Sitawa Namwalie is an award winning Kenyan poet, playwright, writer and performer who discovered her poetic gift in 2007 and by 2008 staged her first dramatized poetry show “Cut off My Tongue”, which was published as a book in 2009.
There are many highlights to Sitawa’s journey. Her first ever public performance of “Cut off My Tongue”, held on 27, June 2008 was beyond special. Performing at the UK’s prestigious Hay Festival in the UK in 2009 was almost as special as the one in Langata Women’s Prison in 2012 for an audience of over 300 women inmates. Just like her compatriot Eluid Kipchoge, Sitawa does not believe in limits and continues to explore various genres, writing poetry, plays, short stories, musicals and essays and more.
Words
By Sitawa Namwalie
You consume me with words,
Litter my path with careful analysis,
Obscure my plight
With your sound investigation:
Into who did what to me?
Who killed me?
Who raped me!
But it was you!
The architect of phrases,
Nobel laureate of words;
You used words that seduced and stirred,
Soured prowling tribal gangs,
Guided the machetes
Of your followers.
You ruined me!
Now you bury me
In mountains of talk,
Virtuous words dripping blood.
Now you wish me away,
Hide me with more words,
Blur my vision with complexity,
As if I were a pink crocodile.
Am I a flying hyena?
Are you trying to avoid me?
What are you afraid of?
Come out here,
Play with my melancholy,
Engage my hurt,
Listen to me,
Ask me how I feel,
And I will give you
More than words
Litter my path with careful analysis,
Obscure my plight
With your sound investigation:
Into who did what to me?
Who killed me?
Who raped me!
But it was you!
The architect of phrases,
Nobel laureate of words;
You used words that seduced and stirred,
Soured prowling tribal gangs,
Guided the machetes
Of your followers.
You ruined me!
Now you bury me
In mountains of talk,
Virtuous words dripping blood.
Now you wish me away,
Hide me with more words,
Blur my vision with complexity,
As if I were a pink crocodile.
Am I a flying hyena?
Are you trying to avoid me?
What are you afraid of?
Come out here,
Play with my melancholy,
Engage my hurt,
Listen to me,
Ask me how I feel,
And I will give you
More than words