The Iowa Review
Volume 7
Issue 2 Spring-Summer: Special Double Issue:
International Writing Program Anthology
1976
Black Poetry in South Africa: Its Origin and
Dimension
Oswald Mtshali
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Mtshali, Oswald. "Black Poetry in South Africa: Its Origin and Dimension." The Iowa Review 7.2 (1976): 199-205. Web.
Available at: http://ir.uiowa.edu/iowareview/vol7/iss2/94
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Article 94
OSWALD
MTSHALI
/
SOUTH
AFRICA
Black Poetry in South Africa:
ItsOrigin and Dimension
Is there anything Uke black poetry in South Africa, as divorced
from Jew
and
Are
ethnic
ish poetry, Afrikaans
there
poetry,
poetry
EngUsh poetry?
in our society? My answer to that is a big "yes."
differences
answer because
a black man's
I give an affirmative
life in South Africa
series of poems of humor, bitterness,
is an endless
hatred,
love, hope, de
is a poetic existence
His
harsh
and
death.
the
reaUties and
shaped by
spair,
that surround him.
in survival not
sense but
is a chaUenge
in the
Every day
only
physical
is
and
also spiritually, mentally,
otherwise.
It
hard for people who Uve in
a black man's
"free societies" to comprehend
life in this strange society. If
and my culture it is hard to understand
you do not share my environment
what I am talking about.
I can
and inspires black poetry
only explain this Ufe that generates
by
a
an
of
black
child's
life from birth to death. Per
making
example
typical
haps this illustration will clarify what I mean.
euphoric
fantasies
was born at
in
His
Baragwanath
Hospital
Jabulani Moya
Johannesburg.
a
four-room house. Jabu
parents live at Zola Township, where
they occupy
from the hospital which
lani has to get a birth certificate
is issued
through
This certificate must be presented
the Bantu Commissioner.
to the town
to
who
then authorizes
Jabulani
ship superintendent
legally join his par
ents when his name is put on the house permit. If the parents fail to follow
it does not augur well for
this onerous procedure,
into
Jabulani's entrance
this world.
in an ethnic school for
When
Jabulani reaches school age, he registers
Zulus because
that is what his parents are. His schoolmates
and playmates
are
to
Zulus.
will
in
be
be
Zulu
Jabulani
supposed
taught
by Zulu teachers
until standard 3. If he does not drop out before then, he can continue his
in EngUsh and Afrikaans.
education
After going through high school, he wiU enroll in a Zulu
university, where
he will come into more direct contact for the first time with white
people.
Like
mous
the township
the university
enor
authorities
wield
superintendent,
power over the life of Jabulani. And when he graduates he will take a
as a black man. He comes into
is tailored only for his qualifications
job that
more contact with a white man, who is his
employer.
199
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he has saved enough money
he will marry a Zulu girl, who also
When
or
must have been born in Johannesburg.
If he fancies a
girl from Springs
a
must
not
in
Pretoria he
be allotted
house
forget her, because
they will
is
to
must
Soweto
and he
in Johan
restricted
Soweto. His life
only work
in
if he is offered a more
remunerative
Even
Bloemfon
say
job,
nesburg.
he dies he will be buried at Doornkop
Ceme
tein, he cannot take it.When
are buried.
Soweto
residents
other
where
tery,
In this brief outUne I have sketched the Ufe of Jabulani Moya,
but if we
a pen and paper and asked him to write about himself
him
and his
gave
we
Black
would
what
experience.
get?
experiences,
If an artist is shaped by his
I am
be no exception.
would
What
Jabulani would produce
Black art, of course, has its
using
would
and
the word
be black
different
is a
If Jabulani Moya
around him.
the people
and uterature.
life and
environment
society, then Jabulani Moya
sense.
"artist" in its broadest
art.
fields
Uke visual arts, drama, music,
his poetry will
then
poet,
depict his
It will describe
stokvels,
shebeens, poUce
vans,
trains, murders,
churches,
rapes, robberies,
night
prisons,
hospitals,
life.
short, all aspects of a black man's
vigils, and funerals?in
If a black artist uses his paint and brush or pen and paper to depict these
is given the name of "township
art" by the
scenarios of his Ufe, his work
cannot
into
merits
the
and demerits of that tag which has
white critics. I
go
to our works, except to say that to me it smacks of patroniz
attached
contempt.
ing, if not downright
to what
I beheve
is black
It is for that reason that I will restrict myself
or
to
said
wants
it
As
I
be
if
call
that.
have
anyone
township poetry
poetry
the black man's
life as it is shaped by the laws
fore, black poetry depicts
of these laws, but he must
that govern him. He has no hand in the making
abide by them. Black poetry is the mirror that reflects black man's aspira
his joys and sorrows, his loves and
tions, his hopes and disappointments,
been
hates.
A poet, or for that matter
any artist, cannot contrive his subject matter
or themes. He must know what he is writing
about. If he does not, he will
and downright
come up with something unnatural,
unreaUstic,
phony. Only
an Afrikaaner
can write about bar mitzvah.
a
poet can de
Only
Jewish poet
scribe Nagmaal.
I, as a black man, can tell you how I slaughter a black goat for my an
to me as the
of the
cestors. The rest is as remote and foreign
changing
at Buckingham
Palace.
Guards
Queen's
can convey the
meaning
Poetry is the language of emotions. Only words
emotions are said to be situated. These
of this language to the heart, where
are
in human beings, with
the result that creatures
emotions
only existent
are said to be devoid of love, hate, fear,
other than Homo
sapiens
despair,
he has emotions,
and hope. Consequently,
should, because
every person
200
understand
or
a
and appreciate
poetry;
otherwise
he is no different
from a brute
stone.
all over the world, we black people
of South Africa have
people
emotions. We
love, we hate, we fear, we despair, we aspire. I do not exag
gerate if I say to a certain extent we do these things to a higher degree than
cen
other people. For instance, we have hope in our hearts which
through
turies has come to cease to be a virtue and has turned into a vice, the reason
we
seem to have been
being
against hope. Whether
simply that
hoping
on our other emotions
this has had a
is very
effect
and
stultifying
feelings
to say.
difficult
Like
as
the past few years to be exact, our feelings
times, within
black people have become more and more vocal. For too long we have been
our unfounded
muffled
fears which we cannot contain any more. Of
by
course there have been real fears of
and im
being
lynched, murdered,
we dared to raise our voices to what we knew for a
if
prisoned
long time
to be wrong and
to
Our
fears
be
have
been
expected
righted.
compounded
of missionaries
about heaven and hell. Acceptance
of the
by the teachings
on
our
be
with
lives
would
rewarded
bliss,
injustices perpetrated
heavenly
so we were
and the opposition
of this oppression would
lead to perdition;
course now we have seen
taught to believe. Of
through this smokescreen
and we know the truth.
In recent
on the
I elaborate
in
Before
among the black people
poetry movement
South Africa, I want to describe and
in
the
racial
my country,
setup
analyze
a clear
is South Africa. I want to do this so that, I
which
hope, you will get
er
men.
and
of
that
of
black
fellow
my position
my
picture
At the last census taken in 1971 there were about 21 million
living
people
in South Africa:
about sixteen million Africans
like me, then three million
a milUon
and a half coloreds or mulattoes,
and less than a million
whites,
of
in
descent.
We
Africans
Indian
since
have Uved
southern Africa
people
time
to our
that is, according
black historical
immemorial,
indisputable
that we came to South Africa
facts; the alternative
explanation,
namely
as
same
at
from the Equator
time
Mr. Jan van Riebeeck
the
the Honorable
in 1652, is
else
but
fiction.
nothing
I have been fortunate
a friend of the fam
enough to have been taken, by
on a tour to a row of caves in the Lebombo Mountains
before
she
died,
ily
in the northern part of Zululand. That
was an old woman
of about
guide
or
more
was
us
ten
and
I
about
old
then.
She
told
years
ninety
(my oldest
brother was there too) that the caves were there when
she grew up. They
were used as
that were
hiding places during the wars and endless battles
Zulus and Swazis, and also during the wars that followed
fought between
later between whites
and Zulus. Some of the dwellers
in those caves were
ancestors
who fled Shaka's wrath and vengeance
after he and his army
my
invaded Ntabankulu
the
ancestral
home of the Mtshali
Mountain),
(Big
201
clan. Later
on some of my
forebears
settled
in Northern
Zululand
and Swa
ziland.
was told this exciting bit of my
history.
quite young when I
as if the old crone had related it to me last
it as
vividly
seeing the timeless relics of my past, like clay pots, crude
night. I remember
a
iron was smelted to forge assegais
iron tools and
kiln where
(imikhonto),
battle axes (izizenze),
hatchets
and of course hoes (amageja)
(ocelemba),
have
and excavators
for tilUng the soil. As could be expected,
archeologists
some of these caves which
row from
stand in a somewhat
discovered
long
I was
Though
I still remember
to the Lebombo
Moun
and Magudu
the village of Ngotshe
(Louwsburg)
tain side of Swaziland.
in South Africa.
I have
I have digressed
from the topic of black poetry
an
to
culture
the
which
will
with
my
you
given you
background
provide
in
Africa
before
into
existence
and
southern
timeless
civiUzation
my
insight
the advent
of the so-called
refined
and much-vaunted
western
civilization.
to pro
I
wish
established
doubt,
any
beyond
having
we had and in some parts of the country still have the
the
fact
that
pound
remnants of a beautiful
I see it
culture, which makes my heart bleed when
man has
contact
since
black
and
the
first
the
raped, prostituted,
destroyed
I go I try to collect
had with the followers of Jan van Riebeeck. Wherever
it in my poetry.
the debris of my shattered
culture and try to immortaUze
to me in
than before
let the muse dictate
That is why
I have now more
state
in
and
I
write
for my present
of reaUty or un
Zulu.
English
English
Our
existence
been
in Zulu to establish my identity which will be translated
reality and I write
its right and re
by posterity. Only then will my past heritage be accorded
me
most
that will be absolute and the
highly cherished
spectful position. For
freedom
anyone
can
endow
me
with.
man
in the southern part
greatest tragedy that ever befell the black
of Africa is not that he did not invent the wheel, but that he could not write.
to you today poetry
if he could, I would
be reading
that was
Otherwise,
a
of
I
written
the
birth
Christ.
call
this
before
Jesus
long
tragedy because
to the gross misrep
this inability to record our civilization
has contributed
is concerned;
resentation
of our culture as far as the written word
but the
is
is
for
which
the
black
the
factor,
preserva
eternally grateful,
redeeming
caves in some parts
tion of the paintings
of the Abathwa
people in mountain
of southern Africa. We are also grateful to the black sculptors who recorded
our culture
are found all over the continent
of
through their works which
our
most
and preservers
of
civiliza
Africa. But the
important contributors
are in
in
tion are the musicians
instruments
whose musical
great evidence
The
to mouth
and
many parts of Africa. The songs, though passed from mouth
not scored, are as fresh as ever. I am thinking of the war songs and the
war cries of my
the Zulus. My grandmother
used to sing them to me
people,
202
as her
used to sing them to her. Hence
from what
freshly
grandmother
me
she told
I could learn what an artist like a poet could and should do
as
for society.
The role that can be played by a singer or a poet is a great one indeed.
is a
To us, black people
of South Africa, Miriam Makeba
of our
goddess
to be free because
our
has
she
articulated
and
immortal
struggle
feelings
ized our wretched
that every black man wants
free
lives, thus proclaiming
dom in the land of his birth. This is an
I
have
taken
upon myself
obligation
to carry out, in my own modest way
through my poetry, for the Uberation
of my people.
I have purposely
not dwelt on the
side of my country because
political
this is too weU known for me to mention.
I have only mentioned
the results
of the contact with the white man since 1652 which, with dire consequences,
has denuded
the black man of his dignity because
of the destruction
of his
am
and culture. As I have said,
civilization
I
trying to
through my poetry
is
not
the
scattered
of
and
this
my culture,
my goal only; it is
gather
pieces
also that of the crop of other poets who have sprung up like mushrooms
in
the stormy life of the black man. It is dictated
by the po?tical
ideology pur
sued by the government
of South Africa. This political
is known
to
policy
the outside world under the insidious name of apartheid.
In South Africa
it is
called Separate and Equal
respectfully
Development.
One may ask then what has poetry
to do
man
black
from
the
the
white, and
separates
a white
answer
The
electorate.
majority
by
art form describes
and depicts the life of the
this poUtical
with
setup that
on a voteless black
is
imposed
is that black poetry Uke every
in this society.
people
themselves
victims
helpless
black
It
the lives of the people who
find
in
portrays
not of their own
vicious circumstances
The
black
who
have
poets
making.
are the oases in the bleak desert of the
nowhere
sprung from seemingly
as he
black man's
of Uberation
life, from which he will drink the waters
to
his
the
of
freedom.
The
way
green
forges
pastures
complete
poetry of
twenty years ago is far less strident in its feeling than that of the present.
The reason is that the political
events in the African
continent have given
the situation in South Africa a sense of urgency. This momentum
is rising
to a feverish
from
both
the
man's
white
and
side
black
man's
the
sides,
pitch
our
side. In this dramatic
of
to
I
find
that
stage
development
keep pace
with the latest events one needs a very
ago, I
objective mind. A few weeks
attended a memorial
service in Soweto for Mr. Abram
Tiro, a
Ongkopoetse
a
was
black
who
leader
in
killed
twenty-seven-year-old
by
parcel bomb
was
in
where
he
exile
from
A
South Africa.
Botswana,
very large
living
crowd of black people,
this church service. And
young and old, attended
one of the most remarkable
sights to observe was the lack of emotionalism
are very common in our funerals. Instead there was a
and hysterics, which
203
calm and a grim determination
to continue where Mr. Tiro had left off. In
if ever there were
those were
the
people who knew their destiny,
deed,
people.
Another
factor to the urgency
and potency
of the
contributory
is
movement
in
increase
number
the
the
and
the
harshness
poetry
laws that govern the black man. This has been
brought about by the
tus of the
strikes by the Zulu workers
around Durban
ever-increasing
are
our
the events which
the
of
borders
country.
happening
beyond
one can see that the poems of Bloke Modisane
and Can Themba
were more subtle and humorous
than those of the current
early fifties
black
of the
impe
and
Thus
in the
poets
like Mongane
Serote and James Matthews,
is the reflection
whose
poetry
of ever-growing
and fast proUferating
black conscious
black awareness,
its
and
end
black
This
has been
of
self-assertion
ness,
result,
power.
spirit
even
our
to appear sinister
made
the
white
so-called
press,
by
purposely
by
are horrified
liberal press, because
the white people
that the black men,
that is the African,
the colored, and the Indian, are coming together to form
a
and demand
freedom
from white
single united block that will confront
The classic example of what I mean
is the banning of Cry Rage,
domination.
a book of poems written
two
and Gladys
Thomas,
by James Matthews
this book was ban
beautiful black people I love. There was no outcry when
there were
ned, there were no petitions
signed by the white
intelUgentsia,
no vociferous
no
was es
and
the
liberal
fund
press,
shoutings by
Uly-white
to
court.
to
matter
writers
take
tablished
the
the
The book
help
proscribed
But
was, I suppose,
justifiably banned for being black power propaganda.
a few weeks
the first time in
ago an Afrikaaner writer had his work banned,
and the
the history of white Uterature that a thing Uke this ever happened,
I will not be sur
noise that has followed
has deafened
the whole world.
ears as weU. I, as a black man, am not sur
prised if it has reached your
that every black man has come to expect from the
prised by the dupUcity
It is these double
standards practiced
that the black
whites.
by the whites
as
are
and
and retard
poets
questioning,
rejecting
pernicious
condemning,
to
man's
the
black
ing
struggle.
in South
there is this upsurge
of black poetry
an
answer
at
talk.
the
And I
of
of
the
part
beginning
in
man's
the emotional
have explained
the
black
strings played by poetry
heart. Other forms of writing will foUow just as night follows day. In fact
are
are a
two
to this direction. These
else but
nothing
pointer
plays
plays
a black
a mirror of a black man's life in the
present situation. They tell how
man finds himself
in the cobweb
of the multifarious
laws that
caught up
restrict
laws
the much-detested
that
black
govern him, especially
every
pass
You may wonder
I have given
why
Africa.
man.
In the near
Africa
because
future
out of South
foresee any noveUst coming
of the situation does not allow time to sit down
I do not
the urgency
204
as demanded
a novel. Another
and pen a lengthy piece of writing,
fac
by
a
tor against
novel is that poetry, music,
and drama can be shared with
many other people at the same time. But a novel can only be read alone. I
instinct to share the bitter and the
suppose it's the black man's gregarious
as
one
once
or
sorrow shared is a sorrow lessened,
"A
black
sweet,
said,
sage
a hundredfold."
and a joy shared is a
joy increased
in South Africa write
in English
if they are
Now why do black poets
out
I
I
in
write
will quickly point
that
EngUsh and
proud of their culture?
I have given
Zulu, as I have said before. But the answer to this question
it by saying that the EngUsh that we use in our
already. I will only amplify
as written
is
not
the
poetry
Queen's
language that you know
by, say, Words
It is the language of urgency which we use because
worth and Coleridge.
we have an
to deliver to any one who cares to Usten to it.
urgent message
this urgent message
not got the time to embellish
with unneces
ornaments
Uke
iambic
and
cumbersome
abstract
sary
pentameter,
rhyme,
an
ornate
and lofty style. We will
figures of speech, and
indulge in these
luxuries which we can ill afford at the moment when we are free people.
we write about bees, birds, and flowers. Not the harsh reali
Only then shall
ties that are part and parcel of black man's Ufe.
We
PAI
have
HSIEN-YUNG
/
TAIWAN
The Wandering Chinese:
The Theme of Exile inTaiwan Fiction
severe social and
Traditionally
during Chinese history, when
political dis
to maintain
locations occurred, those intellectuals who wished
their integrity
often chose to retreat from society either as a gesture of protest or simply
reason of survival. These exiles
for the practical
in na
sought consolation
ture and
in
their
art
while
and
Ut
expression
finding
philosophy,
personal
erature. Their artistic creations, whose merits were
at
the
rarely recognized
testaments
nevertheless
become
for posterity.
time, would
important
on the mainland
in 1949, China once
the defeat of the Nationalists
With
a
of social and political upheaval whose magnitude
witnessed
again
period
is still too awesome
for us to fathom. This cultural
could not
cataclysm
fail
to impinge
upon
the
imagination
205
of
those writers
whose
works
bear