Article
Welcome to South African poetry - September 2004
January 18, 2006
All the poets presented so far are well known within South African. Some such as Ingrid de Kok, Seithlamo Motsapi, Antjie Krog, Tatamkhulu Afrika, Karen Press and Patrick Cullinan are also known outside of the country and many have been translated into other languages and have appeared in international anthologies. The rest deserve wider attention and are getting there. Mzi Mahola for instance who is in his late fifties has just returned from his first European trip, a guest of South African High Commission to represent us at a festival in Glasgow along with Andre Brink, Mongane Wally Serote and Keorapetse Kgositsile. But this score of poets represent no more that the tip of an iceberg.
South Africa is seething with talent and there are dozens more poets that I would have liked to promote to give a wider view of our diverse admixture of cultures and styles. Poets like Breyten Breytenbach, Sandile Dikeni, Wilma Stockenström, Joan Hambidge, Jeremy Cronin, Douglas Livingstone, Lesego Rampolokeng, Stephen Watson. Mzwake Mbuli, Robert Berold and dozens of others need to be read and listened to.
What I need to say is that we are a vital and energetic country. We have a population of more than 40 million, eleven official langues and dozens of distinct cultural groupings that fall within the wider world of poetry where words meet with rhythm and music. We have hip-hop, kwaito, rap, performance, spoken word practioners, slam groups, reading circles. Performance is the current rage. Poets like Malika Ndlovu. Mzwake Mbuli, Croc E Moses, The Botsotso Jesters, and Tracey Splinter shine on the stage.
All sorts are accommodated and thrive, mostly below the level of celebrity, and are difficult to classify, categorise or even quantify. When you see the word definitive in connection with South African poetry, caveat emptor! We have broken our bonds. Life here is generous, dangerous, tentative, confident and above all resistant to rules. So choice is hard, selection difficult. Therefore it makes sense to share the honour and the chore.
Final thanks to my co-convenor, Tracey Walters, who did all the real work involved in the technical side of PIW, and to the PIW team, especially Arnolda Jagersma, Marloes van Luijk and Corine Vloet.
It is with a combination of sadness and relief that I hand over editorship of the South African domain of the Poetry International Web. Sad because I will lose contact with PIW at such an intense level and relief from agonising about how best or how at all to represent South African poets and poetry.
Our domain was one of the first to appear on the PIW and with this latest posting of the work of Gabeba Baderoon, Charl-Pierre Naudé and Michael Cope, we now have fifteen notable South African poets potentially reaching millions of readers.All the poets presented so far are well known within South African. Some such as Ingrid de Kok, Seithlamo Motsapi, Antjie Krog, Tatamkhulu Afrika, Karen Press and Patrick Cullinan are also known outside of the country and many have been translated into other languages and have appeared in international anthologies. The rest deserve wider attention and are getting there. Mzi Mahola for instance who is in his late fifties has just returned from his first European trip, a guest of South African High Commission to represent us at a festival in Glasgow along with Andre Brink, Mongane Wally Serote and Keorapetse Kgositsile. But this score of poets represent no more that the tip of an iceberg.
South Africa is seething with talent and there are dozens more poets that I would have liked to promote to give a wider view of our diverse admixture of cultures and styles. Poets like Breyten Breytenbach, Sandile Dikeni, Wilma Stockenström, Joan Hambidge, Jeremy Cronin, Douglas Livingstone, Lesego Rampolokeng, Stephen Watson. Mzwake Mbuli, Robert Berold and dozens of others need to be read and listened to.
What I need to say is that we are a vital and energetic country. We have a population of more than 40 million, eleven official langues and dozens of distinct cultural groupings that fall within the wider world of poetry where words meet with rhythm and music. We have hip-hop, kwaito, rap, performance, spoken word practioners, slam groups, reading circles. Performance is the current rage. Poets like Malika Ndlovu. Mzwake Mbuli, Croc E Moses, The Botsotso Jesters, and Tracey Splinter shine on the stage.
All sorts are accommodated and thrive, mostly below the level of celebrity, and are difficult to classify, categorise or even quantify. When you see the word definitive in connection with South African poetry, caveat emptor! We have broken our bonds. Life here is generous, dangerous, tentative, confident and above all resistant to rules. So choice is hard, selection difficult. Therefore it makes sense to share the honour and the chore.
Final thanks to my co-convenor, Tracey Walters, who did all the real work involved in the technical side of PIW, and to the PIW team, especially Arnolda Jagersma, Marloes van Luijk and Corine Vloet.
© Gus Ferguson
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