Resistance = Solidarity = (Platonic) Love – A Radio Show

Titilayo   

hello. So exciting to be here. My name is Titilayo. I am one of the CO directors at the Scottish BPOC writers network. And this is our little radio poetry show, and I’m so excited to be here. The show is called resistance equals solidarity, equals platonic love. And I’m with three extremely exciting poets,

Titilayo  

Esraa Husein, Ace Bamusi and Etzali Hernández, who will be sharing the hour with us and reading some poetry, but also playing some tunes around love amongst friends and other things.

Titilayo 

We will start off with Etzali , who is the CO curator of this show. It’s been a little dream that we’ve had as friends to collaborate on this show and to bring people together to think about what poetry can convey, especially when you think about resistance, when you think about the difficult moments in the world and the struggles that people are facing, but also what it means to

Titilayo  

reach out your hands and be in solidarity with each other and create these intimate spaces where we can listen to each other and share and kind of share power and

Titilayo 

create shared strength.

Titilayo

So yeah, would you like, Oh no, actually, I need to read your biography first. So it’s Etzali Hernandez is a non-binary Latinx poet, coder and DJ, and they have been published in numerous works, including the 2022, mixtape writers of color ascend magazine poetry and settled status for all fierce salvage queer words, anthology Etzali has also co-curated projects like the queer, disabled lost podcast,

Titilayo   

soar lose the scene and grief offerings, end of life wishes in 2022 forest publications released their first poetry pamphlet from murky waters we rise. And you can find them on Instagram and on their website. Panditita.uk

Titilayo  

Etzali. What poem do you have for us

Etzali 

before we start? I wanted.

Etzali  

Talk a little bit about the song we started with, which is a song by Anna tiju and Shadia Mansur, which has become, at least in parts of Latin America, an anthem about the global south liberation and

Etzali  

I guess, kind of leading into that. I’m going to start with a poem, with a short poem about

Etzali

where we belong as queer and trans people of color, and it’s called what other worlds can fit

Etzali  

united, we will control the storms, the cloudy days and the white men united, we will sail and free ourselves from the gender binary gender constructs and outdated ideas. United, we will become one with the Earth, the water, the air and the fire

Etzali 

united. We will feel the warmth of the sun recharging our hearts.

Etzali

United. We will feel the light of the moon suiting the tides of our souls. United, we will unleash your queer, trans, brown and Black power over those who keep dismissing our existence.

Titilayo  

Thank you.

Titilayo 

This is this very powerful and thank you for connecting us and for bringing trans people to the fore and to start us off in this really powerful way. I’m gonna read Esraa’s bio, because they’re gonna read next. But would you like, would you play us a song after the bio so we have a little in between

Titilayo  

looping thinking space so we can sit with the poem a little longer. So Esraa Husein, any pronouns, is a creative writer, community organizer and researcher based in Glasgow. They’re writing. Writings are published online and in print, in sync. Lumpin, the other side of hope, the skinny, Scottish BPOC, writers network, gutter, somewhere for us, the bottle in among others. Thank you, Esraa, for reading. But Also I,

you

Esraa

BPOC, hello, that’s a beautiful song. Thank you so much. Etzali. This is Esraa, and today I’m going to read it’s a bit of a long piece, and I’m reading segments from it, and it touches on all the themes that were mentioned about belonging, solidarity, resistance,

Esraa

for content warning, it does include also transphobia, homophobia and racism. And

Esraa 

yeah, I think it’s important to read it all together, because it’s a narrative, and it combines two pieces of work together. So there is, like a prose,

Esraa

a prose, non fiction piece, and then within it, there is a shorter poem

Esraa

that just works really well together.

Esraa

The title of this one is called on the violence of survival. Confinement, in my lifetime, embodies multiple constitutions in a dress code, in a language, in a gender expression in a jail cell, confinement because of bigotry and confinement in memory, sometimes one incident can combine more than one form of confinement. I remember I was arrested for my gender nonconformity in 2015 which is a crime according to Article 198, of the Kuwaiti penal code. I remember playing.

Esraa

Was sound. I remember a minute of loving, being embraced.

Esraa

I remember being taken into the storage room of the forensic evidence building. I see a trans woman getting ready to be captured by his camera. I notice her sleeping gown and a tattoo of red lips on her thigh. She plays with her hair and looks at me. I remember him asking me to leave, and within that same breath, asking her to take her clothes off. Then he said, wait outside while i deal with him. She is getting undressed, and I see her breasts. Then I leave. I remember the BBQ with my cousins in Al Qaeda resorts.

Esraa

I remember how the system failed me in my early 20s, being jailed for the first time for imitating the opposite sex, I share the cell with foreign women, asking the officers in fragmented Arabic mixed with English, why I was placed among them instead of being in the men’s bloc, one officer shouts that my official gender identification is female. Then the officer leaves, closes the cells door. He uses the tissue as he does this, not wanting his flesh to touch the handle. Their hostility calmed. Two women approached me and showed me their purple bruises and scars. Another woman offered me a bottle of water. I remember I withdrew, not for the last time. I failed to show my friendliness and laid on the floor facing the wall in a fetus position. I remember my first tattoo being inked around my arm. I found out that being jailed in the UK comes under different terms within the asylum system here, being jailed is being detained, according to the Home Office documents, and as a domestic violence survival, you will be confined. I remember asking an officer in Aberdeen what he meant when he told me he would detain me and him addressing as many words as he could in English to explain, but failing to mention the part where he would interrogate me with a corridor in a room, then lock me in a cell with an exposed toilet under constant surveillance. He thought the issue was connected to a translation and me not being a native speaker, saying detain might make him feel better, but eventually it is me being jailed in a cell yet again, under a different constitution that is deemed to be tolerant and accepting in opposition of the Kuwaiti penal code that is unconstitutional and violating human rights. Language is full of suspense and translation is sometimes tragic. I left one country for another. I left one cell to be incarcerated into another. I remember reaching the summit of Ben Lomond breathless and alive.

Esraa

The brutality of confinement I have witnessed growing up in Kuwait continued under different terms. In the UK,

Esraa  12:45  

the brutality of confinement due to racism is the one most prominent I want to address, the confinement that I, alongside 1000s of black and people of color, have faced when the racist riots took place in the UK in 2024

Esraa

forced us to stay indoors to avoid attacks, feeling so helpless against the fascist groups that felt bold and comfortable enough to terrorize us with no consequences. This memory is not only mine to hold. It’s for all of us. It’s for the records for better futures.

Esraa 

I remember flames and waves while chasing the Northern Lights.

Esraa

It was a sunny Sunday. I went to the local gym for a quick session. I came back to prepare lunch for my girlfriend, grilled halloumi and tomatoes, smashed avocado and toast and a fruity smoothie. We decided to visit our beloved friend to gift him with a lamp. Holding my girlfriend’s hand and walking side by side in the neighborhood. Means the world to me. Our friend lives less than five minutes walk away, right next to the local post office. He came downstairs to meet us. We hug and laugh. He loved how colorful the lamp was, and I loved how colorful my day was. So grateful for my friend’s warmth and joy. Then a white man walks towards us, interrupts our flow, curses under his breath and ask us to fuck away. It was a moment of unease, but we silently agree the moving away from him, both physically and mentally, we bring back the focus to our friendship, and we share how lovely the LAMP would be if placed in the living room. My friend shows off his new hairstyle and says it’s difficult to find a good service for his Afro hair texture in Glasgow, and how happy he is with the new look. The white man comes back, interrupts us again, and this time he yells at my friend, asking about his name, his home address, the reason he stands in front of the building’s door His presence. My friend explains that he lives in the building and says, I’m your neighbor. The white man kept questioning my friend while completely ignoring me and my girlfriend. I stepped forward, placing my arm in front of my friend’s body, as if this gesture could shield him from what is yet to come. I face the white man and say, don’t speak to my friend.

Esraa

End like this, the white man reaches his arm and strangles me. I can’t speak anymore. I kick and push. Everyone is shouting and pushing. I suffocate. The white man keeps choking me. Once we broke from the white man’s grip, I roared.

Esraa  

I remember dead lifting 92 kilograms, feeling invincible. I’m at work on Monday, attending meetings with my team and chatting about developing a program to be delivered at the refugee festival Scotland 2025

Esraa  

meeting with volunteers, replying to emails saying hi to co workers, going on a lunch break and seeing the white man’s face in every white man’s face. I’m fuming. I’m at my second job on Tuesday, attending meetings with my team and chatting about organizing activities for LGBT IQ, plus asylum seekers and refugees, meeting with community members, replying to emails saying hi to my co workers. I’m upset with my girlfriend, my friend, and the world I called breathing space before going to bed, I’m working on my PhD on Wednesdays, writing and editing a chapter to submit to my annual progress review, replying to emails, meeting with my supervisors. I can’t go to sleep. I call Victim Support Scotland. I’m back at work on Thursdays, attending meetings with my team, replying to emails wishing my co workers a nice weekend, crying while walking back home. I’m working on you belong Glasgow on Friday, organizing the next event titled fighting stereotype, plus community meal, meeting with participant, replying to emails, then switching to PhD. Work, more reading, more writing, more editing, more self doubt. The weekend arrives, time for recovery. I claim. The next week starts. I continue. I remember the coldness of the fairy pools in skye. I continue. Memories of freedom.

Esraa

This piece is longer, and it got published recently in a journal called lumpin, but I chose these specific segments of it to touch on the themes and to raise awareness, and also feeling really grateful that I got the space to share. Very grateful for my community and for my friends and for everyone in my life here. Thank You.

Titilayo

this was, this was fellowship by

Titilayo 

serpent with feet. And we’ve just heard a poem from Esraa Husein, and I just wanted to come on and say how angry I got listening to it, and how grateful I am to Esraa, because they’re one of those people who just really show what it means when what you can do when you transform all the violence that you see, that you experience, and you transform it into into that love that you hold for everybody, and ensuring that people, especially people who are faced with violence of

Titilayo

any kind of heteronormativity of borders, what happens when you transform that and get that into into the community and actually embrace us and embrace each other and create these transformative spaces that are so brilliant. So I just wanted to yeah, thank you for that, Esraa, because you’re not only an amazing writer and like thinker, and you’re such a community maker and such a people holder, and we can all be ourselves because of the work that you do that’s just so brilliant.

Titilayo

Next we have another brilliant, brilliant person who whose work I’ve had admire for a long time. Their name is Ace Bamusi and Ace is a Scottish Malawian spoken word, poet, actor and rapper and musician, and their practice is geared towards social justice and activism and is dedicated to opening conversations and healing and community care.

Titilayo  

Ace is a member of jazz fusion experience, modernistic and a published playwright and facilitator. Ace’s, thoughtful mastery of expression brings a considered voice to the canvas of life, literally, literally painting pictures with 1000 words. Ace, please, come on next you.

ACE V!S!ON  23:07  

Hi, hello. Hope

ACE V!S!ON  

you can all hear me. Yep, I go by the name of ace, ace vision, formerly known as ace villain, aka the deliberate deliverer of not diabolical dissonance, political precision, aka the one who is skilled in deconstruction as well as building. But today we’re just chilling.

ACE V!S!ON

So much love to Esraa for painting a picture worth 1000 words.

ACE V!S!ON  

Something about words that can just pull you in, that can like, mold a container, but in order for that container to be formed, you know, has to be first spoken and then received, you know, and feel like we’re shaping quite a beautiful container. At the moment,

ACE V!S!ON

I

ACE V!S!ON

haven’t really been writing poetry for a long time, but I actually just wrote this on the way here, and I guess I’ll just read it.

ACE V!S!ON  

I want to tell you I love you.

ACE V!S!ON  

I want to tell you I love

ACE V!S!ON 

I want to tell you I am loved.

ACE V!S!ON

I want to tell you I am love.

ACE V!S!ON

I want to tell you love.

ACE V!S!ON  

I want to tell love.

ACE V!S!ON

I want love.

ACE V!S!ON  

I want to love. I want.

ACE V!S!ON

I love to want.

ACE V!S!ON

I love too.

ACE V!S!ON  

I can tell you want love. I can tell you want to love. I want to love too. I too love to love

ACE V!S!ON

to love. I To love you. I.

ACE V!S!ON

I to you, you to i, i love i, you love you. You love I, I love you.

ACE V!S!ON

Something about forgetting the i in order to remember the you and forgetting the you in order to remember the we and forgetting the we, in order to remember the all, forgetting the all, in order to remember our love

ACE V!S!ON

for only as lovers can we actually love each other.

ACE V!S!ON

Only as lovers do we share what we suffer?

ACE V!S!ON 

Only as lovers do we cover one another, to protect and to guard whenever confronted by trouble,

ACE V!S!ON  

see only as lovers. Can we cry and can we weep

ACE V!S!ON

only as lovers? A future can we seek

ACE V!S!ON

only as lovers, in hurt and in defeat. Do we carry push, pull, raise each other to our feet?

ACE V!S!ON  

Only as lovers, can we set our differences aside?

ACE V!S!ON 

Only as lovers. Can we swallow our pride?

ACE V!S!ON  

Only as lovers can we look each other in the eye

ACE V!S!ON

and proudly proclaim that we

ACE V!S!ON 

survived.

Titilayo 

that was talk away by assay, an Austrian song that I really love. So thank you, DJ 

Etzali for adding that to the list. I also wanted to thank Ace for your beautiful it was a poem and performance and all of it and the way that you make us reflect about love was just really, really powerful, and I enjoyed that so much, and especially thinking about our theme, thinking about what the what does it mean to love? How do we love each other? How do we hold love in our communities, and what becomes possible when we do that, and what does resistance look like when we do it with love and when we actually center who we do it for?

Titilayo

So yeah, really, I really appreciate all the poems that you’re all bringing to this show. And yeah, I’m already thinking like, oh God, how can we do this again?

Titilayo

And yeah, there’s a Scottish Book Trust who has supported us this time, but

Titilayo 

yeah, we will see what the future brings, and we’ve got 

Etzali back for another poem.

Titilayo

And yeah, thank you for thank you for sharing and the

Titilayo  

reflections and openness that you all bring into into the show. It’s been really, yeah, really special

Etzali  

is

Etzali

there’s something about is checking into space just now with TT and Ace and Asia, that it cannot be transmitted. And I wish you were all here, because it’s so beautiful.

Etzali  

So if I start crying,

Etzali

I’m gonna read through the window of intimacy,

Etzali 

which

Etzali 

I’m quite a cliche of a poet, a sad poet, mostly. And once in a while, I write about love and friends, and this is about a very loved friend

Etzali

through the window of intimacy,

Etzali

a DIY bed in the kitchen from what I see, how easy cooks spring onions chopped finely, potatoes boiling with a pinch of salt, peanut butter, tahini, coriander, all combined into a sauce,

Etzali

mundane moments that are transformed the minute isa slap hits my chest their eyes trying to catch mine while I giggle at the bad jokes

Etzali

an eternity contained in this room transpiring love. This is no longer a kitchen. It’s an alchemy room. We have transformed its essence in the same way we have done with each other, I could open the window and jump knowing that you are at the other end. No matter what

Etzali

the in physicalities of our relationship can only be felt. There are no words that will do it justice. You.

Titilayo

Thank You 

Etzali

Titilayo

This is my blood runs through this land by

Titilayo  

Black Belt Eagle Scouts, And

Titilayo  

We will have another performance or reading by Ace.

ACE V!S!ON

I have a few here, and I’m just gonna see if I can weave them together so that they kind of work as one poem. We’ll go until it doesn’t feel right anymore, I suppose

ACE V!S!ON  

it had to start with all of the forgotten youth. I keep their faces in my mind because there’s no pictures. I rip apart and realign in search of something true. I leave some traces deep inside to ease the blisters. I keep their faces in my mind, because there’s no pictures. We held on for so long. Freedom was sickening. I leave some traces deep inside to ease the blisters. We do tell all of time to keep on listening. We held on for so long. Freedom was sickening. All the questions left unanswered leave you guessing. We do tell all of time to keep on listening, distraught intention on the horizon, not to mention all the questions left and unanswered leave you guessing. Miss taught and wretchedly declined from further pressing. Distraught intention on the horizon. Not to mention, I thought that next to me you’d find your only heaven. Miss taught and wretchedly declined from further pressing. I.

ACE V!S!ON

Put apart and realign and search for something true. I thought that next to me, you’d find your only heaven. It had to start with all of the Forgotten youth.

ACE V!S!ON

And so they ask, what does your love make when you make love? What shapes your container and relationships you hold, heartbreaks and chest pains, those lost long ago memories of birthdays, anniversaries and soul. What shapes your container in relationships you hold? Is it attraction, detachment, the rituals you know, memories of birthdays, anniversaries and soul? Do you lay love lavishly or keep your capacities close based on attraction, detachment and personal rituals, you know, heartbreaks and chest pains, those lost long ago. Do you lay love lavishly or keep your true guard up? What does your love make when you make love? 

ACE V!S!ON 

So where do we go from here? Because tough times took toll, but together, we’ve took our fears, locked them in a bottle, poured that bottle in a cup, and raised a toast, a free cheers, aware that as sure as hard times have come, hard times will come again, but we grow stronger through the lessons more fond in the time we spend with ourselves, with our family, with our friends. See it turns out we’re all entangled in a web. Every action made or unmade tugs the string of humanity. And through vibrations, a message is sent. The ripple affects you, and it affects me, and it affects the whole community.

ACE V!S!ON

I wonder, as I stare at fallen trees, if they fall on purpose, just to make sure that their seeds have the highest chance due to proximity to fertilize the soil for a future we won’t see

ACE V!S!ON

how silly of me order out of chaos. How could this ever be? It’s hard to see the light and dark when floating out at sea. Could say, would you be the lighthouse for me when I’m facing my adversity? See, would you be the one to break the curse with me? Switch shoes, walk a mile, come on a journey with me where perspective and mind could change the world. Believe, if we can do all this, I know you will achieve every single dream, because we are the free every chain unlocked because we’ve got the key. So you can do all this, but you’ve got to lead, see, you’ve got to lead. So you’ve got to breathe just another fallen leaf that caught the breeze, never knowing where you’re going to land, possibly as long as on the way you’re dropping seeds, the cycle never ends like a clock repeats. Thank you for

ACE V!S!ON

listening. 

Titilayo

This was horizontalidad by

Titilayo  

and we’ve got 

Esraa with a reflection for Ace’s Performance,

Esraa  

thank you, Titi, Ace, your words really stayed with me, and especially the way you the language around container. I feel in a lot of ways, when I imagine container, I imagine restrictions or like borders or boundaries, but it’s really beautiful, the way you put it, that it can be something expansive and something that can evolve, or something that can contain multitudes and multiples. And I think that reminds me thinking about platonic love, about non-romantic relationships, and thinking about containers. Is that something that I try, or I strive to create for my friends and my connections here in Glasgow, in my community as well. And

Esraa

I use that language too. I think about my work in containers like there is a container of safety, where it’s about community building and about me taking care of my collection of 113 plants, that’s my container of safety. And then there is container of love, which is, again, it’s the same thing that contains my plants and my friendships and my relationships, but also it’s so rich in its love, and it’s so giving and so warm. And then we have also a container of like identity, what makes me me, when I think of language, when I think of where I come from,

Esraa 

what kind of labels that I hold today, as you know, queer person, as a non-binary person, as a person of color, as an immigrant, as so on, all these labels. And I think, yeah, thank you so much for blessing us with that work. And it really like Titi mentioned, we can even see the words physically here, like in this radio station

Esraa

for the listeners, you can imagine, it’s a beautiful station with plants around us and warm flight as well. That is definitely given the right vibe.

Esraa 

Yeah, thank you. I guess we’re going to the next song

Titilayo

oh, this was minority by shish Shani, and we will have an extract from one of my favorite poems of Etzali’s to close us out. But I just wanted to say thank you so much. Ace, thank you so much. Esraa, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Etzali for the space and this incubator of justice and solidarity and friendship that we’ve created. It was so beautiful to share space and share a show. So thank you for listening. And over to you, Esraa,

Titilayo

over to you. It’s Etzali

Etzali 

Um,

Etzali    

this is a poem

Etzali

that I wrote about a very beloved friend that sadly passed away in 2020

Etzali

and I’m gonna read it because another beloved friend asked for it. I’m only gonna read

Etzali

a short extract from it, and then we’re gonna play one last song that is called I will tell you the name of the song later, otherwise, we’re gonna get confused.

Etzali

This is all to Rainbow friendship in memory of Sean Mitchell,

Etzali

I remember looking at you for the first time and immediately wanting to be your friend, your hip and shark demeanor, the realness of your being pouring uncontrollably seeing you standing queer and proud, trans and magical, black as fuck In your sea of caps, black hoodies and plaid shirts. I remember calling you when I was about to wear a plane for the first time in years, and humming a made up song, and you immediately say, Are you twerking,

Etzali

seeing you standing queer and proud, trans and magical black as fog in your sea of caps, black hoodies and played shirts.

Etzali

I remember celebrating my birthday rainbow cake and splits tequila and Prosecco. The three of us were laughing. I’m about to open a bottle while you are shouting, don’t shake it. Open it in the shower, seeing you standing queer and proud, trans and magical black as fuck in your sea of caps, black hoodies and plain shirts.

Etzali

I remember traveling on the night bus to Birmingham. I baby crying the entire journey, working on a technical task for a job interview, and finally eating in a McDonald’s crowded with drunk youngsters at 6am

Etzali

seeing you standing queer and proud, trans and magical black as folk in your sea of caps, black hoodies and plaid shirts,

Etzali

I remember traveling back to Glasgow via Manchester. A taxi are driving way too early for us at your cousin’s, making a stop to eat Chinese food, hopping on the tram and getting lost, missing the train and laughing hysterically at our mistake seeing you standing queer and proud, trans and magical black as fuck in your sea of caps, black hoodies and plain shirts. Thank you, and we’re gonna play now Intifada on the dance floor.

Etzali

Yes,

Titilayo

and again, it’s been such a big pleasure to be in this space together. It’s been such a big pleasure to be in the space together and to hear your poetry and your words and yeah, hopefully hear you again. Thank you all for listening in and for the space.

Esraa

Thank you. Titi, thank you for this amazing opportunity. You’re awesome.