SHAME 

This poetry film is the outcome of a collaboration between filmmaker Sesino Yhoshu, movement artist Virieno Zakiesato and poet T. Keditsu.
The three collaborators have chosen to release this poetry film on this day - the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (25 November) as an act of solidarity with victims/survivors of VAW and those around the world working to end it.
Shame
(A sestina by T. Keditsu)
Shame
I first heard the word when my mother could bear no more children
What would they do with only daughters? Will you bring
An end to your husband’s line? Your father in law’s name
That his widow worked so hard to uphold?
Do the right thing and leave him so he can marry another
Woman who can bear him the sons we prize. Another’s
Shame
Should not be reprised, a woman’s role is to uphold
Her father’s name and when married, her husband first then children
Your daughters will understand how sacred is name
Once they are wives and mothers and they shed theirs to bring
Their husbands’ names before society’s eyes and aspire to bring
Forth sons of their own, to establish another
Man’s bloodline. For a woman who fails to bear sons is named
Shame
Birth as many daughters until a son is got. Suffer bearing countless children
As long as your womb can progeny hold
Sacrifice your body, endanger your sanity, learn to hold
Back tears of protest, teach your daughters subservience, to bring
The age-old hierarchy of men above women amongst your own children
Daughters who defy their brothers’ authority is another
Shame
For while they are leased to women, only men inherit names
That record the story of our people, of migrations, wars; encounters which name
Victors, survivors; Glories and sorrows that hold
Shame
Like blood in our veins, passed on from father to son through wombs that bring
Generations of men, linking them to one another
As descendents of the first son of our first mother. Children
Who once, hunted heads wearing bright cloths women wove for their children
And knew trees and beasts, rivers and spirits by name
But these are fast fading memories of another
Time, the only thing we still know and remember to uphold
Are the names of our forefathers and not to pass them on, is to bring
Shame
My father did not take another wife, instead he chose to uphold
His marriage and taught his children, things much worse than passing on names
Bring shame