ZAPP (The South African Poetry Project)
Personal Profile
The South African Poetry Project (ZAPP) is a collective of educators, academics and professional poets who are committed to fostering a love of South African poetry within our local schools and communities. Through active engagements with South African schools, we use poetry education to assist learners in developing their creative expression. Poetry is also used as an entry point to get learners to reflect on broader social issues and how they can make an impact.
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Apart from our work in schools, we also develop poetry education-focused research and resources that can be used by educators. My ZAPP activities are listed below.
ZAPP Activities
School workshops and ZAPP Fest
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I run workshops with a range of schools, working with learners from diverse social, cultural and economic backgrounds. These schools include Leap 3: Science and Maths School in Alexandra, Alafang Secondary School in Katlehong, Jeppe High School for Girls in Kensington, and Sacred Heart College in Observatory.
Along with this, I conceived and facilitate the annual ZAPP Fest, an annual multi-school one-day workshop. The workshop is run in collaboration with the Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre and the Inside Out Centre for the Arts, and brings together learners from different school environments as they explore the exhibitions at the two Centres, and write poetry that engages with the exhibits. They also get the opportunity to perform their poems to a live audience.
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ZAPP Poetry Anthology
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Together with four other ZAPP colleagues, I am compiling an anthology of contemporary South African poetry to be used as a teaching resource in schools. Apart from selecting the poems, we have also developed exercises on each poem that offer insight into how poetry can be used to teach other subjects ranging from the Social Sciences to Mathematics and Business Studies.
Book on South African Poets
In collaboration with fellow ZAPP colleagues, I am writing a book on South African poets which will be published under Palgrave. The book is multimodal and draws together visuals with the written word as it explores the work of contemporary South African poets.
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