Carol Majola is a trained ECD educator, business management student, self proclaimed poet and author, and aspiring entrepreneur. She is passionate about community building and helping youth tackle social ills affecting them. Majola is advocate for issues such as bullying, GBV, and substance abuse. She believes that her purpose is healing and that words written or spoken are powerful to break but also heal and she found healing in poetry. To Carol, the two most powerful things are Love and words.
When did you start writing poetry?
I fell in love with poetry when we were learning about the history of our country when we were in school, when whites and blacks were separated during the apartheid era. And I fell in love with how expressive the writers of the “struggle” were and how they used the art to cope with their pain and loss, to communicate their feelings more eloquently. But it was when I lost my father at the age of nine, that I wrote my first poem.
What are your favorite words?
I am a lover so my favourite word is “love”.
My name “Carol” because it means “a joyful song”. I feel it explains why I love music so much.
Do you have a particular style of poetry you write? Have you ever experimented with form poetry? What were the results?
I do not think I have a particular style of writing my poetry, although most of my poems are in a similar structure. They are more expressive than rhythmic though.
I love words and playing around with words and therefore experimenting with form poetry was inevitable. My first exposure to poetry was form and studying poetry. With my work, I feel that form gave it more structure and allowed me to experiment with my rhyme scheme. Although the consideration of my lines and stanzas made it seem limiting in how I could express in depth, it did teach me careful consideration of my word choice.
April is Global Poetry Writing Month. Who are some of your favorite poets from around the world?
One of my memorable olden day favourite poet together with the likes of Charles Causley, would be a South African Poet by the name of “KEORAPETSE WILLIAM KGOSITSILE” who was not only a poet but a social and political activist who lived in Exile in the US in 1962. I love how he encouraged interest in Africa, African poetry and the practice of poetry as a performance art. Origins and Santamaria are some of my favorite works by him.
Maya Angelou has always been my favorite, as well as Rudy Francisco. I have my recent favourites who I have experienced through social media – Yaw Osafo (KINGYAW FROM GHANA) residing in the states and Hafsat Abdullahi (HAVFY FROM NIGERIA)…such powerful young poets.
A Conjugal Suicide
Floating, barely breathing
beneath the waters,
In a bottomless ocean.
Drowning, for I sold myself
at the price of trust
I recklessly handed over.
Sun rays cast between my fears,
Water covering my stream of tears,
My wails muffled in the deep,
Not even those shoring at sea
Can see me, nor my weeps hear.
I am dazed swimming in agony,
In a sea a path to which I built
With brick and mortar with which
I tried to build my home
That now lies desolate and forgone.
– Carol Goldstone Majola
Isabelle Palerma
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