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& salt the earth behind you

Reminiscing In Tempo : Ubangulo

  • Authors: Tutani, Zodwa
  • Date: 2021-04
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) -- South Africa , South African poetry (English) -- 21st century , South African poetry (English) -- History and criticism , Diaries -- Authorship
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/174376 , vital:42472
  • Description: My thesis is a collection of poems that focuses on black mothering and motherhood, within the context of the Eastern Cape’s violent history, its oppressive patriarchal cultural traditions and religious structures. Drawing from my own experiences, my poems explore what Toni Morrison calls the historical ‘wounds’ of black women which are transferred to their daughters within everyday spaces like the kitchen and the lounge, through objects like tea cups, chair backs and the various foods that every black girl needs to be able to prepare in order to be ‘marriagable’, and how these continue to hurt and emotionally disfigure us. I also draw influence from Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe and Tina Campt on black lives and the effects of slavery within their daily existences. And I am inspired by the intimacy and care with which Tadeusz Rosewicz writes about his relationship with his mother in Mother Departs and Sandra Cisneros’ use of interconnected vignettes to engage childhood, culture and community within marginalized space. Stylistically I am influenced by the structural innovations in Fred Moten’s The Little Edges and the dreamy landscape in the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca. My collection includes prose and lyrical poetry, combining more formal sound and rhythmic structures with free verse, to bring to life motherhood and the narratives we carry from childhood into our adult lives.
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  • Date Issued: 2021-04

Salt in my footsteps

  • Authors: Radebe, Mxolisi Vusumuzi
  • Date: 2021-04
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) -- South Africa , South African poetry (English) -- 21st century , South African fiction (English) -- 21st century
  • Language: English
  • Type: thesis , text , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/178201 , vital:42920
  • Description: My thesis is a collection of poems which focus on human experiences related to my background. I grew up in a countryside village, freely experiencing nature in unrestricted walks to the rivers and mountains; communal living instilled in me the humanitarian values which I uphold to the present. I use short and long lyrical prose poems to bring life and humanise the untold or unexpressed stories of my community. My use of simple everyday language and clear, concrete but surprising images that resonate with deeper meanings and emotions is influenced by Seitlhamo Motsapi’s poems, especially his collection of poems titled earthstepper/the ocean is very shallow and Mxolisi Nyezwa’s poetry book, Song Trials. Spanish poems in English translations by the 20th century Spanish poets: Blas de Otero, Juan Roman Jimenez and Federico Garcia Lorca, published in the book titled Roots and Wings have had a huge impact on my construction of images. I also draw from the free-form and narrative prose poetry experiments of poets: Mangaliso Buzani, vangile gantsho and Ivy Alvarez. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Literatures, 2021
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  • Date Issued: 2021-04

Disco

Blue ring of fire

  • Authors: O’Flaherty, Craig
  • Date: 2018
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) -- South Africa , South African poetry (English) -- 21st century
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/63615 , vital:28448
  • Description: My poems are reflections of shape, colour and emotions expressed through imagery. Their unsentimental landscape-realism echo my own feelings as well as broader human dimensions of contradiction and uncertainty, without trying to resolve them. In the same way that photography is the art of 'painting with light', my poems seek a language that evokes light and darkness. They aspire to what Keats said when writing about ‘negative capability’: “Poetical character has no self, it is anything and nothing, it has no character and enjoys light and shade”. My poems explore what I have learned about form – how line-length, syntax and musicality can add grace and energy to language. Poets that have influenced me include the classical Chinese poets such as Du Fu and Li Po, and the Generation of 27 Spanish poets, such as Antonio Machado and Leon Felipe.
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  • Date Issued: 2018

I won’t be long

  • Authors: Mhlambi, Ntombi Kayise Millicent
  • Date: 2018
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) -- South Africa , South African fiction (English) -- 21st century , South African poetry (English) -- 21st century , Short stories, South African (English) -- 21st century
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/63603 , vital:28446
  • Description: My thesis is a weave of short stories, flash fiction and vignettes of prose-poetry. It uses lyrical, scenic and explorative modes to explore the stories of women, past, present and future, from all walks of life. These women, young and old, struggle to find their way within a ‘world’ characterised as Salithambo (the pink castle) whose structures and survival preys on their bodies. The stories explore the themes of girlhood and maturation, violence (specifically against women), animality, scatology, time, gender roles and expectations, and their rejection. I draw inspiration, stylistically, from Irenosen Okojie’s depiction of beauty and terror in the same sentence; Selah Saterstrom’s fragmented plot and directorial stroke; Taban Lo Liyong & Amos Tutuola’s avant-gardism and amplification of language; Adania Shibli’s sensorial and spare prose, Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, Lily Hoang & Carol Oates’ normalized magic spell, Athena Villaverde & Espido Freire’s imaginative overload of childhood; Shelley Jackson & Chevisa Woods’ construction of body parts as bearing texts or as texts themselves.
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  • Date Issued: 2018

Malume’s bones

  • Authors: Mokhele, Sizakele
  • Date: 2018
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) -- South Africa , South African poetry (English) -- 21st century
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/63132 , vital:28366
  • Description: My poetry is about real stories: poverty, love, politics, past pains and healing. I try to follow the example of Amiri Baraka who says his poetry is whatever he thinks he is, that he makes poetry with “what can be saved out the garbage of our lives”. My collection also preserves and embraces demotic language, which is also a part of who I am. I am influenced by Baraka’s and Ike Muila’s use of demotics, and the way that poets such as Antonio Jacinto, Costa Andrade and Mafika Gwala tackle political matters in a colourful and powerful way. I have also been inspired by ancient Chinese poets to explore love and eroticism, particularly how it plays out in the eyes of my people.
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  • Date Issued: 2018

Mna, Nosigidi

  • Authors: Matyobeni, Simthembile
  • Date: 2018
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) -- South Africa , Xhosa poetry -- 21st century , South African poetry (English) -- 21st century
  • Language: Xhosa , English
  • Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64412 , vital:28541
  • Description: This thesis is a collection of poems. These are lyric poems. Animystic poets like Christopher Okigbo and Wole Soyinka are the principal models in terms of style. Animystic poetry projects ideas and emotions in a hallucinatory and profoundly visionary manner. The collection has a variety of themes such as marginality, identity, history, and domestic abuse. Diverse language registers are used in the poems in order that the setting of each poem, whether historical or contemporary, is realised. , Le thesisi ngumbongo omde osekelezelwe kumlinganiswa oyintloko, uNosigidi. Esi simbo sokuyila isihobe siva ngomlimandlela owenziwa ziimbongi ezifana noJ. R. R. Jolobe no‐Aime Cesaire. Indumasiso ethi “UThuthula” kaJolobe inefuthe kwimo yokwakhiwa kweminye imibongo edibanisa le mbali. Asiyiyo yonke imibhalo yezi mbongi ethe ncakasana ukungqamana nale mbali‐sihobe kaNosigidi. Imibongo ekuthiwa yi‐‘Animystic poetry’ isetyenzisiwe kakhulu kule mibongo. Sigqaliwe kunye nesihobe nesikaSappho, kuba yimbongi ebhale kakhulu ngamandla elizwi lamanina. USappho ngakumbi ubhala kakhulu kwisihobe sakhe ngamanina athandana namanye. Owona mxo walo mbongo kukugqala ibali koNosigidi okhule esazi kamhlophe ukuba yena uthandana namanye amanina. Isizathu soku kukuba nabo obu bomi kuyafuneka kubhaliwe ngabo ngendlela enenkathalo kuncwadi lwesiXhosa. Nasekusabeleni ubizo lwakhe kwintwaso uNosigidi uya enamathidala, de obo bomi bentumekelelo abamkele ngazo zozibini.
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  • Date Issued: 2018

Poem to be sung

  • Authors: Ndyoko, Nomtha
  • Date: 2018
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) -- South Africa , South African poetry (English) -- 21st century
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/63592 , vital:28444
  • Description: My collection of poems expresses the complexities that exist beneath the surface of my life – my tongue, our bleak country, the politics of having a dark skin, my ancestors who speak to me in unexplainable ways, and the speech of nature – the wind, the sea, death, birds. It is in writing poems and songs that I make a space to be alive, a space to meet my ancestors and to say the unsayable. The poems move between the ordinary, the magical, the abject, and the spiritual, often expressing the contradictions that exist within life. The main influence on my poetry has come from music, from African jazz musicians such as Zim Ngqawana, Thandiswa Mazwai and Msaki Mvana. Literary influences have come from Spanish poets such as Juan Ramón Jiménez, whose strong imagery and short lines capture profound emotion, and from ancient Chinese poetry that moves in a fluid and minimal way. I have also been inspired by the African spirituality expressed in Mazisi Kunene’s poetry and the down-to-earth associative poetry of Mangaliso Buzani and Mxolisi Nyezwa.
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  • Date Issued: 2018

Slanting the light

  • Authors: Marais, Shirley
  • Date: 2018
  • Subjects: South African poetry (English) -- 21st century , Creative writing (Higher education) -- South Africa
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/63558 , vital:28440
  • Description: Through my poetry I attempt to make sense of my encounters with myself by bringing to creative expression my experiences of and felt responses to people, places and situations. Among the poets who have had a significant influence on my work are Robert Berold, for his quiet assertion of intense, dramatic images; Frank O’Hara for his disciplined sense of mischief; Joan Metelerkamp for her meticulous attention to form and the way she makes a poem breathe; Robert Creeley for his ability to create free-floating meaning; and Mangaliso Buzani, for his fierce, honest poetics.
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  • Date Issued: 2018

Sunrays in a chilly winter

  • Authors: Nolutshungu, Simphiwe
  • Date: 2015
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) -- South Africa , South African poetry (English) -- Study and teaching (Higher) , South African poetry (English) -- 21st century , South Africa -- Poetry
  • Language: English , Xhosa
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: vital:5993 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017777
  • Description: In both my English and IsiXhosa poetry, my themes are love, politics, and the social issues of rural communities, and include my own life experiences, both good and bad. My poems are mainly short narrative accounts of township life. Although they do have a broad educational purpose, they do not preach to the reader. In IsiXhosa, my poetic forms are influenced by the works of J J R Jolobe, W N Mbovane, P T Mtuze, and my English poems by Pablo Neruda, Mafika Pascal Gwala, Garcia Lorca and others. , Intliziyo yona izimele gxebe ifihlakele Iyimfihlo, kumagumbi omphefumlo. Iyafunxa, ifukame kulo magumbi amxinwa. Iingcango, mba! Zivaliwe! Maxa wambi zide zixel’ isisila senkukhu, sona sibonwa mhla ligquthayo. Vul’ amehlo ubaz’ iindlebe uchul’ ukunyathela. Yiza ndikubambe ngesandla, sivul’ iingcango! Masivul’ iingcango zentliziyo yam, sikrobe ngaphakathi! Masithi ntla‐ntla kumagumb’ amathathu kuphela! Masithi ntla‐ntla, kwelepolitiki yakwaXhosa, Kaloku nam ndingumXhosa! Masithi ntla‐ntla kwelifukame, i.z.i.x.i.n.g.a.x.i n.o.b.u.n.c.w.a.n.e. b.o.t.h.a.n.d.o, kaloku nam ndinemithamb’ ebalek’ igaz’ eliqhumayo! Ucango lokugqibela lukungenisa kwigumbi elinezidl’ umzi, Kaloku nam ndizalwa kulo mzi wakwaXhoooooosa!    , This thesis is presented in two parts: English and isiXhosa.
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  • Date Issued: 2015

Grieving forests

  • Authors: Bila, Freddy Vonani
  • Date: 2014
  • Subjects: Creative writing (Higher education) -- Research -- South Africa , Creative writing -- Poetry , South African poetry (English) -- Study and teaching (Higher) , South African poetry (English) -- 21st century , English language -- Writing
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: vital:5997 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020880
  • Description: This is a collection of village narrative poems mainly set in rural Limpopo that searches into the complexity of the past and how historical events impact on the present. Although the poems are imagined along the Marxist dialectic, they’re fresh imaginative creations featuring a strong element of surprise, spiritual mysticism, experimenting with form, delving into unknown poetic avenues, creating new music, exploring new sounds and taking risks. The long and intense poem, Ancestral wealth, which is a tribute to the poet’s father, reflects on death and its impact through the effective application of various stylistic elements and poetic devices, thus immortalising the life of a rural South African. Overall the poems, including retrospective and experimental ones, condemn the free market economic system and all that it seems to necessitate: the degradation of ecology, indifference to human suffering and the alienation of vulnerable social groups.
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  • Date Issued: 2014

My grandmother breaks her hip

One leg at a time

Counting planes

Portfolio

  • Authors: Hogge, Quentin Edward Somerville
  • Date: 2013
  • Subjects: Poetry , Post-apartheid , Environment , South African poetry (English) -- 21st century , Creative writing (Higher education) , English language -- Writing
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: vital:5963 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001813
  • Description: My initial intention is to try to show how, as a poet in South Africa, I suffer from a creative identity crisis. I am a white English-speaking male. I live surrounded by isiXhosa-speaking people. Is my poetry, or will my poetry be, relevant in the ‘New’ South Africa? Is English, the language of the colonial oppressors, the appropriate medium in the post-apartheid milieu? Will my subject matter be relevant? These questions and my attempts at answering them, form the basis of the poetry and the portfolio that accompanies the poems. My absorption with finding a creative ‘voice’, my concerns with the environment and a questioning of what post-apartheid poetry should write about all seem a bit Quixotic, especially to me! But at another level, they are deeply serious. (p. 5.)
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  • Date Issued: 2013

Who knew

Silence, like breathing

  • Authors: Van der Nest, Megan
  • Date: 2012
  • Subjects: South African poetry (English) -- 21st century , Creative writing (Higher education) , Diaries -- Authorship , English language -- Writing
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
  • Identifier: vital:5980 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015246
  • Description: In this collection of free verse lyric poems I have drawn inspiration from childhood memories, as well as from the natural world and encounters with the people around me. Each poem focuses on a small moment, presenting an emotive portrait of a memory or an experience. These small moments lead, cumulatively, to deeper insights into myself and the world around me. The collection is divided into four seasons, in part because the work is strongly influenced by the natural world, but also because the progression of the seasons mirrors something of the personal journey reflected in the poems.
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  • Date Issued: 2012

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