The Reactive

The Reactive
Author: Masande Ntshanga
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2014-10-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1415206120

In a city that has lost its shimmer, Lindanathi and his two friends Ruan and Cecelia sell illegal pharmaceuticals while chasing their next high. Lindanathi, deeply troubled by his hand in his brother’s death, has turned his back on his family, until a message from home reminds him of a promise he made years before. When a puzzling masked man enters their lives, Lindanathi is faced with a decision: continue his life in Cape Town, or return to his family and to all he has left behind. Rendered in lyrical, bright prose and set in a not-so-new South Africa, The Reactive is a poignant, life-affirming story about secrets, memory, chemical abuse and family, and the redemption that comes from facing what haunts us most.

I Am An African

I Am An African
Author: Wayne Visser
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 095708174X

This creative collection brings together Africa poems by South African poet and writer, Wayne Visser, including the ever popular "I Am An African", as well as old favourites like "Women of Africa", "I Know A Place in Africa", "Prayer for Africa" and "African Dream". The anthology celebrates the luminous continent and its rainbow people. The updated 5th Edition includes new poems like "Africa Untamed" and "Land of the Sun".

Home is Where the Mic Is

Home is Where the Mic Is
Author: Poefficient Vundla
Publisher: African Books Collective
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2017-12-29
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1990922058

This anthology presents the work of twenty-four young Spoken Word poets from South Africa, with a sprinkling of guests from the United States, Britain and Australia. The experience of black youth in societies polarized by racism, inequality and gender violence whilst, at the same time, struggling to come to terms with love, sex and all the other basic needs of young people makes for fascinating reading. The inventive graphic layout is a fine addition to a stand out volume. Home is Where the Mic Is was conceived as a collaboration with Word n Sound, a popular Johannesburg Spoken Word platform. The intention was to give hitherto only stage poets an opportunity to test their work on the page and confound the Eurocentric critics of the new wave of performance poetry who decry its energy and breaking down of artificial definitions of poetry. This is South African poetry standing on it's own two feet!

Poetry and the Aesthetics of Commitment in South African Literature

Poetry and the Aesthetics of Commitment in South African Literature
Author: David Olusegun Agbaje, Ph.D
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2024-03-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1398428728

What is literature? What is poetry? How do poets committed to the idea of using poetry as a weapon of socio-cultural and political struggle manage to impress their works in the minds and memories of men long after the struggle has been fought and won or lost? What will a new generation of poets write about after the explosive social contradictions that inspired older poets have been resolved? Why do the themes and styles of poets in transitional societies change along with human fortunes and circumstances? This book provides answers to these questions and more... using the poetic heritage of South Africa. It is a compelling pedagogic work, a must-read for every student, researcher and teacher of African poetry, and a collector’s item for the general public.

Alt 42: Oral and Written African Poetry and Poetics

Alt 42: Oral and Written African Poetry and Poetics
Author: Author Ernest N Emenyonu
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2024-11-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1847013910

Examines the state of African poetry today, the continuing influence of Africa's pioneer poets, today's new generation of poets, and their work in written poetry and in the spoken word, continuing oral indigenous traditions. Almost half a century after ALT 6 and thirty-three years after ALT 16, what is the state of poetry and poetics in Africa? This volume of ALT highlights major developments and continuities in the practice of the art of poetry in the continent. Contributions analyse new frontiers in the traditional African epic and the Yoruba oríkì genre and innovations in form and theme, such as 'spoken word poetry' shared on digital media and pandemic poetry in the wake of COVID-19. They compare and contrast the work of Romeo Oriogun, Christopher Okigbo, and Gabriel Okara and of T.S. Eliot and Kofi Anyidoho. Other essays examine the complexities of translation from Ewe into English and the development of oral African poetry, underscoring its dynamism and the centrality of performance. The volume also includes interviews with poets Kofi Anyidoho, Kwame Dawes, and Kehinde Akano and tributes to Ama Ata Aidoo. Altogether, it highlights the richness and vibrancy of contemporary praxis and points to future directions in the field.

Wishing Leaves

Wishing Leaves
Author: Wayne Visser
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 124
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0957081758

This unique collection brings together nature poems by poet and writer, Wayne Visser, celebrating the diversity, beauty and ever-changing moods of our planet. The anthology includes many old favourites like "I Think I Was a Tree Once" and "A Bug's Life", as well as brand new poems like "Monet's Dream" and "The Environmentalist". Then as we turned our faces to the moon Our hands entwined, our hearts in sync, in tune We felt the fingers of the silken breeze And made our wishes on the falling leaves

Liquid Bones

Liquid Bones
Author: Godsell, Sarah
Publisher: Impepho Press
Total Pages: 96
Release: 2018-12-14
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0639946526

Liquid Bones takes poems as needle and thread, weaving in small and big breaths, in magic and in memory, tracing in stitches, stitching inside stories, exploring the sky. Emotions are explored in soft black and white tones sometimes, in defiant blooming in other moments.

Yesterdays and Imagining Realities

Yesterdays and Imagining Realities
Author: impepho press
Publisher: Impepho Press
Total Pages: 106
Release: 2020-12-17
Genre:
ISBN: 9781990998782

This anthology resonates with Africa 2020, a pan-African cultural season taking place in France from December 2020 to June 2021, and an invitation to see the world from an African perspective. The voices included in Yesterdays and Imagining Realities: An Anthology of South African Poetry have been selected following an invitation for young poets to submit work in any of South Africa's official languages, as part of our support to plurilingualism. Almost 400 poems have been shared with us, all carefully read by our experienced judges.

And Still I Rise

And Still I Rise
Author: Maya Angelou
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 65
Release: 2011-08-17
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 030780206X

Maya Angelou’s unforgettable collection of poetry lends its name to the documentary film about her life, And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters. Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms, The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. Thus begins “Phenomenal Woman,” just one of the beloved poems collected here in Maya Angelou’s third book of verse. These poems are powerful, distinctive, and fresh—and, as always, full of the lifting rhythms of love and remembering. And Still I Rise is written from the heart, a celebration of life as only Maya Angelou has discovered it. “It is true poetry she is writing,” M.F.K. Fisher has observed, “not just rhythm, the beat, rhymes. I find it very moving and at times beautiful. It has an innate purity about it, unquenchable dignity. . . . It is astounding, flabbergasting, to recognize it, in all the words I read every day and night . . . it gives me heart, to hear so clearly the caged bird singing and to understand her notes.”