Durban – Poetry Africa, presented by the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, returns to Durban.
The programme from 6–11 October 2025 foregrounds poetry’s power in navigating collective grief and healing.
There will be performances and conversations addressing ecological loss, personal mourning, and social justice.
Organisers said: “At a time when ecological grief, anticipatory grief, and ambivalent grief saturate our world, words in general but prose and poetry in particular can help us make sense and provide comfort”.
One of this year’s key voices is acclaimed South African poet and playwright Malika Ndlovu, whose latest work, Griefseed, is an offering of creativity to navigate grief, a catalyst for healing that we yearn for.
Her work will feature throughout the festival, with highlights including a shared keynote stage with Professor Ari Sitas at the festival’s official opening at Seabrooke’s Theatre on Monday, 6 October 2025.
She is drawn to the notion of poetry as architecture of social justice and sees her poetry as “a kind of scaffolding for others, to flesh out their own meanings and interpretations.”
For Malika, her journey with Poetry Africa is a full-circle one.
She was first included in the programme in 1998 and has participated several times since then.
She is particularly heartened by the presence of Ari Sitas as the featured poet.
They have both called KwaZulu-Natal home at some stage, and both forged their early careers in the cauldron of activism at UKZN.
Audiences are invited to witness grief in motion with “Grieve, that is how you survive“, a multidisciplinary performance by Grace Storm and Thandiwe Nqanda on Wednesday, 8 October 2025, at Seabrooke’s Theatre.
Blending poetry, physical theatre, and music, the work follows the journey of two women navigating loss across life’s seasons.
Rather than offering closure, it dares to frame grief as survival, remembrance as resistance, and healing as radical love.
There’s a growing recognition of poetry’s role in times of loss.
In 2017, AVBOB launched a poetry platform to honour the need for words in moments of mourning.
As AVBOB CEO Frik Rademan put it, “When circumstances have blinded us to the beauty of life, poetry empowers us to rediscover that beauty.”
Since then, competitions, anthologies, and an open-access archive have offered everyday people access to solace through poetry.
Similarly, Malika believes that poetry can be part of nature regenerating constantly in response to the griefs we face and the griefs we suppress or deny, and is grateful for the opportunity to be able to speak the language of generative grief.
In closing, she says, “I see Poetry Africa as a site of transmutation and solidarity, because the simple thing is, we are all carrying grief.
“We are all finding coping mechanisms for our griefs, and creative expression is an innate resource in response to this.”
Join us at Poetry Africa 2025 to experience these word weavers use their words not as a temporary sticking plaster but as a balm and a splint to support us in our shared journey towards a better world.
For listings
- Dates: 6–11 October 2025 (Durban + online)
- Venue: Seabrooke’s Theatre (Durban) + global livestreams (free)
- Tickets (in-person): Webtickets
- Online: free
- Programme and more information: poetryafrica.ukzn.ac.za
