SA reads discussion

South African poetry is truly unique, particulalry because of our multiple languages.

Why is poetry the 'poor cousin' of the arts? You would think that in today's short-attention-span society, it would be the perfect art form to consume-on-the go. Perhaps it is because enjoying poetry takes more internal effort than reading a novel or looking at a painting?

I love poetry. I probably don't know enough. Planning to use this thread to review SA poets (after June)

I think the problem with modern poetry is that poets do not put enough structure into their poems. They think that imagination and word-play is enough, but it isn't. The real craft of poetry lies in the structure, that gradually unfolds the meaning to the reader. You need to feel that the poet knows what they are doing, and that you are in good hands.

I agree with Vicki. Let's do it. Do we have any poets in the group?

We do- Maja

Aniel Botha- Pirouette

Aniel Botha is a South African author with a B. Ed degree from the University of Stellenbosch, and an MA in creative writing from the University of Cape Town. Her poetry and novel are both written in Afrikaans.
She currently works as a private tutor, and is also a qualified ballet teacher. Pirouette is her first poetry collection. Her book ’n Dans met die dood (A dance with Death) is about her experiences in the eating disorder wing of a psychiatric hospital.
Although Afrikaans is my second language, I enjoy Botha's poetry for its structural simplicity, evocative imagery and emotional complexity. Self Portret (Self Portrait) is my favorite of her poems. It is sadly not translated, so I have attempted to give a line by line translation so that other readers can maybe see what I mean.

Self Portrait

Asimetriese kontoere
sper die gesig af.
n Ongelukstoneel
Wange onherstelbaar
ingeduik, die neus
n skeefgetrekte wrak.
Skerwe glas blink
op die dowwe vel.
Bok ant die ken
n gapende wond
waaruit woorde
onkeerbaar bloei.

My attempt at translation (to give you a feel for this poetry)

Assymmetrical contours
Block off the face.
An accident scene.
Cheeks irreparably
dented, the nose
a distorted wreck.
Glass shards shine
on the dull skin.
Above the chin
a gaping wound
from which words
bleed uncontrollably.

Wow. Powerful stuff! Definitely evocative and intended to cause an emotional reaction from the reader. The last sentence is tragically beautiful.

I wish it was available in English, I really enjoy her work!

Expressions of Humanity- Maja Dezulovic

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I really enjoyed the book, Maja style is simplistic yet conveys so much about the individual and society. Maja is a South African/Croatian writer who spent her childhood in South Africa and her late teenage years in Croatia then travelled around Africa and Europe. The book is written in three languages including Afrikaans and Croatian, with translations into English.
Maja is also a member of our group!
Her first book, the 360 Degree Heart is a poetic anthology which was published in July 2013, I have to track this one down too! Below is one example of Maja's work.

Icon

You are
An idea
Personified

You are
A character
Exemplified

You are
A model
For a nation

You are
A spirit
To prove to us all
That we have
A soul

You are
The words we quote
The history we study
The past we relive
And the theories we implement
In an attempt to alter our future

You were
Just a man
A mere man
Like any other man
But,
Fuelled by vision
Passion
Perseverance
And love

Men die
But the legacy lives on

A luta continua.

Our long walk continues...

Love it. What a lyrical tribute. Thanks to Maja for sharing and to Lisa for posting and for translating Self-Portrait!

Well done to Lisa and Maja. I will post her 'Icon' poem on my blog soon.

Lisa, is this the thread you mentioned in "introductions" ? I'm just learning to navigate the group threads.

Yes.
There's very little on it:-(

I'm new to the SA poetry landscape, although I read - on my own, not required reading - Dennis Brutus's poetry decades ago while I was a university student. It's just the past couple of months that I began to get familiar with SA poetry. Robert Berold's It All Begins: Poems from Postliberation South Africa is a good anthology of post-1994, for instance. And there's a new one coming up edited by Denis Hirson, to be published by Deep South (small publishing house run by Robert Berold). The bookshops rarely carry SA poetry, so I rely on the local libraries to get my hands on some.

Jim Pascual Agustin wrote: "I'm new to the SA poetry landscape, although I read - on my own, not required reading - Dennis Brutus's poetry decades ago while I was a university student. It's just the past couple of months that..."

I get my SA stuff online usually. And at the library, when I'm not on a ban

Vicki, I have one problem with that - I only have a handful of copies left of my most recent poetry book in English, Sound Before Water, and my publisher hasn't snapped up the chance of making a digital version available. I think they need more of a push from readers.
But if you guys want, I can share one of my current manuscripts up for critique just for the group (if there are enough members interested). I haven't submitted it to a publisher, and would really love feedback from readers. Then I would have to ask that whole poems don't get posted during the discussion.
If you want a peek of my writing, I posted some on my blog - http://matangmanok.wordpress.com/2014... password: sound

Interested person here!

Thanks, Lisa and Vicki... although the manuscript is still a draft, I could email it to you now, just send me a message. Maybe you guys can decide if it's worth looking into by the others here. Then we take it from there?

Lol Vicki, I'm waiting to hear what others say. Don't want to detract from your book but want to read poetry (and not study)

Interesting topic. Does anyone read poetry still. I have a part poem for every chapter in my book. When I returned from Peru in 2009 I just started writing the stuff. No training. It just came from somewhere. I since discovered Rumi.
I was asked to publish it but I am very unsure about people's responses. My poetry is very personal.

Adèle wrote: "Interesting topic. Does anyone read poetry still. I have a part poem for every chapter in my book. When I returned from Peru in 2009 I just started writing the stuff. No training. It just came from..."

I'm really not an appreciator of poetry, but last night I put a copy of Robert Frost, Selected Poems on my reading table. The poetry of Shelley, Keats, Yeats, and the like, is lost on me.

Love poetry
Buck, Frost is incredible! Yeats too.
But Cummings in my favorite

I read more poetry than prose. Buck, I don't blame you. Frost is a good way to get into poetry, though.

I always get the idea that nobody likes poetry because most poetry is self indulgent waffle. "Poets" as they like to call themselves just want to tell the world about themselves, and mostly they want the world to feel sorry for them.
If more poets would write stories, (Think EA Poe), a lot more people would read poetry.
I'm also a poet, and of my five novels, my collection of poems, itself a novel, was the worst received by my audience.

Leon wrote: "I always get the idea that nobody likes poetry because most poetry is self indulgent waffle. "Poets" as they like to call themselves just want to tell the world about themselves, and mostly they wa..."

Leon, there's a whole world of poetry out there that is not self-indulgent waffle. It's partly what we are exposed to and partly what we choose/prefer. And judging by the vast number of poetry available online and the continued existence of various print journals that publish poetry, there must be an existing and some may claim even growing readership. The argument against poetry goes on, yet people keep writing - whether it is good or bad poetry is another matter. To say that more people would read poetry if poets wrote stories is an odd notion. Stories themselves were originally once told in some poetic form or other to aid memory as they get passed down the generations.
I have not read your work and thus cannot claim to know why your audience gave that reception to your poetry. But it is true, except in Poland perhaps, that novels outsell poetry.

John wrote: "Why is poetry the 'poor cousin' of the arts? You would think that in today's short-attention-span society, it would be the perfect art form to consume-on-the go. Perhaps it is because enjoying poet..."

I've always seen poetry to be what "abstract art" is to visual art – free form and oftentimes always open to subjective interpretation. Because poems come with fewer words, they do require more work to "interpret" / understand in my opinion and the genre is often overlooked because of this.