{"id":44398,"date":"2015-12-01T16:08:10","date_gmt":"2015-12-01T16:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=44398"},"modified":"2016-10-22T20:52:01","modified_gmt":"2016-10-22T20:52:01","slug":"we-have-a-right-to-determine-how-our-histories-are-told-an-interview-with-poet-toni-stuart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=44398","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We have a right to determine how our histories are told\u2019: An interview with poet Toni Stuart"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018We have a right to determine how our histories are told\u2019: An interview with poet Toni Stuart<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Goldsmiths University of London<\/a>
\nNews<\/a>
\n2015-11-25<\/p>\n

Sarah Cox<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On Thursday 3 December the Centre for Caribbean and Diaspora Studies<\/a> (CCDS) and Centre for Feminist Research<\/a> host a spoken word performance by Toni Stuart<\/a>: poet, festival organiser and educator, recently named on the <\/em>South African Mail & Guardian\u2019s list of inspiring young South Africans<\/a>. Toni is also a Goldsmiths graduate, completing her MA Writer\/Teacher with us this year as a 2014\/2015 Chevening Scholar. We caught up with her to find out more about her work and Goldsmiths experience.<\/em><\/p>\n

Toni<\/a> was first introduced to Goldsmiths by friend and fellow poet Raymond Antrobus<\/a> while he was studying for his MA Writer\/Teacher<\/a> here. Raymond was also taking part in our Spoken Word Educators Programme<\/a> (SWEP), working with school children to develop their confidence, self expression, oral communication and literary skills.<\/p>\n

Invited in to teach for the day at the school where Raymond was based, Toni got a taste for what being poet-in-residence was like and also learnt more about our MA \u2013 a course taught by the Departments of Educational Studies<\/a> and English and Comparative Literature<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounded like exactly what I wanted,\u201d she says. \u201cA course that allowed me to develop my creative writing and teaching practices simultaneously, with a specific focus on developing my own pedagogy and \u2018poetry syllabus\u2019. I don\u2019t know of any other course like it in the world. And, the SWEP – started by Peter Kahn and now with Jacob Sam-La Rose<\/a> as director – is the only one of its kind in the world as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

After her performance at Goldsmiths this December<\/a>, Toni and her audience will be taking part in a discussion circle exploring the use of stories as medicine. As a 32-year old mixed heritage South African woman poet, she believes her work \u2013 and that of her generation \u2013 is to heal the wounds that they have inherited from their parents\u2019 generation and from the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes these wounds are apparent and we\u2019re able to address them directly, other times they are unconsciously passed down through many generations,\u201d she says. \u201cMy experience of working in the NGO<\/a> sector in the past, and in the arts sector now, is that self-care is fundamental if we hope for our work to have a meaningful impact in our communities, and, that in order for our work to be sustainable we need to ensure we are taking care of ourselves first…<\/p>\n

Read the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018We have a right to determine how our histories are told\u2019: An interview with poet Toni Stuart Goldsmiths University of London News 2015-11-25 Sarah Cox On Thursday 3 December the Centre for Caribbean and Diaspora Studies (CCDS) and Centre for Feminist Research host a spoken word performance by Toni Stuart: poet, festival organiser and educator, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,12,24,13743,8,520,10],"tags":[17756,22131,22130],"class_list":["post-44398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-articles","category-arts","category-interviews","category-media-archive","category-south-africa","category-uk","tag-goldsmiths-university-of-london","tag-sarah-cox","tag-toni-stuart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44398"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44415,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44398\/revisions\/44415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}