Author: mzabteam

Mystics and Sages: Baiyinah Brookins on Tuareg Craftsmanship and the Ornamental Resiliency of a Nomadic People

Published by

Join MZAB as we catch up with Baiyinah Brookins, founder of Mystics and Sages, an ethical sterling silver handcrafted jewellery brand which supports Tuareg artisans across Africa. Please tell us more about your formative years and what inspired your link to jewellery and the Tuareg. My formative years were shaped by the rich culture, history, spirituality, and entrepreneurship that surrounded me. Growing up the daughter of two entrepreneurs who founded an African Arts Boutique in the heart of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States, I was immersed in a world of craftsmanship, history, and culture.  The spark that ultimately ignited my journey to create the brand, Mystics and Sages, occurred when my father returned from a business trip to West Africa and gifted me a small half moon sterling silver Tuareg necklace. This necklace was a gateway to the world of the Tuareg people. I was intrigued by the beautiful geometric designs artfully etched into the silver and carefully crafted glass beads that encircled the necklace. I fell in love with the mystical lore and …

The Hijab as an Alien: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sheikh Abdul Fattah and Expansive Horizons

Published by

The thing about horizons is that they are always subjective. Opening your front door will always give way to your immediate horizon, the squeal of playing children and the clamour or alternatively the silence of life in your neighbourhood- most intriguingly the curve of the sky meeting the earth. For the astronaut finding home inside a space station, horizons don’t signify the ending but rather the expansion of things. A thought put by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, namely that the expansion of the universe means each of us through the ages have been ‘dealt’ a new cosmos or that each of our subjective co-ordinates in relation to the edge of the universe has evolved over the epochs, means that we have all in essence witnessed different skies, different horizons. As explored by Maria Popova, ‘eating the sun’ was the pastime of blind French resistance fighter Jacques Lusseyran who lived an extraordinary life of light despite the darkness of his physiological reality. I suppose in light of this, sunsets do not have to be- as they …

Under the Belly of the Sea, a Victor is Born

Published by

Ink was my saviour I drank it by the gallon. It poured into me then engulfing all the writing that others had defined me by pages and pages surrounding my liver unwritten by gushing blackness down my throat it went strangely willing me to write my story to tell my truth. At daybreak we witness. This night we must fathom. Under the belly of the sea a victor is born. K.Y. Djassi is a poet and writer based in the UK.

Better times

Published by

What will you say when the clouds break to show you a sun you’ve been seeking in yourself What will you say when the better time finally arrives cool, collected, a light seeping through white teeth What will you say when tired wrists will weigh heavy with the bracelets of Kisra when the life you used to mourn will become the coolness of your eyes when the secrets of the heart will dance- collide to make a heart well lived- a life well lived. K.Y. Djassi is a poet and writer based in the UK.

Childhood

Published by

I am nostalgic for the future. Those days of hushed murmurings in Wolof and the razor sharp innocence I wish to find again tomorrow. I feel I am without roots, circumventing a shadow that has for so long been my bed. Waking up to dreams has for too long been a reality. These are the days where the people we have made home in depart one by one, taking parts of ourselves with them. These are the days where the aged who have the most rights to life here must leave. Yes. Such are the inner recesses of my mind. All types of weeds grow here and all manner of indigenous flora must be pruned. One day I may let the green coiling fingers reach and reach until verdant leaves surround my thoughts. Until the sun rises again and the dappled light of childhood resurfaces and pours out of my head. Soukeyna Osei-Bonsu is a poet and writer based in London. She is author of the chapbook “All The Birds Were Invited To A Feast In …

k.eltinaé, borders and butterflies

Published by

k.eltinaé is a Sudanese writer of Nubian descent and a third culture kid who with his poetry collection, negotiates borders and ideas as adroitly and beautifully as the argonaut that is the butterfly.  Vacillating between love and longing, displacement and arrival in his profound collection titled ‘the moral judgement of butterflies’ k.eltinaé’s body of work is at once arresting and searing, spiritual and heart wrenching. As my copy of his collection arrives, I eagerly open the pages to mine the words which have captured the startling rage, love and poetic musings of a writer who from culture to migration, war to peace has a lot to say about and to the world. – ‘nefsi’ I am upon the first reading drawn to read and re-read the poem ‘nefsi’ (translated from Arabic to mean ‘my soul’, ‘my own self’). For those that are on their own journey to self love / acceptance / those who are battling the troughs of their own minds and seeking words of affirmation which are just as impactful as West Indian …

The Railroads Know

Published by

When time stopped I still carried the hope of moving with eyelids too tired to carry new baggage when I finally sleep in an attempt to shut out all that’s new or reset this body I wake up to an old day an old year and I am glued to bed not sure if inertia is a lack of direction or waiting to be saved. Not sure what it means to remain still when it feels like there’s nothing that remains. the railroads keep track of all you’ve lost on the waythat one time you carried the sorrow of an entire village but forgot to pack your feetor the time you emptied the cupboardshaboba always said you can never use what you display the railroads keep track of all you’ve traded on the wayremember the acceleration of your dreams picking up speed of legs racing oneanother and a child between your feet believing you’re a motorcyclehow do you break the cycle if all you do is jump tracks? the railroads listen and talk back but …

Express Shipping

Published by

“no one puts their children in a boatunless the water is safer than the land” after Warsan Shire somewhere between the north and south polethere’s a boundary between a calendar dayand the next–if crossed right may cross outthe ink of yesterday and maybe evenfor a moment I will cease to exist briefly I used to think to express isto exorcise until I emptied my tank tryingto drive [..] out of my system, or is itto filter, a memory as selective as a cataloguesort: emotion low to high somewhere between my navel and diaphragmstands a piece of string, stuck but plays the saddestlullabies to keep me from sleeping or forgettinghe says all of the things I have not healed frombecome my muses and I stand at the border not knowing which is which–see there’s thisline between my navel and diaphragm that onlyI can see but it darkens, becomes more visibleselect: next day delivery somewhere between […..] and [….]I lost myself–no one ever tells you how tocalculate or declare your value, whereto collect the pieces or replacewhat …

Gills

Published by

                                 Fish with brown flesh,  collapsed scales,             strong                     hearts. Strange are those creatures that sink to t h e b o t t o m.      Choking in the seas       choking in the land. Coughing up        coral coughing up stars. “Why did they not tell us pre-life was better than life?”               And who is the murderer really?   The one who                    unwrites humanity or the             one who reads it? Soukeyna Osei-Bonsu is a poet and writer based in London. She is author of the chapbook “All The Birds Were Invited To A Feast In The Sky” published with Lote Tree Press and has been featured in the publications The Drinking Gourd, The Black Explorer, Amaliah, Islam Channel, Alchemiya and Hikaayat. She has also had her writing showcased at an M Fest exhibit in London.

Azza mocks me for praying in onesies

Published by

Azza exchanges the robes of freedomfor the silky toabs of comfort, swearsgossip travels farther than hadeethever could. no matter how many timesthey burn down cities to ashes tofuel islamophobia, the bond does not break.no matter how many times we offer ourchildren to the fire, the flames remain insatiable.our love letter to god never has any return address. deep in sujood, I am one with the earthalways returning to Allah, but never arrivingAzza swears customs are stronger thanbeliefs, no matter how many times I triedto split the two, the bond remained covalent.I am but a subatomic particlealways splitting, always dividing When fire broke out in Mecca, the Mutawaatraded his whip for a pair of binocularsthe school girls of 31 had no names, justlike all women the Arab boy donates twoRiyals for kiswa and feel entitled toclothe all women I wear Azza’s umbilical cord aroundmy waist, belt in all the dreams I lost in the firesometimes I am a small apartment city girlother times I fall from my island hammockto the countryside’s bungalow. Azza continues to burn …