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 has presented her intercultural carnal poetics and ecopoetic rituals around the world and enjoys collaborating with a wide variety of artists, animals and plants. Her first collection of poems, « Hyphen », won the Ingrid Jonker Prize in 2010 and her poem « Resurrection » was shortlisted for the Gerald Kraak Prize in 2016. She lives in Italia and Mauritius where she writes, teaches, sings and creates with the water as her element of connection to this world.
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+Voice — Tania Haberland Film+Music — Poetics of Reverie
« The Torrid Zone » has been selected to be part of the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival 2023. In 2025, « The Torrid Zone » travels to China for a one-year licensing screening at Nanjing University of Arts, partner of the Goethe-Institut China.
NIGHT RAIN (from « Hyphen » 2009) (2021)
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.
Poetry+Presence+Voice — Tania Haberland Sound Design+Film — Poetics of Reverie Filmed in France at Manaska Retreat Center | July 2021
« Night Rain » have been selected for the big screen at the Sentient Performativitiesevent from June 26-30, 2022, Dartington Hall, UK and online
SEA MORE BLUE | INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS EASCLE/ JUNE 2024
Sea More Blue : Ecopoetic and Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Sea and Oceans | 10th EASLCE Congress European Association for the Study of Literature, Culture, and the Environment. This conversation was broadcast for the 10th EASCLE Congress « Sea More Blue | Ecopoetic and interdisciplinary approaches to seas and oceans » held in Perpignan (France) from June 17 to 20, 2024
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)
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 pulverized shell Iridescent powder lurches forward from cold into the warm Sun breath on the sea Everything shines.
Poetry+Voice+Presence — Tania Haberland
Music+Film — Poetics of Reverie Filmed in Lumio (Corsica island, France) June 2022 #bodypoetics #ecopoetry #ecoart #ecologicalerotics #electropoetry
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 Barnes-Granveau Music+ Film – Poetics of Reverie
