Can you introduce yourself- your name, where you come from, how you describe yourself?
Awe, my name is Allison-Claire Hoskins, I'm from the city of Johustleburg, Johannesburg, Jozi. I moved around in Joburg and Joburg is my birth place, but I’m based here in Cape Town. I’m a creative person, personality, writing, performing, I would like to say pianist, soon to be. Poet, performance poet, and yeah, that’s who I am.
What does becoming mean to you?
Becoming to me means not being scared, to let go of the fear, the fear that holds us of facing ourselves. Becoming also means being happy with yourself and breaking down those walls, and those walls are the fears that stop you from being your full self and living to your fullest potential and what yourself and your identity is. That’s what becoming is.
What were the pivotal moments of becoming you? What was the process?
I think it started off in creche, you call it Kindergarten that side, and playing with toys, and remember toys are gendered, that sucks, so I always played around. I was a tomboy and I remember picking up a doll and this guy had a superman and I’m fighting with my ca-ca-ca-cao with my Barbie doll and he was like, “Oh cool! A girl doll can also be a superhero”, and I’m like “Yeah!” And that’s when it was like “A-ha”. It was important for our understanding because we would always play with superman toys and I brought my doll, thinking “Yeah my doll can also fly kick”.
In primary school, it was the idea of choosing sides of the tomboy the masculine energy [or the feminine energy], and I realized that I don’t have to [choose]. I can play with both the boys and the girls. People in my class also realized that Allison was just that person who flowed with everyone. During break, all the girls would sit together, all the boys would play cricket or soccer, and I would just bounce back and forth. And there was this pressure like I needed to choose a side, you know this whole idea of being linear and binary, and I realized “No, I don’t have to”.
Being a teenager and navigating clothes, style, and fashion is also a part of becoming. I hated shopping for clothes. I loved shopping for food [laughs]. I loved grocery shopping like “Yas, whose gonna eat!” But shopping for clothes was always challenging because I could see the looks my mom was getting from other mothers looking at me and my Che Guevara t-shirt and my khaki shorts and my all-stars. I remember one time my aunts bringing my mom aside and saying “Yhu, Allison is going to be a lesbian if you don’t watch out, with her clothes, you know?” And my mom was like “No no, she’s not a lesbian!”. So, that’s why it took so long to come out because from there I just saw the negatives about being yourself. I also struggled with my body when puberty hit - breasts getting bigger, hips getting wider. I covered myself in baggy stuff to hide because I started seeing the attention I was getting and I was feeling uncomfortable and not understanding the language of my body yet. And people started sexualizing my body, even my homies, my male homies would be like “Yoo” and I was like, can't we just go back to playing, you know? I knew I needed to express myself creatively through clothing, but the stores my mom was taking me to of course only had certain styles. You know I have a very masculine side of myself or the pink pretty dress side and I was like, “Well I’m somewhere in between”. I don’t have the words for it, but eventually I started experimenting more, and I think in that experimentation I started feeling more comfortable even going out to get clothes. It became more exciting - “Oou I can match that with that,” and “oo my all stars with my dress”. I don’t have to wear my all stars with my khakis anymore! I can mix it up.
And during cultural ceremonies and practices, it’s a bit difficult. There I’m still trying to find how to become because there’s rules, like women can’t do this or women can’t do that. But it was so cool one time, ‘cause the guys only slaughter and I just forced myself in the circles of my uncles and all these other men, and I was like “I’m going to help you slaughter this goat”, and everyone was shocked. I just stood my ground and my uncle gave me the knife and laid it on the axe to chop it, and I did that because I’m like “Gender doesn’t define…” Yeah it doesn’t have to be like that.
How old were you?
This was 18. Yeah, ‘cause I was getting really frustrated in the kitchen, peeling the potatoes, dishing up. When we’re having those ceremonies, it's a lot, ‘cause old tannies (aunties) are looking at you, abo rakgadi (aunt), aunties are looking at you and later on, I’m just going to sit with my uncles and nephew and having umqombothi and just drink with them.
I don’t mind the stares anymore. I don’t mind the ladies saying “Hm, you’re not peeling the potatoes”. You need to be strong because at the end of the day, you realize you’re just a person, that you’re not really hurting anyone by just being. And once you realize you’re not hurting anyone by just being, you hurt yourself by not being who you are.
Any other pivotal moments? Any performances or pieces?
I think every performance is a big moment. People don’t come directly to me, they come after a performance with something nice, like “Oh that was nice, that was lovely”. While I’m performing, I do see some people, certain people, mostly white people, cringe and look the other way, or Christian folk cringe and look the other way because I play and use a lot of satire with God and using biblical references, like Mandela being a messiah, and people don’t like their God being mixed with other things. People do get uncomfortable, and people never come directly to me and say it but I’ve heard comments or my friends sitting and hearing what other people say about my poems like “Ahh she’s a bit too radical” or “she’s a bit too aggressive” you know, “it doesn’t have to be like that”. Otherwise, people are always saying nice fluffy things when they come up to me.
There was one performance, a Fugard performance with InZync (a poetry collective co-founded by Allison). It was the closing show of Open Book Festival, we used to always close the show, and I had a band. I had a drummer, Unity on drums, Gareth Harvey on Sax, and myself, and it was the first time I did the poem We are Coming for Everything. It was a room of 500 people - and I don’t remember much of that performance because I think I literally went into a trance - and there was a point where I forced people to get up and eventually everyone stood up and everyone was chanting “We are coming for everything!”. And after the performance people still stood up and gave me a standing ovation. I’m telling you what people told me ‘cause I was scared, it was my first time performing that poem. And I really don’t remember getting off stage, but I remember people backstage had open mouths and all I wanted was some water ‘cause I wanted sit ‘cause I could tell my body was tense as I was using a lot of energy.
Another moment was performing at the prison, 250 prisoners, just men, that was a scary as well as a pivotal moment of becoming and understanding. We [InZync] were performing at the Robertson correctional facility, just a few of us; it was myself, Adrian Diff Van Zyl, Pieter Ondendaal, Rimestien, Boetman Louw and I was the only female representing body. It's quite a drive and in the morning at the pick up spot, Adrian looked at me and was like, “You know what, sister? I didn’t want to tell you how to dress but I’m glad you got the message”. I came in a dungaree, it was very baggy, I didn’t want anything exposing or tight fitting, because I know I’m going to a prison just full of men. It was weird for him because it's like, “Do I tell the sister cover up but respect the sister?” When we got to the prison and even before we entered, the guys working the yard, I could just feel their eyes all over me. The guys that came with me felt so uncomfortable for me and they could also see… that was scary, I thought, “How am I gonna do this?”. I can clearly see these men are just… And then we get in and we ask the warden, “So, who's in here?” and he says, “From DUI to life is the people who are here”. So he was prepping us, you know people are friendly but also be careful, it's still a prison, you don’t just get too comfortable. And yeah, I did my performance. It was crazy seeing the dynamics of prison. All the Sotho guys were there with their blankets, Xhosa there, Coloured mense together, the few white guys together. The cooks in front, and the rastas on the other side. So, now you’re performing in front of a very divided room. My first poem without even thinking about it was a rape poem. So I get there, perform this rape poem, and it’s this awkward “clap.. clap… clap” . I was like, “Oh shit, [a rape poem] in prison!” And then I do the poem We are Coming for Everything and Jethro was playing the mouth bow for me and I was like, “I’m going to get you on your feet”. It was hard and I told myself that I’m not going to leave this performance without getting people to stand because I want everyone to believe that we are coming for everything. It was hard, hey. And there was this one guy who was feeling the energy, you know the spirit was coming and more people stood. Then there was only one guy out of 250. 249 inmates were standing up, jumping, going on - one guy left. He was the gangster, the OG, and I went to his level on the ground and I looked him in his eyes and I recited to him, and even the wardens were scared, looking at me, looking at him, the other prisoners looking at him. It was this intense moment where everyone is still jumping looking at us like, “Is he gonna stand?” And he stands. And I think I asked him, “Are we not the same you and I?” and then he stood up. That was a very magical performance. It was crazy performing in front of all of those men. And all the prisoners were like, “She’s not going to get him” and I was on my knees and he’s got his tattoos, he’s like the G. And even the warden afterwards was like, “How did you... You know who you got to stand up?” So he must have been the big guy and people were like, “Respect”.
How is art a means through which to become?
I realized art was a way to becoming when I saw what it can do. Seeing how people feel after I perform, and seeing how I feel after I perform, after I create. It's a good feeling, it's a happy feeling, it carries me. Also doing the workshops with the kids [was powerful]. InZync used to run workshops - it was really a beautiful space of creativity. We used to recruit high school learners - we’d go to these high schools during the morning assembly be like, “Aye, poetry is cool! Come sign up!”. The first time we started, we had like five names, and then later on 10 names, and then 30. And the kids would come, and some were really shy, but then we saw the confidence build and also how they think of the world. There was this one guy in the workshop, his first views of queerness and womxn were very patriarchal and narrow. And then years later, a new kid came is saying the same things he used to say and he corrected them. I was like wow, without us even saying [anything]. So, seeing what the work can do. And all of them are just beautiful humans; we’ve known them since 13, 14, now they’re twenty something. Really amazing, those workshops, life changing.
Why poetry?
You have page poetry, academic style poetry, spoken word, and I know many people hate the word “performance” and the history behind Black people performing, but I see it as a positive, that we are good at performing and creating. I don’t see performance as a bad thing for me as a Black person because I’m really good at it. It became a bad thing when other people started taking money, appropriating, not us having the power. But when I’m on that stage, I have the power, I give and I share. So I use performance poetry.
Why is it important to be who you are?
If I don’t become, then everything ugly about this world wins. It means that I die. So everyday, you choose life, and by choosing life, you choose yourself. And you need to choose yourself cause otherwise the people telling us all these ugly things about ourselves win. And I don't know much about the creation of the world, who, why I’m here, but I know I’m here. And I’m here, and I need to be here. So that’s why I need to become because whoever did this, it will be a smack in their face and in my own face if I just don’t live my best life, if I don’t be. But it’s difficult, it’s not easy, but I think once you choose and you choose consciously everyday to choose life, choose yourself, you win.
How does your identity come through in your work when that identity is often at odds with the traditions of home or religion?
I remember after one performance, this white lady had an adoptive child and the child is Black, and she rushed to me with the child saying, “Oh, my daughter is shy but she wants to say a few things to you”. And seeing me being me on that stage, because at home it’s a white mom and a white dad, and they haven’t seen another Black woman express themselves like that, she was like, “Yo that’s me! I can do something like that!”. The mom was also excited, “I tell her I love her and things like that, but there are other things I cannot talk to her about”, and it was exciting for me to see that excitement in her and to see that she could relate with someone. So, that is important, to see this girl who was like, “I’m going to start writing tonight and you’re going to see me on stage!”. And I was like, “Awe girl!”. You never know who watches you when you’re up there and what it means for anyone when you’re up there. So by becoming, you show others it's also possible.