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Drawing on some of the most influential studies on Carmelo Bene, this article aims to offer interpretive tools that will enhance viewers' and listeners' appreciation of his misreadings of Hamlet and Macbeth. It also suggests that la scrittura di scena (scenic writing) and la macchina attoriale (the actorial machine), his most celebrated inventions as an actor, dramatist and musicologist, are two theatrical methods that could possibly assist the ongoing decolonial reinvention of Shakespeare's stories in the (South) African context. The article provides introductory biographical notes on Bene and an overview of his main literary and philosophical influences. It then discusses the key concepts of scenic writing and the actorial machine as applied to Bene's rewriting of Hamlet and Macbeth. Finally, it suggests some potential lines of research for decolonial scholars, playwrights, actors and poets from South Africa and beyond., Introduction Carmelo Bene (1937-2002) is an iconic artist in the history of Italian and European theatre and culture. The scholarship on his Shakespearean experiments that has been published in Italian [...]

This article argues that poetry is an act of meditation, improvisation and exploration, and urgency is what guides the writer into (and through) the poetic journey. In the light of this, this article illustrates the features of a workshop that was designed to guide social and human scientists in the delicate process of turning raw data into poems. One of the chief objectives of the decolonial project is to bridge the gap between Westernised academia ("The Ivory Tower") and communities where research is conducted, and this article aims to show how poetic inquiry is a fitting research methodology that can serve this purpose. Through a description of the workshop process and specific poems that emerged from it, it suggests that poetic inquiry is an innovative and effective research methodology for social and human scientists engaged in the transformation of conventional knowledge production.

AbstractBless Me Father, the autobiography of South African-Italian poet Mario d’Offizi, enriches the spectrum of masculinities presented in South African white male poets’ autobiographies. It narrates the story of a “marginal” white man growing up under apartheid, and provides an innovative testimony within the rich autobiographical tradition of South Africa. The focus in this article is placed on traumatic episodes in the author’s past and on the relationship with a predatory father figure. The conflict between the choice to remain silent about hurtful events and the desire to expose them is the central dialectic of psychological trauma, and scriptotherapy is the medium used by d’Offizi to grapple with his haunting past and seek healing. Bless Me Father, this article argues, is a story of pain, loss, survival, and triumph over adversities that occupies a distinctive space within post-apartheid South African literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his exploration of the intertextual strategies employed by contemporary African novelists, Ewan Maina Mwangi (2009) moves beyond the discourse that views African literature as, mainly, a reaction to the colonial experience. He argues, instead, that African novels are primarily engaged in conversation with each other, particularly over gender issues such as the representation of homosexuality and the disenfranchisement of women by male-dominated narratives. Drawing from this argument, and shifting the focus towards the short story in post-1994 South Africa, this article maintains that, by engaging critically with Can Themba's 'The Suit' (1963), Siphiwo Mahala, Zukiswa Wanner and Makhosazana Xaba have created an unprecedented 'literary case' in the history of South African literature. It offers a comparative analysis of the six short stories (which represent a unique example of intertextual dialogue among South African writers), and contends that Mahala's 'The Suit Continued' and 'The Lost Suit' (2011), Wanner's 'The Dress that Fed the Suit' (2011) and Xaba's 'Behind The Suit' and 'The Suit Continued: The Other Side' (2013) should be considered pivotal texts in the South African literary palimpsest, since they deconstruct some of the most controversial features of Themba's story, and infuse it with ground-breaking feminist and queer narratives. KEYWORDS Can Themba, Siphiwo Mahala, Zukiswa Wanner, Makhosazana Xaba, short story, feminism, queer narratives, This article offers an analysis of the cultural durability and significance of Themba's tale 'The Suit' (1963), and suggests reasons for its multiple re-tellings, a process in which the original [...]

This conceptual article theorises the role of poetry in English classrooms from a multimodal perspective. It discusses the gap between the practices of poetry inside and outside South African schools, particularly where English is taught as an additional language (EAL). The former is shown to be monomodal and prescriptive, while the latter is multimodal and exciting. The reconceptualisation of poetry as a multimodal genre is effected through the integration of multimodality and orality, two fields of study that deal with meaning making. The article attempts to bridge the divide between poetry in print and in performance. It begins with a critique of the current conceptualisation of poetry that underlies the EAL curriculum, practice, and assessment in South Africa. Through bringing multimodality and oral studies together complementarily, and building on empirical studies, an alternative conceptualisation of poetry is constructed. An English poem by a South African Xhosa-speaking poet is used to demonstrate the curricular, pedagogic, and research implications of this alternative approach. The authors argue that poetry, if reconceptualised as a multimodal genre, can rejuvenate literacy, particularly in classrooms where English is not the first language of students.

Matric Rage by Genna Gardini uHlanga, Cape Town, 2015. ISBN: 978-0-620-67692-2. 81 pp. The name of Genna Gardini is not new to poetry devotees. Although still very young, she is [...]

A half century thing by Lesego Rampolokeng Black Ghost Press, 2015. ISBN: 978-0-620-66471-4. 148 pp. I grew up listening to a lot of funk and hip hop music. It wasn't [...]

Twelve + One: Interviews by Mike Alfred (ed. Allan Kolski Horwitz) Botsotso Publishing, Johannesburg, 2014. ISBN: 978-0-9814205-3-0. pp184. Despite what the 'evangelical' title might suggest at first glance, the volume [...]

had the homesick stare of other years and other men versed eyes with the ancient task of trying to persevere and preserve beauty regardless he recited dante's divine comedy to [...]

(for toni morrison, on hearing of her death) gleams in the sky of a perfect african storm fear in the eyes of men when the planet decides to strike back [...]

(for mfumo and fumane ntlhabane) rain through the night two sisters at the city edge dressed to kill, ready several purring, strutting cats laden for a long, smooth walk follow [...]

the esteemed professor of history invited me to perform some of my poetry at his colloquium. when i asked about money, he replied that, regrettably, he was unable to pay [...]

This article, dedicated to the memory of the late Poet Laureate of South Africa and patron of the South African Poetry Project (ZAPP), Professor Keorapetse Kgositsile, situates itself within Kgositsile's struggle for cultural liberation through the arts and education. It is also located within the current South African project of decolonising the curriculum. The call to decolonise existing educational curricula—to transform colonial curricula through processes of indigenisation—is ubiquitous and strident. As a response to the contemporary call from students, educators, and theorists—more than twenty years after South Africa's liberation from apartheid—this article seeks to interrogate how one might decolonise the poetry curriculum within the discipline of English literature. As researchers of English studies, we have chosen to investigate poetry, Kgositsile's favoured genre. Our choice is informed by poetry's status as a capacious genre that stretches the boundaries of both language and knowledge. This article considers what it might mean to decolonise the poetry curriculum in terms of its selection of texts, although we acknowledge that pedagogic and assessment practices also have important roles to play in processes of educational decolonisation. We introduce decoloniality and indigeneity as concepts and analyse excerpts of current South African poetry in English in terms of these. Our aim is to open a space for discussion around the complex, sensitive issues involved in shaping a decolonised poetry curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the extra-literary aspects of the all-female poetry show "Body of Words" held at the Market Lab in Newtown in Johannesburg, South Africa from May 14-16, 2010. It says that the show has represented the contribution of women poets in South Africa including Linda Gabriel, Lebogang Mashile and Natalia Molebatsi. It mentions that the show has been considered an extremely successful experiment of spoken word performance.