Bongani Madondo on the strange musicality of Koleka Putuma’s debut poetry collection:

In matters of written and oral literature, much of spoken-word poetry simply doesn’t hold up well on page. The stuff coming out of hipster joints, reeking with suppressed whiffs of weed and whiskey, emboldened by borrowed tongues trained in what used to be mistook for ‘good schooling in white suburbs’, tends to be a stewing pile of shit.
But while she’s also definitely a generational poet, of her time even, Koleka is as shockingly fresh and real as they come.

Categories Non-fiction South Africa

Tags Collective Amnesia Koleka Putuma ongani Madondo The Johannesburg Review of Books The JRB uHlanga Press