Lingua-Franca (Poetry)

Is a poetry society rooted in the diverse community of Delft. This was a vision by four young poets from this community who to wanted help themselves and their peers in moulding and curving their gift of putting words together. This society has grown to outside the boundaries of Delft as two of our resident poets are from Gugulethu and Khayelitsha.

·         To improve writing skills in poetry and literature

·         To encourage young emerging poets and writers to continue writing

·         To tell our stories with heart and truth

·         To add another voice to many voices of spoken word poetry

·         To unite different voices into one voice with a common purpose

·         To challenge young minds and provoke them

·         To speak against the injustices of this world

·         To contribute in making this country and continent better 

 Naked Word Poetry Sessions

These sessions are a brainchild of Lingua Franca. They are inspired or provoked depending how you look at it by the current state of our nation, to amplify and echo young voices who speak truth to power without fear or favor. Poetry is a beautiful art form therefore we also have to use it to acknowledge the beautiful things about this world, even though our poetry is protest driven we promise to throw a love story or two and some filling music for the soul. We also encourage the acknowledgement of cultural diversity and identity. This is our contribution in keeping the spoken word poetry scene in Cape Town alive and to entertain using the power of words.

The session will consist of 4 main poets who will collaborate with two vocalists, a guitarist and two drummers. We will also have 5 guest poets who will each do a poem so as to diversify the event. The show will be approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes.

 Co-Ordinators

Lwanda Sindaphi

Is an actor, playwright, director and poet. He is currently one of the most sought after poets in Cape Town. He started his Theatre career in 2009 when he debut in a play(Bendingazi) that was performed at the National Arts festival with Sophumelela Theatre Group, which he is still with to date, He holds a performing Arts Certificate from New Africa Theatre Academy (2010) and currently studies physical theatre at Magnet Theatre. He is a former member of a popular Hip Hop group from Delft D.S.O, his writing has always been influenced by poetry whether it be music or theatre. He won the 2011 DFL+ LOVER another poetry slam and went to compete in the National finals in Joburg where he made top 6. He wrote and directed "Libethe Lagqitha" a play that was performed at one of the Zabalaza mini festivals in 2012. He has performed his poetry at OFF THE WALL poetry sessions, Featured twice at Badilisha Poetry X-Change (2011,2012) and recently at Lyrical Basse with Bulelwa Base for the Iziko Museum.

Mbongeni Nomkonwana

Is an actor, playwright, director, poet and sometimes standup comedian. This multi-talented performer is always willing to try new things and has special gift with words. He started his performing, writing and directing career at Sophumelela Theatre Group where he still is to date, He holds a performing Arts Certificate from New Africa Theatre Academy (2007). He has written and directed four plays for them which one of them "Bendingazi" was performed at the 2009 National Arts Festival. He has acted in two international films alongside Kiefer Sutherland and Hakim Kae Kazeem, has done some local cameo roles with penguin films. Winner of Cape Town DFL LOVER+ ANOTHER poetry slam and went to compete in Joburg in the National finals, he has since then performed at OFF THE WALL poetry sessions and Inzync Poetry by Stellenbosch university.