One
of the Rotaract club of Matopos’ very own, Sanelisiwe Emma Mlilo is a lawyer by
profession and also a poet. She recently published a poetry anthology entitled
“Toffee Apples and Debris”. The book is available at Vignes bookshop and the
National Art Gallery in Bulawayo.
Below
is a review of the book done by John Eppel poet and author originally from
Lydenburg South Africa but is now based in Bulawayo Zimbabwe. He has published 13 books (so far),
one of which has been translated into French (The giraffe man), created a
creative writing course for the University of South Africa and published three
'O'Level and one 'A' Level literature study guide. He was awarded the Ingrid
Jonker Prize for his first poetry book, "Spoils of War" and the MNet
Prize in 1993 for his Novel, 'D G G Berry's the Great North Road'. His second
novel, 'Hatchings' was nominated for the MNet prize in 1993/4.His works are
studied in universities across South Africa.
Toffee Apples and Debris Review
In
his introduction to ‘Black Women Writers’ (Pluto Press, 1985) edited by Mari
Evans, Stephen E. Henderson writes that black women are the ‘victims not only
of racial injustice but of sexual arrogance tantamount to dual colonialism -
one from without, the other from within, the Black community’. While Henderson’s context is African
American, what he says, I feel, applies to the continental African woman, and
is certainly apparent in the poems of Saneliswe Emma Mlilo.
Her
poems look like stylized beetles, scarabs, which were regarded as sacred in
ancient Egypt. According to the Penguin
dictionary of symbols the hieroglyph of the scarab with legs outstretched means
‘to come into existence by assuming a given form’. That’s how these poems are made.
The
first poem, ‘Affirmation’, with its insistent refrain, ‘I believe’, establishes
the general mood of the anthology, one of defiance against the double bind of
black women. This mood, however, suffers
a reaction in an underlying sense of anxiety, and it is this seeming
contradiction, this uncertainty in certainty which gives the collection its
strength. Take, for example, ‘Black
Barbie’: The note of defiance is in the word, ‘black’; the contradictory note
of anxiety is in the word, ‘Barbie’, a symbol, surely, of western (white)
consumer culture. Take ‘I’m Not My Hair’: the note of defiance is in its
admonition to the ‘you’, the ex-boyfriend not to judge the ‘I’ by appearances:
‘What defines me is not on top of my head but inside it’; but when, in the
final stanza, the repetition of the poem’s title becomes almost hysterical, I
am reminded of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s words to Jon Snow: ‘Black woman’s
hair is political’; or her words to the interviewer of ‘The Cut’ when she was
asked what Ifemelu (in her novel, ‘Americanah’)
means when he says ‘Hair is the perfect metaphor for race in America’. Part of Adichie’s reply is ‘Hair is something
we see, but we don’t understand what’s behind it, kind of like race’. Take one
of Mlilo’s strongest poems, ‘To My Unborn Child’: here the dialectic of
defiance and uncertainty is held in heart-rending suspension. At one extreme we have ‘you were never a
thought that crossed my mind’; at the other:
And one day
when I am old and grey,
You will sing me to
sleep the way I did all those years ago
When you resided inside me
And this,
this for me would be bliss.
Take
‘I Hate St Valentine’s Day’ where the poet asserts her disdain for cut flowers
in love and death rituals. She sees cut
flowers, wreaths, as dead things:
When I die, do not bring
me flowers,
Do not let me be buried
with death.
However,
the subtext of this poem is that cut flowers are not dead but dying. In this sense they are a reminder that life
is precious because it doesn’t last. The
message of the Valentine rose is just that; the message of the funeral wreath
is just that: ‘Nothing gold can stay’ [Robert Frost]. It is the hovering subtext (oxymoron?) which
introduces uncertainty to the poem, thus enriching it.
Once
you have read through this stimulating collection, you realise that, for a
young, professional black woman with dreams of worldly success, there is a
third bond: the generation gap. This is
particularly evident in ‘Give’, where ‘they’ represent the traditional
advisors, many of them womenfolk:
They do tell you that
motherhood is a must,
That marriage is a must, and that
your husband is the head,
They teach you how to cook and clean
and how to belong in a household,
They teach everything you need to
know to find a husband,
But very little on how to live a
fulfilling life.
Wait,
there’s even a fourth bond: the poet is left-handed:
It’s the
wrong hand,
use the
right hand.
Which is the
right hand?
[‘Left’]
Notice
the witty pun.
Most
of these poems are written in a confessional mode, which is a recognized poetic
form made popular by North American poets like Robert Lowell and Sylvia
Plath. A number of them, the least
interesting, in my opinion, are very personal I/you accounts of failed
relationships. A tendency to self-pity,
however, is mitigated by some robust, even shocking imagery:
But you’re
an entrance,
One he has entered many times,
Now he parks for you’re a garage
And as with
all garages
He must drive off in time to find
another place to park.
The
paradoxical imagination of this gifted poet surfaces in ‘The Uncomfortable
Comfort of the Comfort Zone’ where the listener is introduced to ‘This quiet
unrest that is your soul’s passion’.
That is how I responded to these poems: with a ‘quiet unrest’. I look forward to Mlilo’s next collection,
and, in the inspiring words of Gwendolyn Brooks, ‘Live: and have your blooming
in the noise of the whirlwind’.
The
anthology is beautifully presented. The
cover and illustrations by Duduzile Diana Mlilo are exquisite. Congratulations to Tracy Publishing on this
your maiden (no pun intended) venture.
You couldn’t have made a better start.
very interesting read
ReplyDeleteGreat read, well done Sane!
ReplyDelete