Pralini Naidoo
Pralini Naidoo is a PhD candidate at the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Her research focuses on erased/ hidden narratives of women who have descended from indenture in South Africa, and their relationships to earth, seed, food, and the other-than-human. She is the author of Wild has Roots, a collection of poems, reflections and short stories. While her poems primarily centre on the meditative art of noticing the every-day, they are also invocations, inviting exploration into buried and silenced wisdoms.
Using poetry and storytelling, she has facilitated workshops and retreats for women who find themselves at the peripheries of society, and who wish to reclaim their voices. She also writes about women and girls who dream, love, make courageous decisions, and save their own lives. As a Black woman, and a mother, Pralini is passionate about social and environmental justice.
Poems from Wild has Roots
word thief
mischief
your lover’s kiss
takes words
from my mouth
margarita
once I laughed into
a margarita
the moon on my tastebuds
margaritas become you he said
drinking me up
salt glistening around his mouth
green
green is planted in the middle of me
a wilderness soft around life’s edges
leaf whispers in my dreamtime
hue of oceans where whales breathe
green is the colour in the middle of me
a wilderness soft around life’s angles
leaf breath of my whispers
hue of oceans where whales dream
green loves me in wild ways
olive ancients steeped in bright futures
leaf dreams breathing forward
where whales whisper messages
of turquoise and sea-change
haiku mangetsu (full moon)
Even when you hide
the ocean in my body
dances
Publications
Debut Poetry Collection
2021: Wild has Roots: My debut collection of Poetry published through Poetree Publications.
Book Contributions
2023: Epigraph Poem: Sister Ode in Pluriversal Conversations on Transnational Feminisms: And Words Collide from a Place. Publisher Routledge.
2023. Three poem contributions: Jazz Meditation, Mourning with Herbie Tsoaeli, Sway in Voices Unbound. African Sun Press.
2022: Poem contribution: Connecting Dots in Anthology – Women’s Poetry of India and South Africa. Poets Printery.
2020: Flash fiction contribution: Future Ancestor in Dreams as R-evolution Artbook by Coral Bijoux.
Poems in Journals
2021: Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 4, Number 1. May 2021. ISSN: 2581-7094 Poem: of chicken and grandmothers: http://www.teestajournal.com/p/pralini-naidoos-poem.html
2021: BKO: Short story: Maya, July 2021 https://bkomagazine.co.za/maya/
Academic Publications
2017: Deconstructing Shakti: Investigating representations of the Hindu goddess in South Africa, African Journal of Gender and Religion.
2022: Joy in the Dirt: Discovering Indenture’s Wild Places, Art/Research International.
2023: Greener on the other side: tracing stories of amaranth and moringa through indenture, 2023, Agenda.
2023: Ghosts of the Indian Ocean, 2023, Agenda.
2023: The Unwritten: Exploring Food Stories Beyond and Between the Lines, Matatu Journal.
Creative Participation
• STINT Residency: August 2018, a transnational feminist project involving feminists from Linköping University (Sweden), CEU (Hungary), Bergen University (Norway), UWC (South Africa).
• May 2022: International Symposium for Poetic Inquiry. Presentation.
• Jazz and poetry: a conversation of the senses: collaboration. Alliance Francaise de Durban
• July 2022. Decolonial winter school, jazz and poetry collaboration.
• October 2022: Poetry Africa. Poetry Readings
• March 2023: World Poetry Day. Poetry Readings
• October 2023: Poetry Africa 2023. Poetry Readings
• October 2023: Critical Food Studies five-year reunion: Poetry Readings
Poems from Wild has Roots
word thief
mischief
your lover’s kiss
takes words
from my mouth
margarita
once I laughed into
a margarita
the moon on my tastebuds
margaritas become you he said
drinking me up
salt glistening around his mouth
green
green is planted in the middle of me
a wilderness soft around life’s edges
leaf whispers in my dreamtime
hue of oceans where whales breathe
green is the colour in the middle of me
a wilderness soft around life’s angles
leaf breath of my whispers
hue of oceans where whales dream
green loves me in wild ways
olive ancients steeped in bright futures
leaf dreams breathing forward
where whales whisper messages
of turquoise and sea-change
haiku mangetsu (full moon)
Even when you hide
the ocean in my body
dances
Publications
Debut Poetry Collection
2021: Wild has Roots: My debut collection of Poetry published through Poetree Publications.
Book Contributions
2023: Epigraph Poem: Sister Ode in Pluriversal Conversations on Transnational Feminisms: And Words Collide from a Place. Publisher Routledge.
2023. Three poem contributions: Jazz Meditation, Mourning with Herbie Tsoaeli, Sway in Voices Unbound. African Sun Press.
2022: Poem contribution: Connecting Dots in Anthology – Women’s Poetry of India and South Africa. Poets Printery.
2020: Flash fiction contribution: Future Ancestor in Dreams as R-evolution Artbook by Coral Bijoux.
Poems in Journals
2021: Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 4, Number 1. May 2021. ISSN: 2581-7094 Poem: of chicken and grandmothers: http://www.teestajournal.com/p/pralini-naidoos-poem.html
2021: BKO: Short story: Maya, July 2021 https://bkomagazine.co.za/maya/
Academic Publications
2017: Deconstructing Shakti: Investigating representations of the Hindu goddess in South Africa, African Journal of Gender and Religion.
2022: Joy in the Dirt: Discovering Indenture’s Wild Places, Art/Research International.
2023: Greener on the other side: tracing stories of amaranth and moringa through indenture, 2023, Agenda.
2023: Ghosts of the Indian Ocean, 2023, Agenda.
2023: The Unwritten: Exploring Food Stories Beyond and Between the Lines, Matatu Journal.
Creative Participation
• STINT Residency: August 2018, a transnational feminist project involving feminists from Linköping University (Sweden), CEU (Hungary), Bergen University (Norway), UWC (South Africa).
• May 2022: International Symposium for Poetic Inquiry. Presentation.
• Jazz and poetry: a conversation of the senses: collaboration. Alliance Francaise de Durban
• July 2022. Decolonial winter school, jazz and poetry collaboration.
• October 2022: Poetry Africa. Poetry Readings
• March 2023: World Poetry Day. Poetry Readings
• October 2023: Poetry Africa 2023. Poetry Readings
• October 2023: Critical Food Studies five-year reunion: Poetry Readings