Lisette Ma Neza

Lisette Ma Neza (AKA @diemeisjevanbrussel) makes poetry with a camera. Her artistic practice consists of a continual attempt to translate herself and others. I translate myself and others. I translate myself and others into poems. I write poems. I write poems that turn into songs, songs that turn into communal improvisations, music that turns into performances. I write poems that turn into films, poems for paper, stage, and theater. I also write poems that do not transform.

I speak Dutch, Kinyarwanda, English, and I love Portuguese. I understand French and pretend to speak it.

In 2024, she is named the first Public Poet Brussels.

“She is like Montreal, multilingual.

Like Dubai, Arabic.

She is like Kigali, I meet women who look like me, who look at people, the country, the world like I do.

She is unlike anything else, she is chaotic, she is upside down. She runs, she runs, she screams. She trembles, like a cat that just wants to be cuddled. She is like Berlin, I have heard, the little Paris, I have heard. Za'atar, guaraná antarctica, empanadas, ayran, tiramisu, makisu, pondu, açaí, fufu.

And she is the capital of Europe, she is lucky, the capital of Europe. She is mine. She is Black and South American, she is Flemish, white and everything I am not... And she is mine. She is mine. She was not born, she was not raised and yet she is mine.”