Through the initiatives and activities of Township Productions, poetry in Namibia has seen some major activities taking place during 2022. Most of the activities were collaborations and poets, organisations and some institutions that have for long associated themselves with the work carried out by Township Productions.

For the past few years, a collaboration between the Goethe-Institut Namibia and Township Productions known as The Bi-monthly Poetry Project. The projects host poetry sessions every second month and 2022, like before, saw the hosting of 6 poetry sessions. Each session is themed and has seen a mixture of published, unpublished, known and unknown poets share their work with an enthusiastic audience. All the sessions are streamed live and allowed pets elsewhere in Namibia and the global community login and at times participate.

As part of its annual programming, Township Productions made a call to poets in Namibia to submit their poems for consideration and inclusion in the 3^rd Poetry collection of poetry called ‘A Conversation: the Africa in ME’ However, due to a broader interest in the theme, poets from other Southern African Countries requested submission and as a result, poets from 11 countries submitted their works.  Two other poetry publications were published online during 2022. ‘The Heartbeat of Pain’ by Keamogetsi joseph Molapong and ‘A voice from my Thoughts’ by a young brilliant poet Haggai Poetry Project 2022. ‘Like a whisper in the Wind’ was another another poetry collection launched in 2022. This is a bi-lingual (English with German translation) literary expedition by Namibian Poets.

Because of the success of the Bi-monthly Poetry Projects, many poets and organisations outside Windhoek requested the initiation of similar activities in their respective towns and Township Productions, initiated the Arts Collective Programme that is aimed at collaborating with institutions and artists in different parts of Namibia.  We have conducted a Creative Networking Sessions followed by an evening of Poetry, Song and Music in Rehoboth. Two more workshops and poetry sessions will be conducted in two other towns in 2023. Similarly, we facilitated a three phase creative writing workshops in collaboration with one of the education regions in Namibia and managed to conducted and host a poetry and short story reading session in Mariental in the hardap Region. Two more workshops will be conducted in this year. A one day Poetry Workshop at Goethe-Institut was also conducted with poets in Windhoek. The workshop was aimed at bridging the theories of poetry of practicing poets and it was successful workshop which with continue in 2023.

Namibia hosted the ‘Narrating Namibia Narrating Africa Festival’ during which writers from Namibia, Africa gathered to celebrate and discussion thematic issues related to African Literature. Township Productions delegated two poets to the Maun International Arts Festival ’22 in Maun, Botswana. This was done as part of the ongoing networking between poets from Namibia and Botswana.

Other poetry initiatives includes the Frankly Speaking Poetry Sessions, the Coastal Poetry, the Unam Floetry Society and many others, we are constantly on the lookout for.

Township Productions is looking forward to collaborating with World Poetry Movement, WPM-Africa, WPM-Namibia and related poetry platforms in 2023.