Poetry on the move: '50 is a miracle'

Poetry on the move: '50 is a miracle'

I am fifty

I feel I have arrived

the biggest battles

hopefully

behind me

Loraine Masiya Mponela

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As Loraine Masiya Mponela’s poem says, the biggest battles may be behind her . But that doesn’t mean she has stopped fighting.

Her first poetry book, I Was Not Born A Sad Poet, was focussed on the struggle for refugee status, for herself and for others.

Her second, Now I Sing — published two years later, in January 2024 —  reflects the battle won, the acceptance of her asylum claim as well as other aspects of her life, reflected in the sub-title, “50 poems to celebrate 50 years”.

Hitting 50 is a landmark for Mponela.

“It’s a miracle”, she says, because of the comparison with others in her family. Her father died at 32, her mother at 51, her sister at 6, her brother at 41.

Happily, her son, Wawishe Sekuzane, is alive and living in Malawi, and though a grandson died very young, she now has an as yet unmet  granddaughter. The cruel years of slow asylum decision-making mean she has seen her son only once since he was 14. There’s no immediate prospect of a reunion flight when you have been living in poverty.

Even official refugee acceptance does not end your difficulties. Mponela works as a community network worker in Migrant Voice’s Birmingham office, but is struggling to sort out stable accommodation. After years of living in a glass bottle (where I wear a tag/ that says, I can’t get a job/ a life, a relationship, or just be happy/ because the bottle has rules) there are no savings to fall back on.

She has escaped from the glass bottle in which she was trapped, but admits that the subsequent wave of relief has slowed her down: “I guess it’s the exhaustion. I’ve watched my tyres get ripped.”

The mental and emotional stress has been enormous, and equilibrium does not simply return when your asylum paperwork has been sorted out. She says there have been weeks of tears and therapies, which further complicate the process of adjusting to new circumstances. (Limited help may be available to refugees, but a local council official told her, “You are not a priority.”)

Nevertheless, Mponela continues to campaign: “Still fire is burning in my head and heart,” she insists.

“I’ll go on writing and working with asylum seekers. I definitely haven’t stopped and I’m not stopping” — a commitment that will come as a relief to the hundreds she has helped: “An incredible activist and a voice for the voiceless,” according to Alphonsine Kabagabo, director of Women for Refugee Women.

Mponela is secretary of a Malawi women's group, Daughters of Nyasa,  in Coventry, where she lives, and attends and helps run Writers At Play. She also gives public readings of her poetry.

Encouraged by her editor, she is thinking about fiction writing: a short story, perhaps, or children’s stories. “I always wanted to write something for children… I need to write a book for my granddaughter.”

She wants to improve her life, to go on learning, but “we still have people who are suffering. I can’t turn my back.

“I haven’t stopped and I’m not stopping.”

       Just one song

at a conference in Manchester

I saw emotionally drained faces

of migrant women suffering from past

and ongoing traumas

starting to dance

in many years 

forgetting the pain 

of living in destitution and homelessness

one by one they each rose up

from their chairs 

wiping their tears to dance

joy, laughter and relaxation 

lit the room 

Loraine Masiya Mponela’s two poetry books are I Was Not Born A Sad Poet (2022) and Now I Sing (2024). Her blog is www.noaudienceloraine.co.uk. 

Photo credit: Counterpoint Arts