poetry africa 2009, (my) day three, durban

Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College Campus
Day 5 of Poetry Africa 2009 (Friday, October 9)

8:14 pm -- Too late, too late… In the middle of Chigo Gondwe's presentation. And I start spinning off on my own, as she riffs and sings and cajoles and exhorts…

If this is the present of poetry, let alone the future, poetry books are dead. Audio is close to finished too -- it's only a matter of time -- and we are marching into video and eventually into a virtual immersion as the only real option.

But I'm not convinced it is the future -- or necessarily the present. Like this notion of universes folded into themselves and stacked one next to the other, I'm not sure whether this is the present or but one present.

I think what's going to prove to make or break the reputation of poets in the years to come is the ease and skill with which they slide between these universes.

Nor am I sure that performance -- in whatever form it is offered -- is any less bound by its medium than the written line is. Ah… see: without even intending to I stumbled across another commonplace -- bully for me!!

But there's something more to this than the banal assertion above. I'm just not sure what it. But there something about a poet's growth, experimentation with new forms -- not necessarily "the latest" (oh dear god but I'm growing old and curmudgeonly) but new to her, whether it be form or format or... It just all feels like ground we've trod many times before. Still, there's something I'm missing here, but only just...

Setting the mic down and walking back behind the lectern, Gondwe says, "I know there are some people here who believe poetry should be read." What does she mean? She's flogging her book -- for sale in the lobby. It includes a cd. "Hook a sister up!" Indeed.

Around 8:30 we head into a break. I've missed the School Poetry Competition Awards -- a real shame; I had really wanted to see them -- and Bongani Mavuso, whose book was launched on Wednesday.

A thought exercise: fifty years on, what will these slam poets and spoken word artists be doing? Will they still be performing? In the same venues? How will they be viewed by the younger poets of the time? Will they have adapted their… Subject? Forms? To the poetry of the place and moment? Or to a past before this present? Will they be giving "readings" or "performances"? Will they be writing books or transcribing or recording? Or…?

I can't help but puzzle through all this framed by the seemingly endless stream of musical group "reunion" tours, from the doo wop showcase they broadcast again and again and again on public television during pledge drives to the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac tours which… yeah, they're beginning to be broadcast during pledge drives on public television in the States too…

8:51 pm -- Anindita Sengupta from India. A lovely voice and a lovely reading. But… I wasn't able to hook into one of her poems all the way through until "Apologia". I wish I could find you this poem, but I can't. She does have a website, though, with others, including many she read tonight.

9:18 pm -- Mongane Wally Serote. Now here's an icon…

"and sometimes poverty rages around us // don't we know this?"

So easy a reader, but a little ragged…

"We were no coincidence."

…and the jingle of the coins he's rolling in his pocket.

It's quiet, he's ranged far and wide and yet, still, he comes home and turns to Linda, who brings him -- and us -- all the way back: "come let us get to work."

And at 9:41 pm we end.

latest acquisitions

There haven't been many, but there have been a few.

At the first night of the Poetry Africa performances I was able to attend I found a book by Robert Berold, Rain Across a Paper Field -- at deep discount. Liesl Jobson, a South African poet who has been tremendously helpful to me in the lead up to this trip, had earlier mentioned Berold as a poet and publisher worth knowing in Grahamstown (my next stop).

So I will. Know. At least a little.

And then this afternoon, as I was headed home from my wander, I decided to pop back into the Adams Booksellers shop at the Musgrave Center and walked out and into the rain with:

Denis Hirson, The House Next Door to Africa
Charl-Pierre Naudé, Against the Light
Tania van Schalkwyk, Hyphen

I've had the pleasure of trading a few emails with Naudé and the Hirson book, though not poetry, is slim, written in pieces, and also was at deep discount (can you detect a theme here?). Van Schalkwyk is completely new to me.

I had also picked up Megan Hall's The Fourth Child which received the 2008 Ingrid Jonker Prize. Now it's totally unfair to base one's assessment on a cursory reading of only a few poems while standing in bookshop, but... I left it behind.

You need not, and can read more about Hall's collection on the Poetry International website.

As for the others. Well... hopefully, before too long, you can read more about them here on the african poetry review.

Though here's a teaser for Naudé's collection and
one for van Schalkwyk's Hyphen too.

Addendum: Just couldn't help myself after tonight's reading -- though why should I, being one of the main reasons I'm here, after all -- and scanned the Adams Booksellers table one more time, walking away with Mongane Wally Serote's History is the Home Address from 2004 (which he had just read from) and his first, Yakhal'inkomo. I also scooped up Lesego Rampolokeng's Bantu Ghost - a stream of (black) unconsciousness, the book version of one of his pieces for the stage.

poetry africa 2009, (my) day two, durban

Right into the readings tonight; no mucking about with book launches or ancillary events.

Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College Campus
Day 4 of Poetry Africa 2009 (Thursday, October 8)

Running a little behind and literally running up the hill to the UKZN campus. Made it in time, though, as the program is starting late. Not sure that I want to be doing this -- being here, yes, listening; but writing? I'm still a little weary and perhaps have little sense of what I can (or hope to) accomplish here.

7:44 pm -- The program starts with Outspoken is "the dictator of the evening. Yes, I am from Zimbabwe, but that has nothing to do with it." And off he goes, riffing on Mugabe throughout…

"There are no up and coming poets," Outspoken asserts. And he nails it. So very obvious but I haven't been able to belch it up on my own to this point. No, we're all just working poets.

7:51 pm -- Nokulunga Dladla, a young woman, one of Durban's Showcase Poets, spins off on "Lies my teacher told me" and naming and "paradigm" and drowning in "European culture" and identity...

7:56 pm -- Phephelani Zondi, another Showcase Poet, and a young man of style and rapid fire delivery.

Both Dladla and Zondi are mixing Zulu and English -- in long stretches and not just sprinkling words here and there, of either in the other…

As if being punished for my ambivalence… my keyboard and mouse freeze up and I lose most of the early Tania Tomé -- of her at the piano, singing, moving, full body poetry; in Portuguese, her words splashed on the screen in English translation -- I can’t possibly process it all; and that first of her's was a poem about poetry, lines about rhyme and rhythm, in the upper register of poetic discourse (yes, it had that sort of flavor, the translation did at least) -- and I was thoroughly disconnected through my own ignorance of Portuguese and by the fact that I have only two eyes and they travel as a set...

Around 8:01 pm was when Tania Tomé stepped onto the stage.

8:22 pm -- Nina Kibuanda from the DRC (via Paris). Nina has a simultaneous translator… This is new…

Starts with "The Need to Write"

The translation is of his banter, his conversation with us; the poems are projected in translation -- not quite as distracting because… I can understand a little French, a little better?

"The Stranger"

These are very much dramatic readings -- less-so "spoken word"; though I’m not sure I could formalize the difference. But he is acting out his poetry, and building on it; not slamming it, not throwing it out there.

Interestingly, the news clippings posted in the theater lobby, that I discover and scan during the upcoming intermission, characterize him as a "comedian-slammer" and former rapper. And yet his work is more formal, more traditional in many respects, than the slammers that have come across the stage; and the work itself far less comical than... Loftus Marais' from last night, for instance...

Brings up both Tania Tomé and Jennifer Ferguson on two different poems. I've been wishing throughout that I was a faster typist or had a better memory, so that I could capture more of the lines, the better lines; I'll not pretend to be able to channel the performances.

Closes with the line "we will be back with words" (not weapons) -- strongest, fullest poet and performer of the night. Outstanding. And yet so much is wrapped up in the performance of it -- to pull the two apart and rely on the page alone after tonight? Hmmm…

8:54 pm -- Onto our break, or intermission, or rest. Not sure which tonight.

9:17 pm -- We begin again… A larger crowd tonight, for sure, and skewing a little older.

9:23 pm -- Ewok, "the fire spitter" (a turn of phrase Ewok broke out last night)… Starts much more subdued than his emceeing last night.

The guy's got some crazy talent. I don't really know how to write about it… "So much to be said," he segues from one to another of his poems, just in talking to us -- and I think this is where it comes from: so much to be said, running, chasing… not really chasing but running into... a pool, a pile, a mountain; though it seems, rather, to me, for me -- in me?? -- that the words are plunging over an edge and down, down, down…

Profoundly political and yet swallowed by this yawning chasm. Is it in me or in the poetry/performance? It's not a chasm of lack but of… darkness? Dark rage, righteous though it may be?

If I wanted to formalize it, make it something more akin to an academic exercise, I'd point out that Ewok's slamming, all the slam poets I've heard, deploy all the methods and tools of oral story-telling I learned in their purest form -- rhythm, repetition, built brick by brick, cycling round and on, hooks and ladders -- it feels almost stripped of ornament, distilled.

9:51 pm -- Lesego Rampolokeng: "I’m sick of poetry," as he drops his books to the floor. Damn, he's bouncing all over the place. Reading from a theater piece to start, hating "the black diddle class."

But he does reach down and pick up one of his books to read from…

Sound just washing through the theater; I cannot even begin to keep up, just grab a word, a phrase, and puzzle together what's just broken over me, in front of me. Like watching Shakespeare on stage as a child -- took away something, knew when to laugh and when to wait, anxious, but could never have told anyone a single thing about it. How does a rapid tongue tie mine?

"You premature ejaculate on the first line…"

10:14 pm -- And a wrap on my day two.

I returned to my room profoundly depressed by the evening. Much, I am sure, has to do with my own dislocation. But there was such anger -- justified to be sure, well-structured, wonderfully performed, compelling and even entertaining -- but such pervasive, powerful anger, that I left the theater depressed and... angry myself, with no sense that I had anything I could do with it.

And that has proven most distressing.

poetry africa 2009 and my day one, durban

Made it to Durban this afternoon after a 24 hour journey from Wisconsin to Gauteng and an overnight in Johannesburg. Trip on the whole was smooth, though so ragged -- my sleeping at least -- that I spent my time away from anything that required or would have beggared much thought. So it was movies and television shows on the little screens on the headrest in front of me, dozing on and off, and reading a bit about The Dancing Plague.

But all of that's behind me, and we dive in…

Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre
University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College Campus
Day 3 of Poetry Africa 2009 (Wednesday, October 7)

7:18 pm -- The book launch is swamped by the noise of the spillover area -- including the poets lined up for the reading to come. Shame on you, and a shame -- especially as the discussion picked up at the close: with the (inevitable?) focus on the use of language, translation, and the preservation (and extension) of culture. Granted, these are issues that I am, almost on the face of it, weary of. But here is the stuff in process -- a poet and editor of Zulu poetry (Bongani Mavuso), his own and others, nodding to Masizi Kunene, and with a pile of school children and University students in the audience.

Washed out by chatter. Too bad.

7:37 pm -- And the program starts with an introduction by Ewok. Giving the "formal" introduction and then "they hired a rapper for tonight"… Sprinkling "Hip Hop 101" lessons throughout…

7:44 pm -- Sarah Frost, one of the Durban showcase poets. A traditional (written) poet, like the pages piled up on the table celebrated by Ewok (but so unlike the rousing introduction he offered).

That introduction did her no favors -- only four poems; I was only just easing into her understated, quietly easy, reading. And there it is, the why it did her no favors; and there she goes…

7:49 pm -- Sihle Qwashuqwashu, using rhyme, young man, words piling on top of one another, spilling over and tumbling down. I'm losing some, too many, but still flowing along with him… And the crowd, which is beginning to pipe up; and enough raunch to pull a laugh and a clap mid-poem -- and cheers and hammering applause at the end.

7:55 pm -- Loftus Marais. Another younger man and another reading. Afrikaans (with the English translation flashed up on a screen to the side of the stage).

He did a piece on a tranny and Cape Town that I want to find… best of the bunch, the closing lines especially, packing a marvelously playful punch.

So much more dynamic a reader in his Afrikaans, but so odd to be hearing him, trying to catch the rhythm in the Afrikaans, and instead reading the English. Some of his poems... just don’t seem to end; but they all stop. And I wonder how much this has to do with this rupture.

Closing with reading the first ever poem he's written in English. Astounding for just knocking it off earlier in the evening.

8:12 pm --Odia Ofeimun described by Ewok as "gentleman's poetry" (a wonderful characterization and one that fits, I think, many of Ofeimun's contemporaries). And I feel like I'm back at the Nigeria-heavy readings of the African Literature Association conferences… Lagos, London -- "I let metaphors drop their clothes" -- sparrows, Venice (and an evocation of Sisyphus), and on and on. Worrying over the question of poet as activist.

A brief editorial aside: It seems to me that there's a generational split of sorts, with earlier generations, the elders, discussing whether a poet can, or should, be an activist (though they almost all answer yes in one way or another, they still feel compelled to ask the question, again and again and again); the younger simply "being" relevant, and celebrated for it, in slam and spoken-word, speaking to the blood and shit and sex that makes us howl, be it in delight or protest…

Did Ofeimun just read "The Poet Lied"?!? He did.

8:25 -- A twenty minute intermission and time to absorb what we've heard and "grab a smoke." What an interesting mix. It hasn’t all worked. But no clunkers, either. These are all poets, that’s for damn sure!

8:51 -- Back from the intermission and a few more riffs from Ewok.

8:53 -- Enter Susan Kiguli, a Ugandan poet. Radiant smile and greeting us in Zulu. Opens with "I'm back home" which really pops and crackles (as she does) at times. There’s an amazing change between the speaker and the reading poet, her whole body pitching and rolling with the poem, her voice loud, insistent, almost demanding, strong.

The quieter poems -- including her homage to David Rubadiri and "Amin is dead" -- are no less insistent, but softer.

9:14 -- Jennifer Ferguson thanks and introduces herself as "a musician who uses words"… drawing from the "primordial soundbank" -- she’s doing some amazing things on the mic which seem to be drawing alternately sniggering and amazement from some of the kids in the audience (ending with most hopping up and applauding).

There's a great deal of earnestness in her performance, which almost instinctually causes me to pull back just a bit; but there's a load of joy and almost shocking depth as well.

Of her piece "Lilith": "That’s done with great love for the brothers." Hmmm… But it's hard not to see a bit of South Africa’s current plight in it, and be saddened a little bit more for it.

The song "Dickie Baby" is more than a little wrenching, though she's losing a bit of the audience with it. I need to get ahold of a version of this to post.

Second to last piece is an evocation of Bessie Head.

I really don't know what to make of Ferguson's work as poetry (I'm not nearly smart enough to make any original contribution to that discussion) but there is a fullness to her work, and a maturity and fullness to her presence and her work that will not be swamped, by chatter or emcees or anything else. Amazing that.

And she ends with "Jo'burg" -- a spoken piece with accompaniment. Sound accompaniment. Her accent breaks out strong at points, hitting those most South African of words and scenes. Strong. And an amazing piece. An absolutely amazing piece. What a piece to end on. Just astounding! This is one we need -- this is one I'd love a recording of.

10:21 -- And we’re done. Wow.

Wrapping up -- after the walk back to where I'm staying and… The first of four nights. Not sure what this "tells" me of the South African poetry scene, other than that it’s alive and well (and other similar, meaningless clichés). Not sure it's meant to tell me anything. Or that the four nights are either. I'll sit with this, with all the performances, and see what they work on me. And then, at some core level, I'll know a little more.

And that will be more than enough.

Addendum: I'll try to pull together as many useful links to poems, performances, and general information on all the poets sometime after Poetry Africa wraps up. In the meantime, if you've got suggestions, do please send them on!!

the african poetry review roadshow

Next week I leave the cozy (and rapidly cooling) confines of Madison, Wisconsin, hop on a plane for Detroit, and about a day later touch down in Johannesburg and start a two week visit to South Africa.

Quickly off to Durban for Poetry Africa 2009 (which starts Monday, October 5 -- so I'll catch up to it a few days in, on the evening of the 7th). On the tail end of the trip I'll be headed to Groot Marico for the Bosman Weekend (October 16-18). In between I'll be headed to Grahamstown to pay a visit to some friends at the National English Literary Museum.

I'll be blogging throughout -- and couldn't be more thrilled with the opportunity.

Is there a bookshop, poet, performance, reading, monument, collection, museum, or book launch that I simply must try to find my way to while I'm there? Let me know. I'm more than willing to hustle my way from coast to coast if I must.

Will work (and travel) for poetry...