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Koleka Putuma
26 quotes
“I found myself negotiating with what it meant to be Black and queer and South African, and viewing my body in those kinds of spaces”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I feel as a Black queer woman in South Africa, I’m confronted with a lot of those issues that are rooted in capitalism and whiteness and patriarchy on a daily basis”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are more than these bodies that live in patriarchal societies that have been affected by our histories in our past.”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It’s important to have a dialogue about the things that are plaguing us, or disturbing our peace and our freedom”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’d like to believe that no matter what period I was born into, my writing or poetry would still have been my chosen way of contributing to liberation and contributing to conversations”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think that at the heart of activism is dialogue”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think that that’s the beauty and power of poetry – it cuts through the bullsh*t – it gets people to talk instantly about what it is that the poem’s trying to say, what it’s saying to them”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the conundrums I was fiddling with was that my body and who I am is not a neutral space”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“he experience of being Black, queer and erased, from the archive, from politics, isn’t a singular story. It is not just my story, it is the story of multiple women.”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I live in a country where the arts are extremely underfunded”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) first seen 2024 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Q&A: Koleka Putuma – Revolutionising the archive and (backspace) dancing… ‘Hullo, Bu-Bye, Koko, Come in’ 8 May, 2024
“The narrative is that there is a head of the house, and there is a lot of silencing that comes with that”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Being a writer/poet the work requires of you to defy and unlearn the thing that has taught you silence and the unspoken contract that the neighbors and extended family cannot know and get involved with traumas that are happening in your house and in your life, and that you are supposed to deal with it quietly and soldier on because you are a “strong black woman.”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I find living in a world where we don’t show our true selves, and where we don’t ever say we are hurting, quite suffocating”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In my work I create a space, where as a black woman, I can name my traumas/hurts, and name the people who have inflicted those traumas in an unapologetic way”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When violence is inflicted on a black body, the world doesn’t flinch because it has been so normalized”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not okay with how religion has screwed over black people”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I value being in a healthy space, I value being well, and I really value joy, and it wasn’t always like that”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think it’s in our nature to be naked as people.”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Art of Unlearning: A Dialogue With Koleka Putuma 17 January, 2017
“Poetry for me is a tool for connection, and I appreciate the ways it has connected me to people and opened me up to mechanisms of observing and being with the world”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In this climate where censorship is gaining traction and being weaponised to discourage dissent, speech, or the act of speaking, and insisting on holding each other through dialogue and communication is both a protest and a promise to never be silent/silenced.”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the realm of imagination, there are no restrictions, requirements, or guidelines that need to be followed”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The stories initiate conversations about queerness in a homophobic society, Blackness in a racist society, womanhood in a misogynistic and violent society, and freedom of speech in an increasingly repressive society”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is this unspoken pressure that has seeped into our society to want to curate vulnerability or only show parts of it that are palatable in some ways”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are in a time where intentional listening and attention span is being eroded by our devices and the demands of the world that are constantly vying for our attention”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Contemplation means to be with the temple, or to dwell within the sacred space of attention. Contemplation is much deeper than thinking. It implies a religious observation. It implies intention, slowness, interiority, reverence”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Culture enables us to see each other - through our stories, shared across borders and cultures”
Koleka Putuma (born 1993) first seen 2025 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Koleka Putuma on poetry as a tool for connection 10 October, 2025