Poets in the country have said that through poetry, coexistence of refugees and local citizens can be sustained in the country.
This was said on Saturday at Dzaleka refugee camp in Dowa district during celebrations of World Poetry Day that falls on 21 March every year.
The event that was organized by Sapitwa Poetry Movement in conjunction with Tumaini festival under the theme “There is hope for everyone: with poetry no one is a refugee” brought together up and coming poets from Dzaleka Refugee camp and popular poets such as Robert Chiwamba and Yolanda.
One of the organizers of the event Menes La Plume who is the founder of Tumaini annual festival and is also a poet said that the event took place at Dzaleka to show that poets are equal despite being from different countries such as Malawi, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo.
“Poetry is not just a matter of entertaining people but also teaching of solidarity. As the theme of this celebration states, indeed “there is hope for everyone and with poetry no one is a refugee,” said La Plume.
According to La Plume, the event took place at the camp because last year during Tumaini festival poets spotted creativity among the young poets.
“Poets when they visited that camp last November, they discovered many young talents there, through this commemorative day, they decided to go back to encourage their fellow poets living at Dzaleka Refugee Camp,” La Plume said.
Speaking to Malawi24 after the event, Robert Chiwamba hailed the performance of the young poets at the camp.
Chiwamba said that the theme was good because it was unifying the local communities and foreign people who live at the camp through poetry.
“The event was indeed awesome and you saw some poets from the camp who came up with poems related to the theme. With poetry there are no refugees, we are all equal,” Chiwamba said.
Among others, the poets painted part of the camp, networked, and held poetry workshop and free poetry recital.
During the workshop, poets were tipped on how to write poems, to perform and use poetic language among others.
Commenting on the same, Menes La Plume said writing poems sometimes depends on the personality of the writer.
“Sometimes it depend on how you speak and how you think, like me I speak to much and also how you interact with other writers, the more you get inspired from different writer it helps you to come up with different styles of writing ,” said La Plume.
Other poets who performed at the event include Patwell, Wati, Jules, Tinashe, George, Morton, Rose, Mwiza and Mtisunge.
