#toni stuart

Toni is one of the organisers of the 3rd Annual Word N Sound International Youth Poetry + Live Music Festival which for the first year will be taking place in Cape Town. She is also one of the featured artists at the festival and will be sitting on the panel of Live Mag SA's  Creative Hustle: Digital Tools for the New Age Artist, where she will be talking about using the digitals space in her work as an artist.

 I STARTED WRITING WHEN I WAS 15.  After school I studied and worked as a journalist. I continued writing poetry on the side and started performing in 2003. I was part of the And the Word was Woman ensemble with Malika Ndlovu, Khadija Heeger, Tania Van Schalkwyk and a number of other women.  After journalism, I moved into the NGO sector, using poetry as a tool to work with youth. Throughout this time I was always writing and performing as well. In May 2012, I started working as a poet full-time, and have been doing so ever since. This often takes various forms - writing and performing of course, but also running workshops, developing and managing creative projects that use poetry in different ways, and often to explore social issues. One of the key things for me along the way is that I had great mentors - often informal ones - who I was able to learn from and a strong community of friends who supported me and fuelled my belief in myself to do the work.

THE FIRST POEM I remember writing was for an exercise in English class in Grade 9. We had to write about the creation myth and I wrote about it as a tapestry with all the different elements being sewn into it.

THE DIGITAL SPACE HAS BEEN A KEY ELEMENT TO MY WORK. I work mainly on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Soundcloud. I use instagram as well, but less frequently. My tumblr blog is serving as my website at the moment, while my website is being designed and built. I use this to share work I am involved in, as well as to reflect on work I have done. I also write short pieces on my own journey, as a poet, as an individual and how the two influence each other. My blog is where people, who are interested, can get to know a little more about me and maybe see what informs my work too.

I USE TWITTER TO CONNECT WITH OTHER CREATIVES IN SIMILAR FIELDS.  Seeing what they are doing and also getting people to become aware of my work. Twitter's brevity is what makes it so great for connecting with other people.

SOUNDCLOUD IS WHERE PEOPLE CAN HEAR MY WORK. It's an extremely important resource, because it serves as an online portfolio for me. I use it when I'm introducing myself to people that I'd like to work with, to give them a sense of my style, sound and content.

FACEBOOK IS SLOWLY BECOMING A "DASHBOARD" OF SORTS. For me it's the place where the different social media elements meet, and where people can access all of the other mediums. My Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and Soundcloud posts all update directly to Facebook.

I'M ORGANISING THE CAPE TOWN LEG OF THE WORD N SOUND FESTIVAL THIS YEAR. I'm very excited about it because it's the first time the festival is coming to Cape Town. Wednesday night's performance will see Afrikaans, Xhosa and English Cape Town poets take to the stage alongside poets from Jozi and London. I'm also performing at the Joburg festival on Friday night. I'm really enjoying being part of bringing such a vibrant, dynamic and diverse poetry festival to the city. And hopefully this year is only the start.

 IDEAS AND INSPIRATIONS COME FROM EVERYWHERE.  As a creative person it's hard not to be inspired by life. If you're open and paying attention to the world around you, there is always something to inspire you. A  poem, song, painting, dance or photograph. At the moment, I'm particularly interested in physical space and environments, and how they influence us and the people we become.

MY WORK WITH YOUNG PEOPLE HAS LARGELY BEEN AROUND USING POETRY. Both written and performed to create spaces for them to express and explore their voice and to share who they are. More recently I've used it with groups of young people to talk about reconciliation and issues around women's sexuality. I don't differentiate between spoken word and poetry. I'm a firm believer that poetry is written and crafted well and can also be performed well.

 I'VE WORKED WITH RAYMOND ANTROBUS WHO IS A RESIDENT POET AT A SCHOOL IN EAST LONDON. I spent a day visiting his classes and doing poetry with them. This was a truly inspiring experience. I learnt a lot about the Spoken Word Educators programme and loved the idea of having a resident poet in a school, and learning about the programme. I've also worked with Dean Atta and Deanna Rodger, performing at their monthly event Come Rhyme With Me, and at the event performed alongside Malika Booker and Errol McGlashan. Working with all of them was really special. Dean and Deanna host a wonderful night, and are extremely warm and welcoming. Malika is a stalwart in the London poetry scene so meeting her and hearing her work was great, and giving her a brief social media tutorial was fun too!

I THINK WE HAVE A LONG WAY TO GO IN BRIDGING THE DIVIDE BETWEEN SO-CALLED “PAGE POETRY” AND SO-CALLED SPOKEN WORD. "These two styles of poetry still largely draw very different audiences, and there is still the perception that one is better than the other, or that one is less relevant than the other. These perceptions come from both sides of the spectrum. I think that as poets, it is our responsibility to read widely, to listen widely and to engage with styles of poetry that are not what we would usually read or listen to. We need to think beyond our own work, and look at the history of poetry that we come from, as well as the context in which we are writing. We deny ourselves a wealth of information and creative growth, when we do not engage beyond our own poetry spheres.

I AM CURRENTLY WORKING ON A PROJECT WITH FILMMAKER SHELLY BARRY CALLED - FROM MY VIEW. We're using poetry and film to interrogate the lack of access for people living with disability in Cape Town. The exhibition launches at Artscape on December 3 - International Day for People Living with Disabilities. This is the pilot and next year we're going to continue working on it and put together a more comprehensive exhibtion for Artscape's Humanity Festival in August. Then, Jacob Sam-La Rose and I are working on a bigger collaborative project which started at Open Book Festival this year, called LDN-CPT. We're exploring our respective cities through poetry and writing in response to each other's work. I'm very excited about this as there are many layers and elements to the project including a digital platform.

You can find out more about Toni's work on tonistuart.tumblr.com. 

Listen to Toni's work via soundcloud.com/nomadpoet.

Follow Toni on twitter: @nomadpoet