Mangaliso Buzani

Vonani Bila

Bilakhulu! is a book of seven poems varying in length from three pages to over 30 pages. They are narrative poems, politically outspoken yet personal, buoyant with vitality and humour. Though immersed in the poet’s rural village and the marginalised communities of South Africa’s cities, they embrace the wider world.

Vonani Bila has written: ‘I believe in poetry’s ability to cut across frontiers. It transmits its poison or honey to readers or potential readers in aeroplanes, airconditioned university lecture rooms, mansions, hotel en suites and to their children who roam around our colossal shopping malls. Poetry’s readers may also be found in barbershops, spaza shops, or village schools somewhere in Limpopo, or under trees, in hair and beauty salons, in taxis and bus stations, taverns, churches, stokvels, threadbare soccer fields, or jazz pubs.’