Stella Nyanzi stole my heart a while back, we foulmouthed poets always seem to seek each other out somehow... When Stella’s story popped up on my twitter timeline I was both enamoured of, and afraid for her: in 2018 Stella Nyanzi posted an anti-government poem to her Facebook, graphically using the image of the Ugandan President’s (Yoweri Museveni) dead mother’s vagina. It did not go down very well, to say the least… She has been subjected to 18 months in prison, only recently being freed earlier this year. But that has not stopped the Ugandan freedom fighter in using their voice for feminist activism and LGBTQI+ rights. Indeed, since her undemocratic incarceration Stella has been awarded the 2020 PEN International Award for Freedom of Expression.
Using toilet paper, the cell floor, walls, leaves and scraps to capture her revolutionary spirit (even smuggling poems out of prison by committing them to memory when prison guards destroyed her works!); Stella wrote with abandon. Hundreds of poems created during her political imprisonment have now been collected into one volume: ‘No Roses From My Mouth’. Sadly, this collection does not include the aforementioned vagina poem, however there are plenty others with the same intent: to be as rude and radical as humanly possible.
If you are seeking flowery poems, detached from the real ugliness perpetuated by cruel despots and the poverty they depend upon, these poems are not for you. The poetry is simple in form and diction, making it very accessible for anybody willing to engage with Nyanzi’s mission. They are straight-talking and at times didactic, but this tone does not come across as another voice of a bossy tyrant; rather, it is the voice of someone determined to make themselves heard and understood.
These poems aren’t interested in experimenting with form, or innovating language to new ethereal heights: Stella writes for one purpose. To challenge. To challenge political rulers who lead without a care for the welfare of their people. To challenge readers in our preconceptions of prison life, women’s experiences and Ugandan culture. She also challenges our prudish morality, bringing contradictions inherent within polite consciousness into the limelight: why do some people think the act of protest against injustice is more offensive than the original crime? How could a swearing potty mouth be more disgusting than the conditions and events they describe? Nyanzi’s poems are unabashedly lewd, crude and rude, using images foul as the regime she wants to tear down. And if this 'uncouthness' seems naïve or flippant, look up ‘radical rudeness’ and see how colonial invaders were brought down with such tactics… Stella’s words are like the poetic equivalent of throwing shit at the royal palace.
If you are looking to learn about protest and poetry, Stella Nyanzi’s work is a great introduction. Though her poems may come across as crass or unpolished, the political motivations behind the style are anything but simplistic.