December is the ideal time to indulge in a little poetry reading. Here are four picks, including Siphokazi Jonas’ exquisite and original collection Weeping Becomes a River.
Leaving and returning
Weeping Becomes a River is the debut poetry collection from SA poet, playwright and actor Siphokazi Jonas. Deeply personal, the volume explores cultural and linguistic alienation, tradition, religion, and the tension between rural and urban experiences.
One-star from a houseplant
Insufficient sunlight. Too much watering. Would give zero stars if I could.
Host pendulums between caution and neglect. Overheard saying peace lilies are difficult to raise grateful she chose nothing to root itself in her uterus for her to nurture
Host requires compassion to decipher drooping thirst and slow brown death of leaves. Five stars to the dinner guest who recognised aching roots and said, you need a bigger pot — left us both sprouting towards the ceiling in relief.
What I loved is how Jonas intersperses her poems with intsomi, traditional Xhosa storytelling shared in communal settings, such as around evening fires, and blending narrative, song and performance to convey moral, social and spiritual lessons.
The storytellers explore community, values and resilience through allegorical characters, like animals with human traits. Jonas’ writing revitalises intsomi, incorporating its essence into contemporary poetry to bridge the gap.
Drawing from her upbringing in a small Afrikaans town, time at an English boarding school and visits to her ancestral Xhosa village during the transition to democracy, Weeping Becomes a River captures the complexities of family, identity and belonging. Poet Gabeba Baderoon has described the collection as “exquisite, courageous, energising, boundary-scaling, mesmerising, moving”.
Jonas is a prominent voice in literature and the arts and is known for her groundbreaking poetry film #WeAreDyingHere. In work that consistently challenges conventions, she interrogates critical social issues with emotional depth and honesty.
Words for a world in flux
Celebrated for her debut, Collective Amnesia, Koleka Putuma does not shy away from addressing complex contemporary subjects, which she does with honesty and nuance.
Her work has received numerous accolades, including the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. Putuma’s latest poetry collection, We Have Everything We Need to Start Again, explores young adulthood, tackling themes such as mental health, gender, climate change and identity.
Putuma seeks to empower her readers with this volume, which reads like a youthful, hopeful and supportive guide through life’s transitions and challenges. As a theatre practitioner and founder of Manyano Media, she is also an affirming voice in SA literature who focuses on stories of black queer women. This latest collection is an expressive addition to contemporary SA poetry.
Knowing how to love yourself
You Get Better with Time Love, by Duduzile Noeleen Ngwenya, is a collection on self-discovery.
Ngwenya writes about love, vulnerability and the search for acceptance.
Blending short, sharp recollections in a mix of poetry and prose, she muses on the intricacies of human emotions, fears and insecurities, and the transformative strength of connection and self-belief.
maybe in the end,
we accept that we cannot hold onto people just because we want to stay with them forever, eventually, those we struggle to let go of
stop serving their purpose they hold us back or make us feel like we failed them
we don’t have to hold onto everyone maybe in the end, we learn that we are the ones we get to keep.
Through these personal experiences she encourages readers to embrace their emotions and confront life’s challenges with courage. She wants each poem to serve as a reminder that every new moment brings a chance to heal, rediscover oneself and face the future with renewed strength.
Finding a voice
It’s been 10 years since Canadian writer Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey, described as poetry for the Insta generation, was first published.
What started as a self-published collection turned into a global phenomenon, selling more than 6-million copies and staying on best-seller lists for nearly four years. Now Kaur has released a 10th Anniversary Collector's Edition, with new poems, photographs and diary entries that offer fans a behind-the-scenes look at her journey.
Kaur reflects on how Milk and Honey changed her life and found readers for a new genre of easy, confessional Instapoetry. Critics have sometimes dismissed her work as too simplistic, but her words struck a chord with millions thanks to her themes of love, trauma, healing and identity. Her work isn’t for everybody, she says.
A child of Punjabi immigrant parents, Kaur hid her passion for writing, unsure how it would be received. But her fans appreciate what they see as her deeply personal honesty and vulnerability. They see her words as a source of comfort and inspiration. In this deluxe 10th-anniversary edition of Milk and Honey, she says she’s found a healthier balance between proving herself and enjoying the process of creating.
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