Three young Rwandan poets Steve Shema Khalid, Linzy Alice Bugingo and Mahama Refugee Camp-based Burundian David Ndagijimana, commonly known as No Stress, will have their poem ‘The Joint of Three’ screened at the forthcoming third edition of Festival of Poetry and Performing Arts – Poetas D’Alma– slated for November 18-21 in Maputo, Mozambique.

The annual poetry festival, loosely translated as Poets Of The Soul, brings together artists from different parts of the globe corners, maintaining a hybrid format – in person and virtual – with predominantly performative artistic manifestations.

The gala of poetry and performing arts, whose motto for the third edition "The Power of Orality”, will attract artistes from over 20 countries across the world including South Africa, Germany, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Spain, the United States of America, eSwatini, Netherlands, Réunion Islands, Rwanda, England, Italy, Japan, Yugoslavia, Portugal, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, Zambia and hosts Mozambique, among others.

The Rwandan trio are relatively winners of the inaugural edition of ‘ On the Wings of Technology’ international Festival organised online in November last year through a partnership between Transpoesis, a UK-based International Refugee Poetry Network, and Goethe Institut.

Transpoesis also financed the production of the video of the poem before submitting it for screening in Maputo this week as agreed with festival organisers.

The poets will only be able to follow it virtually since Mozambique is not yet fully back to the normal way of running the festival due to the persisting Covid-19.

"We didn't want to take the risk and as we are building a long-term partnership with the annual festival, there is a possibility to have transpoesis represented at future festivals physically,” said Andrea Grieder, the director of Transpoesis.

The poem has three different stories. They include a poem that reflects on ‘homelessness’ performed by Alice Linzy Bugingo, a story of ‘not belonging’ and being excluded from the society as shown in the poem of Burundian refugee Ndagijimana while poem director Shema contributed on the part of the people with disabilities.

According to Shema, the rationale behind the making of the poem was not about making it to the festival at first but doing advocacy for a certain group of people who are not recognized in the society.

"I feel like it was not about the festival first. It was something personal because we are here to do advocacy for people who are normally not recognized. As you can see, No Stress is also a refugee, and he can’t be here for fun. He is here because he feels it, he knows the life of being a refugee,” Shema told The New Times in an interview.

Shema explained that the main idea behind this poem is the feeling of not belonging, and a rallying call for people to stop excluding others, to stop bullying them.

"If my nature is like this and yours like that, it doesn’t give you a reason to hate me or talk ill about me. I think it rather gives you a reason to see a difference of me and make use of that to make a better world,” he said.

Big opportunity worth exploring

The poets believe the festival is a big platform for them to be able to spread the word worldwide toward bringing change about how some groups of people are treated in society.

"We are doing this because we feel like this is the time to advocate. We have big screens, we have a lot of countries watching us, so if we could use that time and platform wisely, that could be a big opportunity to advocate for the world because that is what we are going to be there for,” said Shema.

"It [the festival] is a huge opportunity to showcase talents and to also do advocacy so that it can reach miles and miles away from Rwanda to the rest of the world,” he added.

Burundian refugee Ndagijimana did not make it in the poem by chance as his name continues to rise to fame in Rwanda’s poetry industry following a series of poetic battles he won.

His poem, ‘The Camp is a Teacher’, which is in Kirundi, English and French, features on ‘The Joint of Three’ project which will be screened in Maputo and his hope is that, if the message can reach who it is intended for, the future of refugee sis bright.

"There are so many refugees in the world but I think this poem can boost their hope for a better future, that everything will one day be good,” said the 24-year-old.