Pralini Naidoo is a PhD candidate at the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Her research focuses on erased/ hidden narratives of women who have descended from indenture in South Africa, and their relationships to earth, seed, food, and the other-than-human. She is the author of Wild has Roots, a collection of poems, reflections and short stories. Her work appears in Teesta Review, BKO Magazine, Anthology – Women’s poetry of India and South Africa, Dreams as R-evolution Artbook, and Pluriversal Conversations on Transnational Feminisms. As a Black woman, and mother, Pralini is passionate about social justice. While her poems primarily centre on the spiritual and meditative art of attending to the every-day – what she refers to as Poetic Noticing – the poems are invocations, inviting explorations into deeply buried and silenced wisdoms. She also writes about women and girls who dream, love, make courageous decisions, and save their own lives. Using poetry and storytelling, she has facilitated workshops and retreats for women who find themselves at the peripheries of society, and who wish to reclaim their voices. Participation and performances include the UKZN Decolonial Winter School 2022; Jazz and Poetry: A conversation of the Senses at Alliance Francaise in Durban; Open mic and presentation at the International Symposium of Poetic Inquiry; Poetry Africa 2022; and the Desmond Tutu SARChI Chair for Religion and Social Justice Economies of Violence Lecture, 2022. In 2021, her poem Garden received the Poetry in Macgregor Magdala Award. She received an honourable mention for a haiku contribution to the Africa Haiku prize, 2021. When she is not writing, Pralini offers yoga and grounding practices for community and attempts to grow her own food.
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