She Chronicles presents: Brenda Dzangare

DESOLATION

Ignorant robber

Calamity is coming beware

He knew what He was doing , when he made you and me

Were we not meant to depend on each other ?

Only just He , knew what He was doing

Oh! I see what you have become

A bad omen to prevailing future

Urbanisation and peripheral development , you call it

And yet plundering what we thought was our home

You come armed with bull dozers in our territory

Yet there we humble ourselves fearing your machines

Away you drag our homes , children and elders .

Leaving us with nowhere to squatter

A bad omen to prevailing future

Created tiny was never my wish

Crawling in undergrowth , never my choice

He knew what He was doing ,when he created you and me

Was born here ,where now do I herd to?

Try moving further and another city shouts peripheral development

My species running dry of offspring because of urbanisation

A bad omen to prevailing future

Our roots used to greet each other under mother earth

Proudly we once stood in our green uniform at peace

Then came this calamity called urbanisation and peripheral development

Uprooting my forefathers , now me and tomorrow my offspring

Plant a tree whenever you uproot one , called a wise voice

Deaf peripheral development never listened

If my offspring is uprooted today , there won’t be a forest tomorrow

A bad omen to prevailing future

________________________________________________________________________________________

Brenda Dzangare is an urban fantasy fiction and non fiction writer. Author of “Calah Crown” series book one on Amazon Kindle and Lulu publishers online platform. Dzangare is also writer of 5 books of Reading Time series, a children’s 10 book series, new Zimbabwean curriculum. She is also a writer of poetry with poems featuring in 2019 January International Poetry Digest Issue and another to feature in February Issue. Her poem titled “Two fools”, will be featured in Pop Shot Magazine identity issue in mid February 2019.

For more information, follow Dzangare on her Facebook and Twitter pages.

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Re-Establishing my Journey

Years ago I decided I would not never become a teacher. I envisioned it as confinement. I am a creature of routine BUT I do not want one imposed on me. I always saw being an educator as someone who was doomed with routine and rewarded with low pay. That was not the life I wanted to live.

As time and the ancestors would have it, my poetry created a platform for me to engage my art at colleges and universities. Not just as the “entertainment” but additionally as an educator to young writers on the importance of preserving the black vernacular. My art eventually evolved to focusing on the feminine narrative. Encouraging the black feminine voice expressed and written from a holistic perspective and not just as a presence to move a plot forward. These discussions exposed two things, (1) I had more questions than answers and needed to do more research to educate myself (2) I was pretty good at this teaching thing.

My community knows me primarily as a performance poet and from the theatre. Both of these creative platforms allowed me to express undivided and intellectually intact. I had the company to be beautiful and the security to laugh at myself and others. As I immersed myself more with the writing community, plays and novels, I felt absent- invisible even. I was stifled with this feeling once before when I studied film at Howard University for my M.A. In screenplay writing, I didn’t have the company of voice, meaning the character written or represented on film, was not a bridged visualization of my existence as a woman. A black woman, a woman of color living in this country. My questions about the presence or the acceptance of what was represented as the black feminine narrative, now became a plaque of concerns. That was until I got my hands on Toni Morrison’s “Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination”.

SUBMISSIONS NOW OPEN!

Don’t miss out on the submission period for SHE CHRONICLES 2018! This is our annual celebration for literary works for/about/by the feminine narrative. Enjoy some of the highlights from SHE CHRONICLES 2017 today!

 

“Why did we need a movement for you to #SayHerName”?

She in Texas / South Dakota
She in Alabama / South Carolina
Empty beds / abandoned hairbrushes
unused minutes
a forgotten body
Somebody #SayHerName

SUBMISSIONS OPEN!

Yes, folks… it is that time again! Time to get those submissions ready for SHE CHRONICLES 2018

Click through the issue of She Chronicles from 2016. The deadline is March 28th so get those selections in!

Have you joined the REBELution?

20 Reasons We Love “REBEL”

Being a woman is not a story, we cannot be placed as non-fiction on your shelf
It is a movement
a dance
an expansion of bones.
being a Woman is a lesson in astronomy.
cooking chili is a recipe and then it is done
being a Woman is not a story.
We are not dialogue to be used in moving a plot forward
We are more than fixtures in the home after work and school
We hold more than bedtime consultation sessions
We are not chili to be written as a recipe and then close the book once the dish is done.

And this is what “Rebel” is about

1. 1. 1. She is beautiful hairstyles and more
      2. She has impeccable taste in good looking men and more
      3. She is fearlessly learning the tango in predominately male environments
      4. in a home life with a father and brother to the military to the police force
      5. She is showing the peculiar walk of being African American in America
      6. the tightrope performance of being a Woman with self determination
      7. She speaks the language where

   “Im ok”, means terrified
   “And I’m good”, means I’m paralyzed
   but She makes it look like manicured oak trees on an antebellum tour

   8. She’s a mixture of Big Mama with a Ph.D. in Street Knowledge
   9. demanding that profit in death precedes her brother, not with or after

2.          /his slain will not be in vain / this can’t be another Emmett Till / another                        Medgar Evers / another Oscar Grant
3. we now know when we refuse to be silent
   10. we shut down freeways! block bucks that drench downtown power
   we raise bail money for the forgotten
   we move our stories from the page to the stage
   from minors to the big leagues
   we make everyone Say Her Name
   We tittie to mouth our babies at the pews on Sunday and at tea time on Monday
5. We hold writers accountable to tell our truths / color our beauty, litter her with life

   11.  And they show Her allowance in letting Her body being pleased
   12.  Her occasional leisure in blowing trees to the wind

   being a Woman is not a story that is non-fiction and simply closed.

8. This show insists we talk about
   13. care for the elderly
   14. the vulnerability of our Veterans
   15. homophobia
   16. when children become the parents
   17. when being black is stronger than blue
   18. when being black is stronger than making green
   when right is stronger than wrong
   19. when persistence forces police lieutenants to make night calls
   knocking on doors like parental phone calls after 9pm / humbling
   20. We love Rebel because she fights like            the race of stretch marks across once raised wombs
   She fights like lightening stripes, thunder bolts and tiger claws
   She is full of mistakes but not abandoned from perfection.

   If you haven’t seen “Rebel” you DO WANT TO BINGE WATCH the series before the finale on Tuesday.  The finale is an edge of the seat 60 minute ride! Go to BET.com for episode information.

SHE CHRONICLES: “bang bang” a poem by Nikki Skies for “Rebel Yell”

“Got me  / living life like a suicide note found
every morning at 7a.m.
bang! bang!
can’t remember anything else but staying steady,
ready / like mother’s equipping
their children with breakfast bars   backpacks    and  dash cams

bang! bang! bang! bang!” – by Nikki Skies for “Rebel Yell”

Click the link and enjoy!

Accepting Submissions

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Submit today, She Chronicles

Submission details here!

She Chronicles celebrates the feminine narrative through showcasing Her unique vernacular in literary contributions.  “Women writing about other women responsibly.”