Maakomele “Mak” Manaka (South Africa)

Maakomele Manaka was born in Soweto in 1983. Mak, as he is widely known, is the son of the late Matsemela Manaka, the well-known artist, poet, playwright and Black Consciousness activist and Nomsa Kupi Manaka, a pioneer of African dance.

At the age of five, he received a Young Artist Award at the then famous Funda Arts Center in Soweto. He started writing poetry at fourteen, just two years after a near fatal accident which left him in a wheelchair for a year and a half. Mak started performing at the age of 15 on crutches, debuting in 1998 in Lugano, Switzerland at a tribute for his late father.

In 1999, he performed at the Windybrow Arts Theater with Benjamin Zephaniah and Don Mattera and went on to feature in several editions of Urban Voices with luminaries such as Sarah Jones, Steve Coleman, Mutabaruka, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Saul Williams, the Last Poets, Ursula Rucker, Lesego Rampolokeng, and Keorapetse Kgositsile. In 2003, Mak published his poetry anthology If Only, which enjoyed tremendous success and sold out its print run. In 2004, he toured Cuba and Jamaica with poets Don Mattera and Lebo Mashile representing South Africa as part of the 10 years of democracy celebrations.

He was nominated for The Daimler Chrysler Poet of the Year 2005 Award and in the same year also performed in Holland, at the Crossing Borders Festival, and in Germany. Mak returned to Germany the next year where he performed for the heads of state at the closing ceremony of the 2006 World Cup.

This year Mak launches his debut CD Word Sound Power!!
 
 
 
 

A Feeling Like This
 
She tickles me,
Yet I find it harder to laugh
Coz it's a feeling
Of a thousand Jazz-men flowers,
A sunset of different colors
Cady coded on her finger tips
As she touches.
She is not late night
With Msizi Shembe
Coz her beat on my heart
Pounds the rhythm of a djembe,
And I know….
That my pain will cease
Once my arrogance
Learns not to resist
Her fiery kiss
Simply because,
She is that calming serene sent
Of bliss
How
Can
I ever
Forget
A feeling like this.
All of nature's beauty
In one face,
She said my name
But Sunday jazz
Was all my ears to taste
Come darling here is my fire
Let's blaze
Tonight you are the sun light
In all of men's dark days
Some of us are still searching
For our selves in her purple eyes
And so I learned
To ask no lies
Hear no evil
And realize
The truth lives in her smiles.
She of a million light-years
Brightens up my path
True evidence
Of any man's confidence
She is love longing to be found
We met at street corners
Like Township lovers
Plus the night covers
Disbelieve of loving
Feeling like we are surrounded
By nothing
My semi sweet glass of serenity
Please
Say my name once more
So may definitely know
For sure
That just from a conversation
I soar
And in her eyes I saw
The truth starring back at me,
Innocent tears of reality.
And as she spoke in shades of the moon
I questioned
When will she ever hear the tune
I composed with my heart.  

all poems' rights remain with the authors