Fireside Chat: Black Women’s Lives and the Poetry of Resistance

On April 13, the Center for Women, Gender and Global Leadership hosted the Global Leadership Dialogue Series featuring Her Excellency Dr. Abena P.A. Busia, Ambassador of Ghana to Brazil. Under the theme “Black Women’s Lives and the Poetry of Resistance”, the event began with opening remarks from Dr. J. Jarpa Dawuni and a brief introduction of the guest by Ms. Tiffanee Moore. Ambassador Busia is a poet, a diplomat, a member of the Center’s Global Council of Leaders and a published author with several academic achievements. In this fireside chat, Ambassador Busia read a few poems with the objective of demonstrating to the audience how women of African descent use their creative writing skills as part of their feminist agenda to resisting colonialism and patriarchy. To set context for the reading, Ambassador Busia provided two concepts that she suggested are relevant to the theme. The first concept is diaspora literacy which she acknowledged was well defined by VèVè A. Clark as the ability of the reader to comprehend the literatures of Africa, Afro-American, and the Caribbean from an informed indigenous perspective. The second crucial concept is poetry of witness. Dr. Busia shared Carolyn Forché’s understanding of poetry of witness which does not focus on one diaspora specifically. In this sense, poems describe the experience of the other; therefore, the reader becomes a witness of an event that might have happened before. Closing out her reading Ambassador Busia responded to comments from Dr. Dixon and answered and answered questions from the audience, such as what inspired her to write such beautiful poems. To which the Ambassador replied that experience is her main source of inspiration. The Center would like to thank Ambassador Busia for the beautiful and poignant readings, sharing her wisdom and experience under the theme of Black women’s lives and the poetry of resistance.