Poetry in South Africa has taken yet another step towards the mainstream. Two new projects are giving fresh impetus to the spoken word, allowing a wider cross-section of South Africans access to this burgeoning art form.
SABC2’s Lentswe Poetry Project is the brainchild of performer Masoja Msiza. The project was started as a personal initiative — as an up-and-coming poet, Msiza lacked a platform for his talent.
Msiza describes how, after initially writing poetry to explain disease and disability, he started dedicating his poems to special occasions such as Valentine’s Day and Heritage Day. ‘I feel that, in order for us to be successful as a nation, we need to know who we are as a people. We must learn about our heroes. We must learn about our history.” He feels poetry is especially suitable for this purpose as it is easily accessible and ‘the only form of art that is so easy, because you can do it as an individual.”
Msiza’s work slowly developed into an educational programme for the young at the Windybrow Centre for the Arts, bringing some order and creativity to the youngsters who live in Hillbrow. Then, last year, SABC2 picked up on Msiza’s project and contacted a number of established and aspirant poets, requesting them to deliver a personal interpretation of certain national holidays.
The poems were put to visuals by production company Eject, and broadcast on the days leading up to the relevant holidays. Visuals accompanying the poetry have an African flavour, using traditional motifs to comment on today’s urban culture.
Marketing manager of SABC2, Mathe Mosito, says the series integrates the values expounded by the channel. ‘Ours is the channel of the South African family,” says Mosito. ‘The visuals had to be a representation of the African continent. They had to be a representation of the place where we all come from.”
Given the positive critical feedback, the broadcaster has now extended the Lentswe Poetry Project and is ‘democratising” the selection process. For the 2006 series, South Africans are being given the opportunity to write about the national holidays. The channel has set up a competition inviting the nation to express their emotions about these holidays, in any official language.
The competition is being promoted through radio and television — the first deadline relates to the rather commercialised Valentine’s Day on February 14.
Out of the entries for each national holiday, 10 poems will be selected for recital by the poets at dedicated gigs at the Bassline in Newtown, under the name Lentswe Poetry Café. From these 10 poems, one will be conceptualised graphically and then broadcast. The poem will be aired for seven days leading up to the national holiday. This year, the visuals will be produced by new directors. In an effort to offer opportunity to emerging talent, SABC2 will partner experienced graphic artists with up-and-coming directors.
The most established name in the Lentswe Poetry Project has been Antjie Krog, who wrote a humble tribute in Afrikaans to coincide with Mother’s Day last year. Even with her international status, Krog maintains her position as a champion of new ideas and talents.
Curator of the upcoming Spier Open Air Poetry Festival in Stellenbosch, Krog intends that audiences experience meaningful poetry performed by local and international poets. Headliners at the two-day festival, on February 3 and 4, include top celebrity poet Lebohang Mashile, Teba, Belgium’s Tom Lanoye, Chirikure Chirikure and Chiwoniso Masaire from Zimbabwe, Toast Coetzer and novelist-poet Finuala Dowling. Musicians Rus Nerwich, Godessa, Koos Kombuis and Rocco de Villiers bring added value to the programme.
Krog’s plan for the festival includes two simultaneous programmes on separate stages. ‘One will be taking place in the Spier amphitheatre, the other on a close-by wooden deck built near the stream. The two venues will be linked by a space for drinks, book stalls and jazz,” says Krog. Audiences will be able to assemble their own programme, switching from one setting to the other. According to Krog, ‘this will enable people to visit on both days without watching the same performance twice, or, should they wish to do so, track down their favourite poet, exclusively.” Both evenings will be concluded with a reading of the poets’ favourite love poems, translated into various languages.
In her capacity as festival curator, Krog says her main task has been to recruit work of quality. ‘I care deeply for poetry and feel anybody not reading or listening to poetry is impoverished in a significant way. It is my passion to introduce new, good poets to people.”
In Spier’s gentrified atmosphere, in the serene calm of the winelands, Krog also intends ‘to introduce audiences to something that would normally not be their cup of tea.
‘In a country emerging from great intolerance, I think it is essential that we come to know and enjoy the wide variety of ways that poets work and perform in South Africa. Anybody who says anything clearly in sound and rhythm would, in my mind, be an interesting choice.”
The works will be recited in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa. ‘None of the mother tongues of the Western Cape should be a cul-de-sac,” says Krog. ‘In whatever language you write, we will hear you, because we translate. One often finds some wonderful material when one allows people to operate in their mother tongue. Translation is a great tradition I learnt from the Dutch. It keeps a language fit and allows a variety of concepts to enter the language. To translate the Xhosa rapper’s love poem into Dutch, the Imbongi into Afrikaans and an English love poem into Xhosa would be an interesting experience.”
In these fresh and exiting programmes, live poetry has sprouted in new areas of mainstream local culture — on television and in the tourism hotspot of the Western Cape. Mosito, whose channel is a Spier sponsor, feels that South Africans ‘need to express themselves without being restricted. South Africans nationwide need an outlet.”
And with these initiatives, the spoken word, until recently on the fringe, is taking centre stage.
The Lentswe Poetry Project invites writers to submit poems about Valentine’s Day (by February 1), Human Right’s Day (by March 8), Family Day (by March 15), Freedom Day (by April 5), Worker’s Day (by April 12), Mother’s Day (by April 19), Africa Day (by May 3), Youth Day (by May 31), Women’s Day (by July 19), Heritage Day (by August 30) and Aids Day (by November 22). Poems can be in any of the 11 official languages and entries must be mailed to [email protected] or Private Bag X41, Auckland Park 2006
The Spier Open Air Poetry Festival takes place at the Spier Estate on the R310 in Lynedoch, Stellenbosch, on February 3 and 4 at 7.30pm. Book at Computicket or Tel: (021) 809 1111. Visit www.spierarts.org.za for more information