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    • Translates into 
      • abkhazian
        afar
        afrikaans
        albanian
        arabic
        araucanian
        armenian
        assamese
        azerbaijani
        bashkir
        basque
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        bkms
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        duala
        dutch
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        esperanto
        estonian
        finnish
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        galician
        georgian
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        gujarati
        haitian
        hebrew
        hindi
        hungarian
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        kannada
        kashmiri
        kazakh
        kirghiz
        korean
        kumyk
        kurdish
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        latvian
        lezghian
        lithuanian
        lushai
        macedonian
        malay
        malayalam
        maltese
        marathi
        mayan language
        mongolian
        nepali
        norwegian
        occitan
        oriya
        ossetic
        persian
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        rhaeto-romance
        romanian
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        southern sami
        spanish
        swahili
        swedish
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        tajik
        tamil
        tatar
        telugu
        tetum
        turkish
        turkmen
        udmurt
        ukrainian
        urdu
        uzbek
        vietnamese
        welsh
        yakut
        yiddish
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Titilope Sonuga

Becoming

  • 1 I Am | Translations: de
  • 2 From A Place | Translations: de
  • 3 Hide And Seek | Translations: en
  • 4 Icarus | Translations: de
  • 5 How To Heal A Wound | Translations: de
  • 6 Becoming | Translations: de
  • 7 Bones | Translations: de
Language: english
Translations: german (Im Werden)
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Becoming

When the world unravels before you
and even your dreams are crumbling stones
when everything you dare to touch
is set on fire
and all around you is ash and smoke
remember this

rock bottom
is a perfect place for rebuilding
Remember that you are your mother's daughter
your grandmothers answered prayers
a whole bloodline of women who bend
in response to raging winds
there is nothing broken here
nothing damaged or discarded
each scar is a badge of honor
every misstep is a victory dance
waiting to happen

You are a woman becoming
learning the complicated language
of forgiveness
the intricate lessons of the universe

Your heart is just a muscle
it needs exercise
and you were born for this sort of heavy lifting
you were born one part saint
one part warrior woman

Loving yourself without shame
is the most important thing
you will ever have to fight for

© Titilope Sonuga
From: unpublished
Audio production: Literaturwerkstatt Berlin, 2016
Video

Translations:

Language: german

Im Werden

Wenn die Worte vor dir zerfasern
und selbst deine Träume bröckeln wie Stein
wenn alles was du berühren möchtest
aufgeht in Flammenschein
und alles um dich ist Asche und Rauch
dann denke dran

der absolute Tiefpunkt
ist ein guter Ort um wieder aufzubaun
Vergiss nicht dass du deiner Mutter Tochter bist
dass mit dir Großmutters Gebete sich erfüllten
die Kontinuität dieser Frauen
die biegsam waren im rasenden Wind
nichts ist hier zerbrochen
nichts beschädigt oder verworfen
jede Wunde ist ein Ehrenmal
jeder Fehltritt ein Siegertanz
in die Zukunft

Du bist eine Frau im Werden
du lernst die komplizierten Sprachen
der Vergebung
die verflochtenen Lektionen des Universums

Dein Herz ist bloß ein Muskel
der trainieren muss
du wurdest geboren diese Gewichte zu heben
du wurdest geboren halb Heilige
halb Kriegerin

Dich selbst zu lieben ohne Scham
ist das wichtigste Ziel
für das du je kämpfen wirst

Übersetzt aus dem Nigerianischen Englisch von Uljana Wolf
previous poem
   (How To Heal A Wound)
6 / 7
nächstes Gedicht
(Bones)   
listen to all poems

Titilope Sonuga

photo © private
* 15.08.1985, Lagos, Nigeria, Nigeria
lives in: Lagos, Nigeria, Nigeria

Titilope Sonuga (born in Lagos) is a Nigerian-Canadian poet, writer, actor and performance artist. She has taken the stage at festivals in Lagos, New York, Edmonton and Toronto among others. Her first collection of poems, Down To Earth, won the 2011 Emerging Writer Award of the Canadian Authors’ Association. Her Spoken Word album Mother Tongue was released in 2013. In 2015 she performed at the Inauguration of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

   
 photo © gezett.de
Publications
  • Abscess

    Johannesbrug: Geko Publishing, 2014

  • Down To Earth

    Okadabooks, 2011

Awards
  • 2011 Emerging Writer Award

  • 2012 Maya Mangelou Poetry Contest

Video

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