsets.
Zambane says so far they have poems available and can be downloaded for free on selected mobile phones.
“We have four versions that are available for download. One of the versions, dubbed “Life and everything in between”, can be downloaded from Opera Mini and is compatible with Android-based devices, such as Blackberry, Symbian and JAVA based handsets. It is also available for download on Samsung and the recently released Blackberry 10 application. To date, we have 3726 downloads on opera mini store,” said Zambane. He said that both have contributed five enthralling poems on each version.
The duo emphasised that they are driven by their passion to grow the art scene and literacy in the country. In their quest to take poetry to another level, the two want to bring the existing poets and upcoming poets together.
They further explain that, through the project, local poets will be able to share their work, experience and nurture upcoming poets through a website that will be launched soon.
“Those who have blogs will also submit them and possibly build a central place for poets through a website that will be managed by Mo Scripts. We are hoping that the movement will build the culture of reading among young generations, promote culture and show the world the diverse culture that the country has,” explained Tau, who is optimistic that going digital will help many poets to get recognition locally and internationally.
She said the move also shows the power of publishing with applications. Tau also noted that they are currently offering their poems for free but remain hopeful that they will turn the idea into a profitable venture.
So far, four versions that have already been published comprise of five poems from each of them.
Quizzed on her passion on poetry, Zambane explained that she always writes her poems based on her mood, family and topical issues.
In one of her unpublished poems, called “System”, the poet stated that she focused on politics. She emphasised that she was trying to picture a Motswana citizen who always complains while they are incompetent themselves.
“As a Motswana, you should deal and come with working solutions because Batswana are the ones who voted the system. Don’t just complain, come up with a solution because you are the one who voted the system because there is no electricity and students are failing,” said Zambane.
She further noted that she developed interest in writing poetry while she was at junior secondary school.
She remembers well that she wrote her first poem while she was at Junior Secondary where she wrote a poem called “The Boy”.
Zambane said that since then, she developed interest in poetry. She explained that she had a crush on someone at school and she started expressing herself lyrically.
Tau is no different from her buddy poet. She says that she is inspired by many things in her poetry career.
She says she analyses issues such as love, trials and tribulations which inspire her and trigger her to pen down her poems.
Tau indicated that she was once named as ‘Political Bitch’ while she was schooling in South Africa because her poetry comprised of political issues. In one of her favourite poems, titled ‘30 bucks’, Tau indicated that she was trying to focus on decriminalisation of prostitution.
She said that she was trying to show the world that despite many people going into prostitution, the government was not coming forward to help them.
Tau said that the bills are passed in parliament but such bills fail to address socio economic issues, like prostitution, which many rely on to feed their families.
She wondered why the government was not coming up with a solution to prostitution, which is rife.
