Babishai Poetry has
garnered interest in the African Haiku, or as AdjeiAgyei-Baah, co-founder of
the Africa Haiku Network coins it, Afriku.
The
condensation of an African landscape in three lines is an extraordinary gift.
Launching the inaugural Babishai Haiku prize in 2016 opened a treasure chest of
unlikely imagery and meeting of immeasurable talent. This year 2017, we're
expanding our partnership with University of South Africa (UNISA). Professor
Maithufi Sopelekae shares his experience with the haiku and the importance of
this partnership.
1.
Why
is it important for UNISA to engage in the African Haiku?
Sope: Unisa prides itself as an
‘African University in the service of humanity’. Among others, this means
sharing resources, plights and achievements with the continent and continually searching
together for answers and solutions. However, this university’s network across
the African continent is not yet a vast and aggressive as desired. I thus see
this Association’s privileging of African epistemologies (as in the African
Haiku) to be a convenient platform from which the above ideals can be pursued.
2.
How
do you feel our African oral structures can be used to raise more awareness on
the African Haiku?
Sope: I am inclined to believe that
the rhythm of some (if not most) of the African aphorisms, idioms and proverbs
lend themselves to relatively easy transcriptions into haikus. These genres are
condensed, loaded in dialectical arguments and are highly rhythmic at times. I
also find those that I am familiar with to be judicious in how they deploy
metaphors to articulate the thesis (synthesis) such as it is comparable to that
of the Haiku.
3.
How
would you define a good haiku?
Sope: Aside from meeting the formal
properties that we associate with haiku, I think it should not be contrived. In
other words, it should arise organically from the process of mature observation
and thinking. I also think that it must be rooted in people’s lore or oral
storytelling.
4.
fogbound day...
everyone suffers
myopia
Above
is one of the Babishai 2016 winning haikus, written by BlessmondAyinbire. How
would you describe it?
Sope: I am impressed by the ability
of the author to squeeze an argument within three lines, respectively
comprising five, seven and three syllables. The thesis is introduced in the
first line in the image or metaphor of a ‘fogbound day’ which stands for an
anticipation for a day that will be clear or filled with hope. However, this
sense of optimism is subtly undermined in the second line in which, in contrast
to the first line’s sense of optimism, the speaker remarks that behind hopefulness
is a sense of suffering – perhaps denialism. The concluding line, which describes
the malady remarked uponin the second line as ‘myopia’ or
near-sightedness,carries the synthesis. Ironically in thisdepiction, the idea
of ‘suffering’ is shown to be mediated in a fragile but profound perspective to
life. The poem thus returns us to its opening, main metaphor and paradox of a
‘fog-bound day’. Finally, instead of dismissing those who look forward to a
clear day, the speaker acknowledges the shock absorbing mechanism or therapy
that sustains them.
5.
What do you feel about haikus in non-English?
Sope: I am not familiar with any
Haiku outside of those published in English. As a matter of fact, I have never
heard of any Haiku composed in a South African Black language. I am however
committed to finding out. My hunch is that some of the black idioms and aphorisms
will easily lend themselves to haikus in transcription.
6. South
Africa has actively engaged in protests against the current leadership. ( 2017)
What are your thoughts on protest art?
Sope: I feel that this is indicative of vibrant democracy,
high levels of civic awareness and a keen desire to avert the social,
economical and political dilemmas such as they are commonin many post-colonial
countries.
Protest art: in South Africa, protest art has a long history
of association with the rise and articulations of black politics. However, this
kind of art has yet to adequately engage with the politics of intersectionality.
I find it interesting that this weakness continues to impoverish recent fine
output such as that of AyandaMabulu (I refer to his portraits of rape) and
Zapiro (see his banal and mechanistic sketches of Jacob Zuma).The fashionable
#drama such as #FeesMustFall has been accused of being chauvinistic. We
therefore await with baited breaths how protest art in South Africa will
provide a critique of this phenomenon.
7.
In 2015 during our first Babishai poetry festival, we invited an
environment expert to talk about how as artists we need to care for our
environment. How do you think Art for social change can create positive impact?
Sope: I have always considered art
to be a platform for social change. As a norm, many dictatorships attack people’s
arts, because they emanate from people’s attempts to make meaning of physical
space in their own spiritual and political terms. People’s arts do not care for
extraneous and capitalistic intellectual property.
8.
What are the important current trends in African writing?
Sope: I think they are many. I
mention a few: cosmopolitanism (re-defined as Afropolitanism), Afrofuturism, the
‘ordinary’, eco-critical, shamanism, etc.
9..
Kindly share a brief profile and photo.
Sope: See attachment.
