The Journey Continues...

My journey through researching Eastern Cape poets has continued and expanded a little further afield this week. If I thought that the craziness would die down this week I was sorely wrong, this week was as crazy as last week or probably worse. Somehow I managed to get through another six interviews and met a range of really interesting people as I travelled around this beautiful province. This week I was in search of Xhosa Oral poets (also called Imbongis or praise singers) to balance out my white, male dominated documentary and so my search began with an interview the very first praise singer I had ever met…

Interview 7: monde mothlabane

Monde Mothlabane is a maths teacher at Archie Mbolekwa middle school in Joza. I arrived at the school and Monde was still in class so I waited for break time. I was then met by a very interesting, friendly man of 53 who walks with a severe limp, aided by a wooden walking stick. He tells me that this is because of a rugby injury he suffered when he was a young man which left him partially paralysed. After a venue change is needed to ensure good sound quality we begin the interview. I am fascinated by the man who tells me he has a gift to be able to be a praise singer, that the poetry just erupts out of him in a spontaneous way. He also tells me how he has struggled to get his poetry published for many years now. I tell him I am looking for other praise singers to interview so he whips out his phone and phones his friend Bonisile and sets up an interview for me on Thursday, what a guy. We spend a very pleasant half hour together.

Later that day I am supposed to interview poet Dudu Saki but he is not where we arrange to meet, I wait 20 minutes and decide to cut my losses, I mean I have already got 7 interviews and three more planned. He phones me the next day to say that he was there and couldn’t find me, too much confusion and I decide to just let this one go, apologies Dudu.

The next day is a really big one, I head off to Port Elizabeth in the morning to interview poets Brian Walter and Mzi Mahola and it turns out to be a pretty epic day…

Interview 8: brian walter

Brian has given me superb directions to his house in Port Elizabeth and my arrival causes much excitement to his three friendly dogs. We sit down in his office, a converted garage which is almost wall to wall with bookcases overflowing with books. We have a very interesting chat about alternative ways of publishing your work (like his small publishing company Seaberg), about his friendships with other poets and about his own work. His poetry is very connected to the Eastern Cape and its landscape and his real job (the one that pays unlike poetry) is as an educator working to improve education in schools across South Africa. He scratches his grey beard as he thinks and almost an hour passes before we wrap up the very interesting interview. He is a kind man who gives me three of his books as I leave and as I drive away he is speaking intently to a man who has come to ask for money at his gate, it truly was lovely to meet him

Interview 9: mzi mahola

I head off from Brian’s house with directions of how to find Mzi Mahola at his spaza shop in Zwide but somehow the exit I am meant to take does not have the street name it is meant to and an hour and a half later, after seven phone calls back and forth between me and Mzi I finally drive up to his front door where a meet a smiling man who looks very relieved that this poor girl has finally arrived. We go into the house and begin the interview which turns out to be one of my most enjoyable. Mzi is a lovely man who shares his experiences during Apartheid and how his first manuscript of poetry was confiscated by the Security police which led him to stop writing for 14 years. I expect this to be a memory that anger’s him or upset’s him but he says with sincerity that they probably saved his career by taking his poems because if he had received criticism about those poems, the young version of himself might have given up. 14 years later he was more mature and more ready to be a poet, one who has now published four books of poetry and who has just finished the biography of his life which he plans to publish. He speaks with fondness of the small village he grew up in and why the Eastern Cape is such a special place. When I finally head back to Grahamstown that afternoon I have a real sense of achievement of the day I have had, but it’s not over yet…

Poetic Tuesdays…

I get back to Grahamstown just in time to meet Khaya Thonjeni at Grocotts Mail and head off for the weekly poetry meeting at the Duna Public Library in Joza. I’m hoping to find some up and coming slam poets who are going to share their work at the weekly gathering to talk to. We meet up with one of the founders of the group, Kwanele Butana, who is a reporter for Grocotts and find out that the group will be a half hour later because of a Art’s council meeting going on in the hall.

Interview 10: khaya thonjeni

Khaya and I have some time to kill so we decide to do his interview before we go. We drive to his house on Raglan Road and he goes inside to ‘change his shoes’ while I wait in the car. What he really mean’s is take off his shoes and set his long mane of dreadlocks free after being constricted in a beanie all day. Khaya is one of the tallest people I have ever met and the sight of him squished into my little car is a sight that will entertain me for a while to come. We talk about slam poetry and the problems with oral poetry which as he puts it: ‘once the poem ends it is gone forever’. He has some very liberal ideas about publishing and believes that the first set of ears that hear a poem make it published in a sense. He does however believe in writing your poetry down to make sure it survives. He takes his poetry as a kind of social activism. As we stand outside the library, looking at the vibrant orange sunset we cause a few people on the road to double take or hoot and call out to us. We must make a strange pair leaning against my car, him at least six foot six, barefoot and dreadlocked with a small, blonde white girl in a car with Free State number plates. We talk about topics ranging from the plight of women in South Africa and why people haven’t gotten over their race issue to why Grahamstown has so many donkeys. Typically the poetry meeting gets cancelled but it was an afternoon well spent talking to a very liberal and interesting man.

Interview 11: kwanele butana

There is not going to be a poetry group so Kwanele and I head back into town to find some guy he has to give a set of keys to and to do his interview. We sit in the car and talk about his poetry and why he started the poetry group, which him and Khaya call a public gathering rather than a group. You would never know that this guy with his beanie, big jacket and scruffy beard is really a journalist and poet and an important social activist in his community so it’s good that I don’t easily judge a book by its cover. It has been a really interesting day of meeting people but now it’s after 7pm and time for me to head home.

Dining with monks

On Wednesday evening I head back to the monastery to attend the 5:30 vespers service and record the beautiful signing of the Psalms by the five monks during the service. The weather could not be more different to my first visit, the mist is so thick as my car crawls slowly up the dirt road to the monastery that I cannot see more then 5 meters in front of me. The large window that had such a beautiful view of the rolling hills last week now just shows white, as if we are in the middle of a huge cloud. John wants a chance to record some alternative answers to the questions I asked him last week because they got him thinking. He has kindly invited me to come have dinner with him and the other monks and after a beautifully spiritual service. We sit down to our soup and salad with homemade bread in their modern dining hall and I chat with the other monks about life and religion. It is a lovely evening and I feel very privileged to have been included in their secluded world.

Interview 12: Bonisile Mqweniso

On Thursday morning I venture into Joza to find the Ikhutlliso Daniels Secondary School, after some vague directions from third year radio student MC and help from a few people on the road I find the school and the teacher I am looking for Bonisile Mqweniso. He teaches maths and technology and is also a praise singer. He tells me about the Xhosa oral tradition and why it needs to be maintained and besides talk about how difficult it is to publish we speak a lot about the state of our schools and what we need to do to improve matriculation results in the Eastern Cape. He is one of the most inspiring teachers I have met who is really committed to his students and I only truly understand his frustrations and difficulties when someone later that day tells me that Ikhutlliso Daniels is one of the schools with the worst results in Grahamstown.

Reflections

This week I have spent a lot of time in my car driving around the Eastern Cape after driving both to Port Elizabeth and East London and I have really been struck by the beauty of the Eastern Cape landscape. I can understand why so many poets have a strong connection to the rolling hills and beautiful coastline. I am mesmerised by its beauty and as I continue on this journey I appreciate this province more and more, this project has opened up a different world to me and changed the way I think about things like publishing and inspiration and really about what good writing is. I hope that what I put together next week will do justice to the amazing people who have been involved.