The Old New Black Poetry: 50 Years On

Abstract

I suggest that the New Black Poetry of the Seventies in South Africa or, as it is also known, Soweto Poetry retains significance 50 years after it initially began to appear in print and on the platform. To grant substance to my claim, I return the poetry to the purpose of its time (in political crisis), then reflect on its contribution to post-apartheid times.

Keywords:

• New Black Poetry of the Seventies
• Soweto Poetry
• South Africa
• past significance
• present meaning

Notes on Contributor

Michael Chapman is a professor at the Durban University of Technology. He is also professor emeritus and fellow of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His numerous publications include Southern African Literatures, Art Talk, Politics Talk and, in press, Green in Black-and-White Times: Conversations with Douglas Livingstone (www.michaelchapman.co.za).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

*. Key individual volumes of the New Black Poetry, or Soweto Poetry: Mafika P Gwala, Jol'inkomo (Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1977); Mafika Gwala, No More Lullabies (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1982); Ingoapele Madingoane, Africa My Beginning (incl. “black trial”) (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1979); James Matthews and Gladys Thomas, Cry Rage! (Johannesburg: Spro-Cas/Ravan, 1972); Oswald Joseph Mtshali, Sounds of a Cowhide Drum (Johannesburg: Renoster, 1971; London: OUP, 1971; New York: Okpaku Communications, 1972; Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1982); Mbuyiseni Oswald Mtshali, Fireflames (Pietermaritzburg: Shooter & Shuter, 1980); Sipho Sydney Sepamla, Hurry Up to It! (Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1975); Sipho Sepamla, The Blues Is You in Me (Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1976); Sepamla, The Soweto I Love (London: Collings, 1977); Mongane Wally Serote, Yakhal’inkomo (Johannesburg: Renoster, 1972); Serote, Tsetlo (Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1974); Serote, No Baby Must Weep (Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1975); Serote, Behold Mama, Flowers (Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1978); Serote, Selected Poems (Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1982).

Key anthologies: Michael Chapman and Achmat Dangor (eds), Voices from Within: Black Poetry from Southern Africa (Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1982); Tim Couzens and Essop Patel (eds), The Return of the Amasi Bird: Black South African Poetry, 1981–1982 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1982); Barry Feinberg (ed.), Poets of the People: South African Freedom Poems (London: Allen and Unwin, 1974; enlarged, London: Heinemann Educational, 1980); James Matthews and Gladys Thomas (eds), Black Voices Shout! An Anthology of Poetry (Athlone: Blac, 1973); Sisa Ndaba (ed.), One Day in June: Poems and Prose from Troubled Times (Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1986); Robert Royston (ed.), To Whom It May Concern: An Anthology of Black South African Poetry (Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1973); also published as Black Poets in South Africa (London: Heinemann Educational, 1974).

Key critical works: Jacques Alvarez-Pereyre, The Poetry of Commitment in South Africa, trans. Clive Wake (London: Heinemann, 1984); from the French, Les Guettreurs de L’Aube: Poésie et Apartheid (Grenoble: Universitaires de Grenoble, 1979); Michael Chapman (ed.), Soweto Poetry (Johannesburg: McGraw-Hill, 1982; Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2007); Chapman, “Soweto Poetry”, South African English Poetry: A Modern Perspective (Johannesburg: Ad Donker, 1984:181–242); Nadine Gordimer, The Black Interpreters: Notes on African Writing (Johannesburg: Spro-Cas/Ravan, 1973).

1. The relatively few African-language poems that are usually anthologised as ‘modern’ include JR. Jolobe’s “Ukwenziwa komkhonzi” [trans. isiXhosa, “The Making of a Servant”], Umyezo (1936); SEK Mqhayi’s “Itshawe lase Britani” [1925; trans. isiXhosa, “The Prince of Britain”], Imzuzo (1943); and BW Vilakazi’s “Ezinkomponi” [trans. isiZulu, “The Gold-mines”], Amal’ezulu (1945). (See the translated texts in Chapman and Dangor (eds): 34, 39, 44, respectively (1982).

2. If not in the language of his poetry, then in his critical writing Dhlomo formulated and expressed an ‘aesthetic’ which, in its ‘modern’ reference, anticipated the New Black Poetry of the Seventies (“Tradition lives!”). For an extract from Dhlomo’s “Zulu Folk Poetry” (1948), see Chapman (ed.), Soweto Poetry, 2007 [1982]: 30–5, and for a discussion of Dhlomo in relation to the New Black Poetry, see Chapman (1984), 207–11.

3. See Motjuwadi (1982 [1973]).

4. On the public platform ANC politicians usually repeat the words of former president, Thabo Mbeki, that that there is a rich white (minority) economy and a poor black (majority) economy. Without refuting the accuracy of the overall observation that South Africa is a grossly unequal society, analysis presents a more complicated picture, in which the state controls a 35% share of the economy, together with the 10% of the informal sector, while foreign investors own around 39% of the stock market (or, around 49% of the top 40 companies).This notwithstanding, more than two decades after the official ending of apartheid, South Africa has a 40% unemployment rate while the monthly income of more than half of all South Africans falls below the upper-bound poverty line, the vast majority of whom are black Africans.