Where the Voice Wants to Stop

elsewhere. Her debut collection of poetry, Palm Wine Tapper and The Boy at Jericho was listed among the top poetry books for 2022 by the Irish Times and shortlisted for the Pigot Poetry Prize in 2023. Nithy Kasa is our guest today on The Glimpse. Nithy Kasa's poems are fresh and yet rooted in tradition, romantic, and spiked with a subtle darkness. I love how unafraid these poems

are, not only of lyricism, but of rich, almost archetypal imagery. In her debut collection, Palm Wine Tapper and the Boy at Jericho, which came out in 2022 there's a gorgeous blending of the erotic, the bodily and the folkloric, which Nithy Kasa illuminates with a striking, earthy imagery and a skilled narrative impulse. Traversing the landscapes of both the Democratic Republic of Congo

and Ireland, Her work is memorable, tensile and full of mystery. One of my favorite of her poems brings us to an ancient monastic site in Ireland, and seems to commune with its spirits all the while being attentive to the ways the landscape communes with itself. This is how it goes, "lower an ear on the rye grass, when at Clonmacnoise, for the phantom chants, missioned to the halls of the pollened bogs to the

orchards hallowing." Nithy Kasa welcome to The Glimpse. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. Seán Hewitt: So tell us where you're speaking to us from. I am right now in Kinshasa, Central Africa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Seán Hewitt: Nice. And do you spend a lot of time there?

I'm trying to, because the past few years, well the past 20 years, really, I've mainly been based in Ireland, and every now and then I would travel to Congo for like, a week or two, or maybe a month. But I am trying to balance it evenly between the two countries

now, because I do have a family here. And the older you get, obviously you realize there is a lot more to life than me being free and traveling and trying to connect to the family now, because the whole family is really here in Congo and trying to see what I can get from the country. Seán Hewitt: Nice, and do you think that that comes through in the writing that you're doing at any given time, whether you're in Ireland or in the Congo? Absolutely, like I always say, wherever I am really, I

carry both countries. I think it's very difficult to pick just one country, because I am literally both countries at this stage. So when I am in Ireland, I write a lot about Congo. Seán Hewitt: It's interesting that you kind of need to be away from one country to be writing about the other. Is that how it works for It does. It does a lot. But sometimes, when you're in a Seán Hewitt: And is poetry always a way to process that for you, or do you?

situation as well, you can be consumed in it as well. It's not you do other forms of writing, It was always poetry for me. Before I began releasing my always that way. Sometimes you do feel when you're in one country, poetry for other people, it was more of a diary, really. It's the you're thinking a lot, but other times, when events are really way I kept everyday lives and the confusions of teenage years and current and the extreme, intensive, you can be just consumed in the one

country that happens as well. Yes. everything immigration as well things that came with it, and being far away from home, Kinshasa, that is the home in Kinshasa, in missing the people, and that came through as poetry. So that's how I got into poetry. I was already doing my own stuff, and I ran into poets and the circle, the community, they just kept pulling me like we need to hear, we need to hear, to hear it. That's how I got into it.

Seán Hewitt: And that's how we came to have your debut collection. I suppose. The debut collection came a long way. There is a lot to it. I suppose I had my difficulties. Like every writer, when you have the time you try to look for somebody to publish your collection, and everything that kind of comes into it, the "nos"

and the "no response" I had that moment as well. But then the film I did with Adrian Brinkerhoff, I suppose that was the first time my image just kind of went into not just Ireland, but the U.S. and people were kind of looking at my poetry, and the publisher saw it, and they they contacted me to know, do I have more of it? And I'm like, "You know what? I'm actually looking for a publisher right now, do you want to see my work?" "Well, okay," and I did send them a

sample. They saw it. They liked it. Seán Hewitt: I actually wanted to ask you about commissions, because when I read your bio there, I noticed just how many commissions you do and how many you're asked to do. I know a lot of poets can struggle sometimes with working on commissions. You know, they struggle when they're told what to write about or how to write it. How do you approach working with commission? Do you do you enjoy it? Like every poet, it's very difficult to have you know,

somebody gives you something. It's like ‘write something about it.’ So it's a more difficult process than being in your bed and something just kind of clicks. It's magical. And you jump off the bed, try to grab your phone and write it down, or you're at work or something, or on the bus, and sometimes you're just walking, and something clicks in your head, and you take your phone, it's like before I forget, I have to write it down. You have to sit down and think about it a lot.

Think about it and be around it. It's a lot more difficult, but there is a joy that I love. It's when you get it right. When you go around all those difficulties and the thoughts and the desperation, you know, when you're getting to the deadline, it's like, "Will I ever get it right? Will I ever get it right? Oh my god." And something clicks. It's like, "I have it." And that excitement, I love it as well.

So it's, it's challenging, and I enjoy the challenge. I say, more than anything, the process is harder when you're being commissioned, but the journey, especially when you get it right at the end, it's, it's always pride, yeah, it's exciting. Seán Hewitt: I mean, it's pulling you in different directions as a

writer, isn't it? Because I think I agree, when, when you were saying, you know, when you're sitting on the bus and you suddenly have an idea and you write it down, or you're in bed, those moments are kind of unpredictable and and they just come to you sometimes out of the blue, or you've been thinking about an idea for months and suddenly it clicks. And I guess with a commission, you have to give much more structure to that process, which is perhaps not the

kind of natural way that a lot of poets write. Would you tell us a little bit about the poem you're going to read for us today? My People Dance by Their Hips. Where did the idea for it come from. Do you remember writing this poem? Would you read it for our listeners? Yes, it took years for me to write this poem. It came from my obsession with the waist beads. In the Congolese culture, it's more of a grown up kind of a thing, and becoming a woman comes with the

beads, really. So you can't be a little girl wearing the beads. It's just, it's not okay. It's very sexualizing, I suppose. And when Ok. My People Dance by their Hips. They let me in rivers, when I could you're a younger girl looking to become a woman, you want those little things, but you can't really go ask your African auntie. It's

like, "I want the beads." It's like, "child, what are you looking to get into?" So it's like, something you struggle with yourself, just wondering, "Where will I get them?" I was obsessed with the beads and I became a woman in Ireland, so I traveled very young. So I spent all my teenage years in Ireland, and there is me becoming a woman outside of Congo. And those things you wish would be cultural were in there, in a way, then you become obsessed with them

at the same time, because you can't have them. Here you can just walk in the markets. There is a whole pavilion where you just have the beads, kind of like the cartons, and you can pick, I didn't have that. You have to google them. You have to find a place, an exotic something, place, an African shop to get them. And my obsession with the beads is where the poem came from, and the taboo around it as well. So it took me years trying to get the poem right. I had a lot

of drafts of the poem, loads of it for years. It just kept changing. stand above the ripples on my own. The hidden bend for women, beating clothes against the river banks, that is where I heard about it, waist beads, how men love these things around women. But we bought for beads for ourselves. The people where I am from dance by their hips, with bead chains, leopard print wrapped on, you swirl to

drums. It's tradition. But women's talks in chambers, almost to a whisper, were safe, to stop pretending that you've never been touched, and tell that you let him, spell a poem on you, bare hands. We shared tricks, recipes, shea butter for the lines on your tights, the sorcery you'll need to keep a fussy man, and waist beads--men love these things around women. But we bought ours for ourselves, the

people where I am from dance by their hips. It's tradition,Our beauty pavilions have weeping willows of bead bonds swaying, mirrors, brave to show the days we used to wear skirts above our knees have passed, like rosary beads on a praying hand. Still, I keep the beads around my hips, the people where I am from dance by their hips. Seán Hewitt: Thank you so much. It's so great to hear you read that poem. And I wonder, when you're writing, do you, do you read aloud?

Because this is a poem that seems like it's just begging to be spoken. So how you read a poem was always very important from the start, and now I can't write a poem without reading it out loud. It's the sound that gets me, and the structure of the poem goes with the sound. It's how I will speak it. I will change words, cut the phrases, what you call the lines, to go with the way I wish to deliver that

poem. And if the poem was just written for the page. Like I said, it's very tricky for me to be connected with it, to pick up that poem and go around to places reading it; very challenging. So I have to write it with the voice speaking it out loud. Usually, that's how it goes for me. Seán Hewitt: Yeah, there's something in this poem I think that

that almost sways. I feel myself swaying as I read the poem. And I don't know if it's the rhymes or or the use of repetition, but I wonder, you know, as you are writing it, how do you kind of decide where, where you're pulling back that repetition and how you're kind of getting to the rhythm? Do you feel it in your body as you write? You know, can you describe the process? It's almost as if you're reading it for yourself. And I can see myself on the stage delivering it. It's where the voice

wants to stop. Usually, that's where it stops. There might be a word which I wish to emphasize at the beginning or at the end, and that would be where the line would break and start with something else. It's usually the performance I see myself doing. Sometimes I'd walk around the house delivering the poem, and it's that voice where it feels comfortable, or maybe you just want to take a breath. It's like, "okay, this line is long. This is where I want to take a

breath," and that's where you break the line. It's like, "okay, I love this word. This is how I want to start." Usually, that's how it goes. Seán Hewitt: There's something in this poem, and I think in a lot of other poems in your collection where you know the female spaces, or female kind of lineages, are really centered at the front of

this poem. I I love you know the idea of of this hidden bend in the river for for the women, because in some ways, it's a place of of intimacy between the women, where kind of secrets can be told and people can be talked about. As you accumulated the poems for your collection was that sense of a kind of, you know, a female inheritance, kind of in the front of your mind. Do you see that as kind of one of your principal kind of drivers for writing poetry? Or where does that come from?

When I got into poetry actively, like not just my own diary, but looking to be a part of the community, I was becoming a woman. So I'm an African in the diaspora. I'm writing"who is out there, what black woman is out there?" And Maya Angelou was that woman when you're reading her poetry, what she expresses as a woman. I mean, being a woman is universal, but then you do have those racial, cultural stuff that you do have to speak to somebody

who's like you, who comes from that place for you to understand. I mean, when I read the Phenomenal Woman, and Still I Rise and you read it, it's like, "I get that." I get what she meant. I absolutely understand what she's talking about. And my obsession with her trying to see, how can I write poetry? How do you write poetry as a woman? Seán Hewitt: Yeah, I kind of wondered, you know, when I was reading the poem, because it comes up so often, is these brilliant and

I think Maya Angelou is maybe in the back of this as well. But the eroticism, if that's a fair word for the way in which you write about the body and romance. I'm thinking of another poem in your book called "Son of August" as well, which has a brilliant rhythm. It's kind of almost song, like in my head. I suppose. I'm wondering with the erotic, is that something that you think comes from the kind of private world of your poems, because they started in diaries,

you know, that is there something that? Or do you even experience it as a sort of brave thing? Maybe this is just a particularly Irish hang up. You know that these things, you know, we associate with bravery, even just being kind of honest about desire or longing or kind of growing into womanhood, Absolutely, especially in the African culture. You, you just, you cannot be sexualized. You cannot be intimate. I mean, things are changing, but when I was growing up here, like two decades

ago, I mean you can't even bring your boyfriend around. You just possibly couldn't. The only time you get to bring somebody here means you're getting married. You just possibly couldn't have the guts to bring somebody around. Getting a boyfriend is like, "Oh my god, it's the biggest taboo" if you want to be beaten to death. And I'm not kidding, not the slipper, the proper beating, let somebody catch you with somebody. Maybe it's just my personal desires, and the way to

deal with them was writing them down, I suppose. The bravery that comes with it as well, having the courage to say it out loud, not being restricted because of the society that I am growing up in as well. Maybe it's just my personality. That it's the place that I feel like I can make it come out, write about in my own space. Write it in because I am quite introverted and a bit shy, a tiny bit shy. So I suppose my own page, pen and paper indoors is a place

that I feel comfortable letting them out. But of course, with the worry of knowing where to draw the lines really. Where is it you can and cannot go in terms of the culture and being a black woman as well. We already have what's out there, the stereotype of black women and sexuality. What can be romantic for one woman can be

vulgar when a black woman says it or does it. So knowing where to draw the lines is all a part of it, really, but I suppose I wouldn't really say it's just more of a cultural thing, but maybe it's just me, maybe it's just my writing is where I feel more comfortable. Seán Hewitt: I absolutely love it because it feels so kind of warm and sensuous in your hands. You know, we often talk about permission in poetry, and it sounds like that's kind of what, what's

going on. You know, we are talking about, where to draw the line, or kind of the bravery. I wonder if there are any poets, either that you've read in the past or that you're reading now that feel like they've kind of given you permission to write in a certain way, or think in a certain way. I grew up mostly Ireland, so my secondary schoolings And where I would have really studied poetry is Irish. The Seamus Heaney, the Yeats would be the poems that the Irish poems that I

really love. But when you go to the rhythm and the sexual stuff, it's not really coming from women. Surprisingly, in Congo, it's coming from men. If you look up Congo Rumba, the Congo Rumba were mostly poems. The well, the man who wrote most of them, Simaro Lutumba Masiya, he was a poet who wrote those songs for the musicians, and they were mostly written in the voices of women. So you had men singing, "I am a woman." Very rarely they ever sang songs about

"us men." It was always about a woman complaining about men, and it was very raw. I'm not sure. Maybe it's the language, how it's involved, and some of the words became vulgar, but they would sing it in a way that it was very sexual at the time. I'm not sure why it was okay then, but now, Seán Hewitt: That's interesting. I wonder if they kind of got away with it because they were men singing as well. You know, maybe it would have been different if it was women singing the same thing?

Yeah, I never thought of it that way. Absolutely. They sang about everything and they pronounced everything, sexual stuff, but most of the songs were very romantic and they were women crying. There is a song called "Mamou" [sings] so it's just a woman crying. It's like, "Where are you going? Like you're leaving me with the children. I'm here. Where are you going?" The poems that I knew were songs written about women, giving out about men, and

they were written by men, sung by men. I suppose that's where it's kind of came from, because they never sang about men against men, gangster stuff, powerful stuff. They just sang about women, sexuality and their relationships with women. I suppose that's where mine came from. Seán Hewitt: That's fascinating. Yeah, yeah. I'd never heard of that before, but it's kind of blowing my mind, because I suppose, what an interesting kind of inheritance to have as a woman, to have had almost

a kind of ventriloquism of womanhood, kind of sung to you. Do you think that you're kind of speaking back or speaking within that tradition? I think it's both. I am a woman, and the things that I thank God I write in English, and don't write in Lingala French so nobody understands what I'm writing about. I suppose it's the culture that I love, I admire, that's being carried, but against it as well, because it's like, maybe it's something that I wasn't supposed to

be doing, speaking openly about my sexuality. It's just a no-no. Women here, I have to say, they are very sensual. That as a woman, I know. I am, I have access to those spaces of women, and I do talk to women, young girls and the elders. Women are super sexual, but it's just, you're not allowed to bring it outside and me writing about it I

suppose it's it's one way of going against it. But then again, there is the trouble of knowing where to draw the limits, not only because of the Congolese culture of being a woman, but the Westerner ideas as well of what a black woman is, and you the stereotype of what you should and shouldn't be doing. Yes. Seán Hewitt: Yeah, I think there's something so so gorgeous about the Thank you.

way your poems kind of put in images, these kind of suggested ideas, and in some way in kind of cloaking them, that is kind of the essence of the erotic, right? Because it has to be kind of hidden. It kind of loses its eroticism if it's all given, all

given away. Okay, to a very different poem after the break, but which I found out was was read at Jackie Kennedy's funeral, which I didn't know, but we'll, we'll take a short break, and then Nithy is going to introduce us to one of her favorite poets. Cathy & Peter Halstead: We hope you're enjoying this second season of The Glimpse. It's just one small part of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation. We're the founders Peter and Cathy Halstead.

Our goal is to make great poetry more accessible to everyone, and we do that in a variety of ways, through partnerships, our film series, this podcast and our website, brinkerhoffpoetry.org, We hope these works will lure you into a parallel universe the way a Möbius strip. Life brings you into another dimension without leaving the page you're on. Thank you so much for listening. Seán Hewitt: Nithy Kasa, welcome back to The Glimpse. Nithy, what made you choose this poem?

It was probably one of the first poems I had to learn back in the days when I was doing poetry aloud where you had to memorize the poem and read it out loud. So the poems, one of the poems that I went around everywhere in the house before I slept, before when I woke up trying to get every word in my head was yeah Ithaka, obviously one of the very first, yes. Seán Hewitt: It's such a it's such a great poem. Would you read it for us?

Yes, Ithaka by C.P. Cavafy. As you set out for Ithaka hope your road is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians, Cyclops, angry Poseidon, don't be afraid of them: you'll never find things like that on your way, as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Laistrygonians Cyclops, wild Poseidon, you won't encounter them unless you bring them along inside

your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you. Hope your road is a long one. May there be many summer mornings when, with what pleasure, what joy, you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind, as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to learn and go on learning from their

scholars. Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you’re destined for. But don't hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you're old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you've gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.Without her, you wouldn't have set out. She has nothing left to give you now. And

if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean. Seán Hewitt: Thank you. This poem to me feels almost like instructions for life, you know, like you could read it at different times in your life and follow it almost as a as a journey in itself, like you might follow your your path through life. I think it's a pretty brave move for a poet to write instructions for life, but I

think Cavafy has done that. I wonder. You know, is there a lesson that you draw from this poem, or is it something that you return to? I love it for the very reason you said it's kind of an instruction for life. And I, I mostly love poems like this. It's when you read it and you you take something from it, you might be having a bad day, and it's like, "okay, I can take this with me" and makes things a little easier, clearer. My obsession with it came

from that same reason as well. You said it's very brave for poets to write instruction while I love poems. Like this. I struggle writing poems like this as well. Because I'm not sure now, but especially when I started to write, it almost felt like, "Who the hell do I think I am to give people instructions on how to live life?" I just didn't think I had anything to teach anybody. It's like, "what

do I have to teach the world really? What do I know about life?" Every time you write something about life, you can't help but feel "This is a stupid poem. Don't do this to yourself. Don't release it. It's ridiculous. Don't make a fool out of yourself." So it's very hard.

Seán Hewitt: It is hard, I think it's hard to, you know, position yourself as a teacher, as a poet, you know, like because often, you know, the reason that we're poets sometimes is because we're full of doubts, or we're full of questions and, you know, uncertainties, and the poems help us figure those things out, or give us some sort of connection to to the questions that we have. Whereas Cavafy's poem

has confidence. He comes straight in and he says, "This is how life is going to be," which is a pretty big subject to decide you're gonna get into. You know what? 40-50 lines. My favorite part is "Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her, you wouldn't have set out. She's nothing left to give you now," You know the idea that it's just a spur to a journey and and that going is the gift, you know, you know, having a kind of direction to go. And myth is

something that interests me in poems. You know. Do you find it useful in your work to kind of draw on myth? And how does it work for you? I suppose one way to run away from reality is to go into the myth and the fairy tale, and it's a safe space as well, because it's a myth. Really, it's not real. So it's there for anybody to make it what they want, and it comes with the whole the scariness of writing reality of life. Somebody can say, "well, that's not true,"

yeah, and well, yes, it doesn't have to be. It's a myth. You see, you can get away with it that way. So it's safe, it's there. But there is something about stories as well. I suppose it's just very poetic to run away from reality sometimes. And I love it. I love it. Absolutely, do love it. Seán Hewitt: I agree. I think more poets should run away from reality. Sometimes I think we're a bit too stuck in it. And I love, you know, like you said, doesn't always have to be true. You know, you said you

first encountered this poem when you're doing poetry aloud. I wondered you know, we all have things in writing that we think are maybe sometimes getting in our own way. I wonder, do you have any of those? Are there any things that you need to kind of or that you're hoping to get out of your own way as you go forward Loads? And I suppose one we already spoke about, the sexuality, the taboo of culture is one. You're looking at two cultures, and you're trying to balance. It's like knowing the

limits without censoring myself. It's like, no, you don't want to be shut down and be quiet just because culture wants you to be but at the same time, you're aware of them, that would be one. When it comes to the art, I suppose the financial side of it that we don't really talk about is there. I mean, you would love to dedicate your time to write, to do a lot more art, but then you have to make a living, which the art doesn't really give you. Seán Hewitt: Unfortunately,

Unfortunately. So being an immigrant in Ireland, it's not really your country, it's not really your culture. How do you speak about the Irish society being an immigrant? To what extent do I get to have permission to speak about a certain matter and where to draw the line, especially as somebody who comes from the Congo, and I'm very mindful, I'm very sensitive about that history, and understanding the colonization history of Ireland, and how

sensitive that can be. I think it might be from respect as well a place of respecting and knowing what to touch and what not to because I wouldn't. Yeah, it's not that I'm afraid. I can go out there and shock people, if I want to, I can, but I don't want to. Yes, when it comes to certain matters, it's. I know I can. I can give myself permission to do it. I have that decision. I have the option, but it's me saying I don't want to take that option. Yeah, it's knowing

those limits and caring for other people as well. It's important that it's it doesn't come from a place of fear. They're not afraid, but it's like, I respect you, I love you, I care about you, not to do this and do this instead. I suppose that's where it comes from as well. Seán Hewitt: And what are you working on now? Working on the second collection. Seán Hewitt: Second collection, yes, I'm glad to hear it. Do you have a title? Can you share a title? I haven't as of now.

Seán Hewitt: Okay, we will wait with bated breath. I'm still working on Yes, so no, it was a difficult journey. It still is, but I'm learning to let go. The poems are there. I'm trying to set myself free this time and not be too afraid. Seán Hewitt: Well, I cannot wait to read it. That is something really to look forward to. Nithy Kasa it has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for for taking the time to talk to me and for reading those

poems as well. And I can't wait to read the new collection. Thank you for coming on The Glimpse. Thank you so much. Seán Hewitt: Thanks for joining us today, I’m your host Seán Hewitt Nithy’s poem "My People Dance from Their Hips" is from Palm Wine Tapper and the Boy at Jericho, it was published in 2022 and aired with permission from Doire Press. The poem “Ithaka” by C. P. CAVAFY: Collected Poems Revised Edition translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, edited by George

Savidis. Translation copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Published by Princeton University Press and aired with their permission. Coming up next week poet Kit Fryatt on being a chancellor, Ezra Pound as a problematic forebear and the beauty in collaboration. Make sure to subscribe to The Glimpse wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find episodes on our website,

brinkerhoffpoetry.org/podcast. We’d also love to hear from you; drop us an email at theglimpsepoetrypodcast@gmail.com. The Glimpse is a production of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation. I’m your host, Seán Hewitt. Our Senior Producer is Jennifer Wolfe, Kat Yore is our technical director and mixing engineer. Editorial Director Amanda Glassman is our curator and production coordinator. Amy Holmes is the foundation’s Executive

Director, and our co-founders are Cathy and Peter Halstead. Thanks for listening.