NB: The author is co-editor with Mandi Poefficient Vundla of Home Is Where the Mic Is, an anthology conceived as a collaboration with Word ’n’ Sound, a popular Johannesburg Spoken Word platform. The volume features twenty-four spoken word poets from South Africa and additional contributors from the United States, Britain and Australia. Released by Botsotso Publishing in 2017, ISBN 9780981420547.

n the beginning was the Body; and the Body gave Voice to the Word; and the Word separated Silence from Sound, Noise from Music. And the Voice as it shaped Word gave substance to quietly versed Thoughts, raging Shouts, frenzied Pleas, and tender Supplications.

Over the past sixty years the Spoken Word movement—in the various and combined guises of blues, beat, rap, hip-hop, and slam—has re-energized the Written Word, and saved it from obscure intellectualism, from excessive concentration on the eye (as page), and from pedantry as ‘linguistic waffle.'

For the Spoken Word, with bold gesture and subtle inflections of tone and lilt, has restored flesh to the Word and enabled a renaissance of interest in poetry, particularly by young people. This physical and emotional force started as a North American and Caribbean movement, but is now stimulating new forms all over the world. Here in South Africa, it is a national movement, with each major city touting a number of platforms where Spoken Word artists can present their work at festivals, slam competitions, open mic sessions, and workshops.

Moreover, though the North American/Caribbean styles and themes are still very much in evidence, more and more localized, indigenous ones are emerging as, despite the looming influence of the imperial(ist) culture, we, on the former ‘margins,' explore our own lives seriously, live them more fully, and validate their significance. For, however much the Black American diaspora feels it is descended from the continent of Africa, its culture is still too absorbed in an urban ghetto/island struggle of a particular kind in relation to the “White world” to fully reflect independent African societies. Of course, the struggle in post-Apartheid South Africa has similar challenges, but since Black Africans are a large majority, there are important differences that call for different vehicles.

The current Spoken Word scene has several notable features. Firstly, there is the astounding way in which the English language is being used, particularly by those for whom it is a second language. Secondly, there is the richness of performance styles, ranging from the ‘talking hand,' to the strut, to the dance.

Presenting a poem as a theatrical piece enables the poet to inhabit a character, exhibit personality, and amplify emotion—aspects that the written page alone cannot easily achieve. Another noteworthy aspect of Spoken Word is the high rate of participation of women who are bringing their own topics and styles, and their own vocal patterns and musicality.

Lastly, one is struck by the intellectual quality and mastery of form that so many of these poems embody. There is real weight in the explorations of identity, of history, of social and economic relations, of sexual politics, of generational ties, of the vocation to make art. With regard to form and rhythm, though rhyming (and the rhyming couplet) came to be seen as outmoded in white European and North American poetry, the Afro-American (Diasporan and continental) Spoken Word has reinstated this form and injected it with new vitality. Having said this, the many forms/rhythms given expression in this anthology show that the twenty-four poets represented are as comfortable working in free verse as they are in rhyme.

In short, the often ventured criticism levelled by South African academic critics that performance poetry is a crude ‘upstart' that dilutes the intellectual and linguistic rigour of our poetic tradition, is simply unfounded. Such criticism constitutes a continuation of the establishment's rejection of much of the poetry that in the 1970's and 80's took on an openly agitative political stance. In this case, the Apartheid nature (the white supremacist coloration) of our society played a major role in the devaluation of the Spoken Word.

As a poet who has written in various formats and styles and covers many different themes, I believe there is no contradiction, and I believe that there is, in fact, no ‘competition.' Form, after all, must serve its purpose, and will take on the most natural and organic means to express the thoughts and feelings of its creator. In this vein, the continuity of the ancient oral tradition takes its contemporary shape and, at the same time, has reinvigorated the art of poetry in a decaying neo-liberal capitalist culture.

Note: the illuminated letter at the top of this essay incorporates imagery from City of Lights, a 2016 street art exhibit in Johannesburg by Bisco Smith.