Poetry
Jol'iinkomo
Mafika Gwala · 1977
Synopsis
The title, “bringing the cattle back to the kraal”, comes from a song that Miriam Makeba had popularised; in the opening poem, the poet says he wants to bring his verses back to the kraal of the Black experience. The English of these poems carries, according to Ari Sitas, the rhythms and vocabulary of Zulu, and their cadence, under an often cynical gaze, borrows from jazz. The pieces belong to the Black Consciousness movement and assert a Black identity.
Context
The collection appeared in 1977 from Ad Donker, the very year the magazine Staffrider was launched, and was banned within the year, according to South African History Online. A second collection, No More Lullabies, followed in 1982. James Matthews noted the musicality of his verse, and Gwala himself said of English that it “breathes colonialism, but lives in an honest way”; he also translated his own poems from one language to the other.
Who it is for
Poems in English, where Zulu words and rhythms appear, made to be spoken aloud; not translated into French.
Prizes and reception
First collection by one of the Black poetic voices of the 1970s, honoured in 2007 with a prize for his body of work.
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