Tania Haberland, a tri-national poet (German-South African-Mauritian) is the hybrid of a Hamburg sailor and a Mauritian artist, born in Africa, raised in Arabia and matured in Europe. She publishes, performs and exhibits her poetry and multi-media collaborations across the globe. She lives in Italia and Mauritius where she writes, teaches, sings and creates with the water as her element of connection to this world.
// Film Poetry // Poem by Tania Haberland // It is raining below the belt – let us turn back and smell the lush plants and trees until the sun returns still above shining light direct into the forests of our bodies as the bright flowers between our legs bud and bloom and grow. Aristotle classified what we know deep down inside – as we open our mouths and drink in the clouds we recall. We are varied animal life, we call pleasure we call love we call life as we fall tropical human, humid and moist sunshine, rain and leaves petals, tears and cries of joy we are wet we are slippery we are snails we are secretions creations fluid hibiscus we recall us the torrid zone.
// Poetry film // « Illuminescent » a poem by Tania Haberland
Surrounded by snowy silence
I try and return to the bottom of my heart
like a fisherman catching creatures
from the deep I dive.
The stillness can be felt down there
while up here I am always in tides,
moving according to the whims of the moon
and day.
Slowly I swim down
into the calm of my heart.
With each breath, I fathom further
into the kaleidoscope of my depths illuminescent.
– Voice, Poetry: Tania Haberland
– Sound Design & Film: Poetics of Reverie
Filmed in France – Cognac Region | September 2021
// Resurrection // A poem by Tania Haberland 2009
The sea is a grave of shells
Each one a stroked pearl of silent wisdom entombed
Each one a slick clitoris housed
Stone walls are licked open,
a water phoenix rises from pulverised shell
Iridescent powder lurches forward
from cold into the warm
Sun breath on the sea
Everything shines.
Intro : In the Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard writes : « the contradictions of the shell, which at times is so rough outside and so soft, so pearly, in its intimacy. How is it possible to obtain this polish by means of friction with a creature that is so soft and flabby ? And doesn’t the finger that dreams as it strokes the intimate mother-of-pearl surface surpass our human, all too human, dreams ? » (Chapter 5 « Shells » p.115)
– Poetry, voice, presence : Tania Haberland
– Music, film : Poetics of Reverie
– Filmed in Lumio (Corsica island, France) June 2022
// Poetry film // « Night Rain » a poem by Tania Haberland (from « Hyphen » 2009)
It rained last night.
In the middle of the night, it poured down.
Waking at first, and then lulling to deep
sleep broken only by the smell of the sun,
morning sucking up last night’s rain.
Things to do draining the rain’s dream,
I feel myself falling
into the morning
like last night’s rain.
– Voice, Poetry & Presence : Tania Haberland
– Sound Design & Film : Poetics of Reverie
Filmed in France at Manaska Retreat Center | July 2021
// Cloud Mountains //
This video poem expresses how a southern born global citizen sometimes feels in the wintery north… listen out for a quote from a famous Dylan Thomas villanelle ! + Cloud Mountains – The Technology of Tenderness
– Voice & Poetry : Tania Haberland – Movement & Presence : Lyndsay Granveau – Music & Film : Poetics of Reverie
// Penumbra // A poem by Tania Haberland from « Hyphen » 2009 (UCT Writers)
Home is shaded.
The buildings above and around weep in
an architectural eclipse.
Time here is demi-jour, always falling to sleep. Eyes rest in darkness coveted, shadows leaf the mind.
Rooms grow in the dark — loved, candled, mossed and covered.
The city is a canopy shedding light at night but never quite penetrating my penumbra.
Birdsong breaks through but the shadowed birds beaking at windows, they never enter.
The threshold remains tinted by light,
dusking the unbroken shoreline of my island, never woken.