“When dogs bark and birds sing, they are using their mother tongue . . . So too, people need to speak their mother language.”
This is according to Goodenough Gakwi Mashego.
As the Pedi editor of the Avbob Poetry Project, he shares his insights on the value and importance of writing in the vernacular.
Mashego, being a journalist, film-maker and poet, contributes to the South African poetry scene as performer, translator, editor, publisher, teacher, coach, commentator and literary adjudicator. He encourages new poets to write in their home language to reinforce and promote their heritage and identity and to sustain a guiding connection with their tradition.
Poetry creates a bridge from the past to the present, lengthening into the future, Mashego says.
His suggestions for poets writing in their mother tongue involves the following:
- All language uses metaphors and euphemisms to express erotic or taboo topics. Perhaps a whole poem can be made up of metaphors and euphemisms. Include idioms, proverbs and other figures of speech for added subtlety in your poem.
- Remove common clichés. Give the freshest version of your language and trust the reader to understand.
- Explore the whole canon of literature published in your language.
- Find the luminaries who produced earlier and richer works that introduce earlier versions of words and the subsequent evolving linguistic incarnations. This will help you to develop your own voice and style. In Nguni they say “indlela ibuzwa kwabaphambili” (a way is asked from those that travelled before), while in Sotho they say “mahlaku a maswa a tsoga ka a matala” (the youth stand on the shoulders of the old).
- Do not get stuck in elitist formal conventions. Form is useful but restrictive, often creating a high wall to entry or preventing subtle gatekeeping.
- Let the music in. While poetic conventions and best standards vary according to the language, most African indigenous poetry originated from praise and is essentially lyrical. Whether celebrating a newborn, the newly wedded or a hero – or mourning a deceased loved one – these poems are strongly musical, with an inclination to break into song.
- Correct spelling and grammar as prescribed by the orthography of that language are non-negotiable.
- Poetry must be durable and rigorous to retain relevance. One cannot use fleeting language and expect the poem to mean something five or 50 years later.
“Language is a knife – the cutting edge of a poem. It is as sharp as the poet’s ability to use it. Our first words, our vocal expressions of happiness, pain and satisfaction, are all expressed in our mother tongue. Mother tongue is also the language of dreams,” Mashego says.
The Avbob Poetry Project welcomes new and established voices in all 11 official languages and ensures that suitably qualified mother tongue judges assess each entry.
The competition reopens on 1 August and all poets are welcome to register in advance on avbobpoetry.co.za.
