Publisher: Deep South, South Africa
joy has no generation gaps
nor silences in between
like broken denture. No owls’
bleak eyes blinking
when the question in the air
stings in the eye
a grip, the clasp of hands
is so strong
we’re stitching the lesion to the rock
no empty klevaz
no one had become
hidden schisms, victims or slow songs
simpering like a basket
under a leaking tap
“I have tried to be fully aware of the legacy that we carry of poetry on the page, by being aware of style and form all the time, especially when trying to make language do new things. In what I call psycho-narration, I try to write beyond the understanding that the ‘inside of one’s head’ and ‘the objective world’ are really distinct worlds. This is a form I have grown to love more since I started preferring the long poem format that sits on a conversational tone. It’s a multi-vocal way of writing or telling stories in a less authoritative way, a kinda voice democracy in the poem. If we let go beyond rational thought – or even the idea that rational thought is a reflection of reality – then anything can happen.”
£15.00
About the author
Khulile Nxumalo is a poet and film-maker who lives in Diepkloof, Soweto. He studied at
Waterford Kamhlaba College in eSwatini, and at UCT, UKZN, and Wits universities. His
documentary films include The House of Credo Mutwa. As a broadcast content professional he
was involved in the making of Khumbul’Ekhaya as well as other series for the SABC. He is now
based at the Credo Mutwa Foundation and is working on a full-length biographical film about
Mutwa. Nxumalo’s poetry makes use of a variety of forms, multiple voices, and variations of English and
African languages. His poems have appeared in journals in South Africa, the UK, USA and
Canada.