Sign-In
Cart
Ntombentle: Selected Poems
Paperback
ISBN13: 9781779282101
Publisher: Mwanaka Media and Publishing
Published: May 29 2025
Pages: 116
Weight: 0.33
Height: 0.24 Width: 5.83 Depth: 8.27
Language: English
Stories and episodes remembered, or half remembered, by future readers from the published histories of, say, Theal, Macmillan, Peires, or Etherington, or creative evocations associated with poets such as Dhlomo, Mqhayi or Mann - to cite fairly arbitrary examples - come to life here as the mental furniture of a unique individual. These stories and episodes inhabit a sensibility struggling to relate past and present without neglecting either. The poet welcomes the reader into his inner world, caught in a relentless dialogue between today and yesterday...
... We meet important historical figures and their stories, but only as they feature in the poet's consciousness. For instance, he finds himself honouring the great warrior Makhanda, while struggling to let go of this hero's seemingly doomed mission, or condemning the
liberal charlatans of King William's Town (now Qonce) who stood by unknowingly as Steve Biko was tortured and murdered. Did they even want to know? The poet does not shrink from picking at painful historical scars such as King Hintsa's severed head being exported to Britain. (I mean, who does that?) We make a detour to the northern Nguni in a scathing celebration of King Shaka, beautifully crafted, but more a horrified indictment than laudatory praise
- Extraordinary Professor Laurence Wright.
Also from
Xhegwana, Sithembele Isaac
The Kaleidoscope of Life: Essays on Identity and Indigenous Knowledge Systems.
Xhegwana, Sithembele Isaac
Paperback
Also in
General Poetry
Dante's Vita Nuova, New Edition: A Translation and an Essay
Pitavy, Francois
Alighieri, Dante
Paperback
Sounding the Seasons Enlarged Edition: One Hundred and Ten Sonnets for the Christian Year
Guite, Malcolm
Paperback
They Bloom Because of You: Poems on the Infinite Love, Growth, and Magic of Motherhood
Urlichs, Jessica
Paperback
Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way
Le Guin, Ursula K.
Lao Tzu
Paperback