An Angel of Mercy
by
Judy Woodborne
Compiled by Njabulo Ngobese
Judy Woodborne was born in 1966 in Cape Town. She obtained her BA in Fine Arts from Michaelis School of Fine Art in 1988 and an advanced Diploma in Printmaking with distinction in 1989. She was awarded her Master’s of Fine Arts degree with distinction from the University of Cape Town in 1993 with a dissertation entitled Moria, a Eulogy of Folly. She lives and works in Cape Town, and is a resident artist at Spencer Street Studios.
Poem:
For our children
Makhosazana Xaba
Write the wrongs
on our girls and boys
for everyone to know
about every single one,
then there’ll be
no excuse not to
right the wrongs
on our girls and boys
who in their own right
deserve a national rite
for all to declare:
Respect, Protect and Fulfill
the Rights of Girls and Boys.
Right the wrongs
on our girls and boys
who rightly await
the nation’s loud voices:
Respect, Protect and Fulfill
the Rights of Girls and Boys.
Right at birth our children expect
every right-minded person
to know without being told
that normalcy demands that we
Respect, Protect and Fulfill
the Rights of Girls and Boys.
Mo ntlheng ya bana ba rona
Setswana translation coordinated by Dr Maria Letsie
Siamisa diphoso
mo basetsaneng le mo basimaneng ba rona
bao ka tshiamo ba letetseng
mantswe a kwa godimo a setshaba:
Tlotla, Sireletsa le go Diragatsa
Ditshiamelo tsa Basetsana le Basimane.
A Brief Biography of Makhosazana Xaba
Makhosazana (Khosi) Xaba was born on 10 July 1957 in Greytown, KwaZulu-Natal to Glenrose Nomvula Mbatha and Rueben Bejanmin Xaba. She grew up in Ndaleni as the second of five children and currently lives in Jozi. these hands is her debut collection of poetry. She is one of the 12 poets ISIS-X, a women-only anthology of poetry and photography (Botsotso).
Before turning to writing, Khosi worked as a women’s health specialist for both local and international NGOs. She wrote and published extensively on health systems management, gender and health, and women’s health policies. She is currently a Writing Fellow at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER) working on a nonfiction biography project for a year.
She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of the Witwatersrand. She is the winner of the Deon Hofmeyr Award for Creative Writing (2005) for her unpublished short story called Running. Khosi’s poems have also appeared in: Timbila, Sister Namibia, poetsagainstthewar website, Women in Writing, Botsotso, South African Writing, Green Dragon and Echoes.
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