Shapes, Shades and Faces

Moferefere Lekorotsoana

• Publisher: African Perspectives Publishing
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780639918709
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Afrikanische Poesie

"Like looking into a mirror, the poet surveys his life and relationships asking probing questions, making resolutions along the way 'be willing to hear from the seasons' he writes, evoking ideas of looking to nature for wisdom, of the ever-changing character of life and the promise of growth that the reflective life yields. His words do not dance in vague mystery, rather they march with focus and clarity like soldiers on a mission." - ATHOL WILLIAMS: Poet

Introduction

In the introduction to Sterling Plumpp’s STEPS TO BREAK THE CIRCLE (Third World Press, Chicago, 1974), which deals with some of the confused and confusing aspects of some of the tendencies in the 1960s in North America, I point out to the proliferation of garbage that passed for Black poetry. “Much of the ranting,” I observed, “was no more than a bunch of slogans with ready sentimental appeal, headed for the marketplace.”

A little later, we here in Mzansi, with our mimetic tendencies, were subjected to a similar kind of ranting and, as our lack of luck would be, this torture lasted for a longer period. In fact, it is not over yet.

But the poet worth the label, deals with what it is to be alive. As Gwendolyn Brooks put it,

“Art is life worked with; is life

wheedled, or whelmed:

assessed:

clandestine, but evoked.”

The point of departure of the poet’s imagination, unless the supposed poet be no more than a word juggler playing perverse games, is always life.

As long as I have known Moferefere Lekorotsoana and have worked closely with him for the past six years now, I have never heard him refer to himself as a poet. But his SHAPES SHADES AND FACES is a remarkable proverbial breath of fresh air. His vision is not blurred; it is focused, controlled and illumines the textures of whatever shapes, shades and faces he looks at and into and responds to. No syrupy-sweet, nauseating embellishments which some, with delusions of being

poets, mistake for expressive language. Lekorotsoana carves his poems out of clear, simple, lean, supple and precise prose.

The first section of this collection is titled Inner Voices. It is divided into six movements which begin with the perceived anguish suffered when a sense of aloneness, a lack of belonging, is so intense a selfdestructive cynicism sets in:

I shall not think

not feel

I shall love to hate

and hate to love

By the end of the second movement a fear of interacting with others has firmly set in:

I shall remain indifferent

for if I do not

I might end up foolish

I think I might feel

I might love

However, since this morbid, death-bound nonsense can neither be desirable nor sustained, by the third movement it is jettisoned:

all days are new

all days change

and bring changes

today you mourn and cry

tomorrow you laugh and dance

And by the end of the sixth movement, the final one, there is hope and determination:

...to know how to think

to feel

to love

to celebrate life

From this point Lekorotsoana takes the reader on an exploration to where he has been. And he has been to many places, both literally and figuratively. When he waxes philosophical he pushes, perhaps I should say persuades, the reader to consider and confront certain aspects of life s/he might otherwise never have bothered to look at, as in Mortality...