As we celebrate Freedom Day next weekend, the AVBOB poetry project celebrates the exuberant voice of Kabelo Mofokeng, a poet and photographer with a master’s degree in creative writing.
His debut poetry collection, Hungry on Arrival, often combines English, Sesotho and Scamtho (Johannesburg creole originating from the interactions of a diverse population) in the same poem.
Some of these poems were inspired by Mofokeng’s wide reading while he was finishing his creative writing thesis. But most readers will probably be struck first by how close they feel to vivid everyday speech – a quality that emerged in performance at readings in Afropolitan Johannesburg.
“They have a life of their own and may change depending on the audience,” Mofokeng explained.
In the collection’s foreword, he noted: “Some poems come via my home in Pimville, Soweto, the urban sounds and multilingual speech patterns as I move through it. Other poems draw on Sesotho culture and tradition, which still run strongly in my family.”
He said that many Sesotho speakers have been astonished to find their language and familiar experiences captured on the page. Similarly, many Scamtho speakers in the township recite his poems in bars and poetry venues today.
“Those multilingual poems are like tunes. They have a strong musical resonance. Some people have commented on how the music evoked by those poems even comes off the page as they read them.”
Mofokeng’s poems are often in conversation with older, more established poets, especially with the jazz musicians he loves.
The title of his collection refers to a tune by bassist Fana Zulu. It is said that sometimes, his evocations of jazz are so powerful that it feels as if one is actually in the room as variations on old tunes are being improvised.
At the same time, the collection’s title announces a generation of vibrant new poets, who still often feel excluded from mainstream discourse and equal opportunities in the marketplace.
Mofokeng has mixed feelings about celebrating freedom. He said in many ways the inequalities in our society have worsened despite our country being a beacon of hope for the rest of the African continent.
In the face of these worsening inequalities, he urged aspiring poets to remain independent.
AVBOB’s poetry project, meanwhile, has called on aspirant poets to write a poem inspired by the atmosphere on the streets where they live – and seeing how many languages they can include.
Pretoria News