“On the night, Nosipho had not planned to perform at all. A friend persuaded her at the last moment. What followed was a reminder of why brilliant art has such a powerful way of reconnecting us to our own humanity.”
This month we couldn’t choose just one poet to feature. Both Tasha Bertram and Nosipho Gumede performed at the April open mic night, and both stopped the room.
Tasha Bertram
Tasha Bertram is a former ballet dancer, actress, lyricist, and poet. Her work explores the emotional struggles we all encounter, guiding listeners toward moments of peace and the quiet strength that comes from finding resolve. While also sharing her written work through performance, her lyrics hope to support others in facing their own challenges, offering a space for reflection and clarity.
At Poets in Putney, Tasha performed from memory, moving gracefully through the space, arms raised in gesture, her presence unhurried, in a way that made her background as a ballet dancer quietly felt. The room fell hushed. Her narrative poem traced the weight of life’s challenges, before arriving somewhere tender, and full of hope.
You can find out more about Tasha’s current offerings at tashabertram.com.
Life moves in onward paths that change and grow,
while elegance remains in every walk,
Memories linger within my love while
Nostalgia weaves its wings into silken net.
Soft grey tulle lies longing to be worn again.
Elevated movement lives on — as
My love grows… fonder — and my faith
extends its branches outward clutching at my truth
to galvanize the dying fragments of the past.
And with my longing I return, only to peek and to say farewell and
let me go.
And thank you for being there to alight this journey.
for nursing me through the anguish of an ambitious mind.
And thank you, for leading me here to say thank you,
and for filling me with gold.
No doubt, I shall return again to ripple and whirl
with eyes that hear the whispers in ears that see
expansion with every breath.
You cannot realise how big you are.
Nor know how wide you stretch when you truly live.
My heart lies open in its cave,
purring at the pleasure of this accomplishment.
I’ve come home at last to nest
in the safety of folding trees keeping me from harm.
Tis here lies the gentle comfort of my wisdom.
In this silence, I am in love,
Yet my longing, still Returns — but
Only to say farewell — and let me go.
Nosipho Gumede
Nosipho is a registered professional engineer, curriculum designer, spoken word poet, and founder of WAME Consulting, where she designs postgraduate qualifications and consults on socio-technical initiatives that position engineering as a movement for social progress. She began writing poetry at sixteen and describes her work as storytelling. In 2012 she founded Wits Poets’ Corner at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, and that same year won the Drama for Life National Poetry Slam. She is featured in Our Words, Our Worlds: Writing on Black South African Women Poets, 2000–2018, edited by Makhosazana Xaba.
On the night, Nosipho had not planned to perform at all. A friend persuaded her at the last moment. What followed was a reminder of why brilliant art has such a powerful way of reconnecting us to our own humanity, in stark contrast to the noise and distraction of the modern world we inhabit.
She performed two poems. The first, a gift to her friend, was a masterwork of spoken word: intimate and incantatory at once, building from tenderness into something fiercely awakening and instructive, a poem about learning to truly see yourself before you let anyone else in. The second was deeply personal. Nosipho lost her mother when she was ten, and her grandmother shortly after. Rooted in a cultural belief that those who have passed speak through the poets and healers of a family, the poem was a profound act of honouring, of carrying her mother and grandmother forward with her through language and song. In a room shaped largely by Western sensibilities, hearing a poet honour her lineage with that kind of unflinching love felt rare and genuinely moving.
Nosipho considers herself a performance poet, so other than the earlier anthology she was featured in, she is currently unpublished. Her work lives in the room and in the moment. You can find out more about her professional work and background at wameconsulting.com.
There she goes again
Stretching
Pulling out the orchestra she keeps on the floor beneath her rocking chair
Old age and its habits
It seems wrinkled people
Cannot sit on a rocking chair
Without flooding the room with rhythm
Without making a melody tickle the air
She sits on that chair
Tells us the same story about the man who loved her feet
Since then she has never complained about walking
The man we know as the one who was never there
The man who laid himself down long enough to give her daughters with his eyes
The man who never sat next to her long enough to hear the crackle that grey makes
when it overwhelms a mature woman’s hair
She still tells us about the man who was never there
She describes how this man would go on his knees
And wash her feet
How the water would run along her toes
Then his fingers would chase it
How his palms spoke to her skin
She says that washing her feet
Was his way of preparing her
Because he knew
That he would give her children and leave
Then she would need to have good feet
Feet that would make her stride like a mom
And tap like a dad
He knew
That she would soon need good feet
To spend the rest of her life walking for two
Making mom’s footsteps and filling dad’s shoes
Dear Dad
You should come back some day and see your old lover’s feet
They don’t look as good as they used to
Her feet now hold the darkness that comes from walking under the sun that was meant for you
Her toes are now a home for the cracks of parenthood that she was supposed to share with you
The soles of her feet
have a hardness that speaks of the distance she has covered
Being hunter and gatherer
Her feet don’t look as good as they used to
Because she has been walking for two
With the bad days that make her pace for herself
And the odd falling that makes her limp for you
Dear mom, happy mother’s and happy fathers’ day to you
Today, your children will wash your feet
We will give you a platonic romance that can hold every yawning morning
and every sighing noon
Coming up at Poets in Putney
Our next event is free and already sold out: a Rivers Edition open mic in partnership with Thames21, as part of London Rivers Week 2026’s 10th anniversary.
And looking further ahead, tickets are now on sale for our one-year anniversary party on Thursday 25th June. We are celebrating 12 months of poetry, community and all the magic that happens when people are brave enough to share their words in a room full of strangers. Expect cake, a raffle (performing poets go into the draw to win a Waterstones gift voucher), and an afterparty at The Spotted Horse on Putney High Street. We would love to see you there: Book tickets on Eventbrite
Poets in Putney meets on the last Thursday of each month at Putney Library Hall, SW15 2DR.
