RAISING LITERARY STANDARDS

By Kgosietsile Dintlhoane

Black Literature in Free State Province

…Don’t hurry to get published, Kgosietsile Dintlhoane, warns

First of all I would like to mention that I have no particular author
in mind, I am writing these notes to share with my fellow writers some
of the things I think they should know before they can even think of
publishing their work. I have read a lot on African and international
literature, be it novels, poetry, plays, essays, literary criticism,
biographies, auto-biographies and any other genre which I may not have
mentioned here.

I have enjoyed especially poetry, essays, biographies and
auto-biographies of various authors both home and abroad. Early in my
writings I was lucky enough to have met with Ntate Flaxman Qoopane who
read my work, probably my earliest work at the time and advised me not
to hurry in publishing my work. I value the advice a lot even today as
I can see today that it could have been a great regret had I published
what I wrote then.

Dear friends, maybe I should talk a bit more on why I value the advice
I got from Ntate Qoopane. Well the story begins in my high school
years where we were fed Euro-American literature from when we first
entered high school and in my case until I completed standard nine. In
Standard 10 we read Bessie Head’s “Maru” and before this I believed
that writers in the English language were white as we never read a
colored author before let alone black. To stretch the story even
further, I would like to mention that at home my father being a
teacher never really bothered with the type of books we were reading. The only thing he was interested in was a report to check the results.

Another thing that I would like to pose as a question, a question I
began asking myself after reading Ngugi wa Thion’go was who decides
what is to be read in the English curriculum by black kids in township
schools? Is it the HOD or the principal or the inspector or a body
elected to deal with such matters? Again, whoever decides
basis his/her decision on what, on what grounds is he/she allowed to
prescribe books written by whites (it does not matter whether is
Foreign or South African whites) in township schools; whereas there was
never a situation where you would find even in white public schools
books written by blacks or coloreds for that matter.

I have always had conversations with both Ntate Qoopane and Ntate
Bolaji about the material produced by our black authors in our
province. To summarize here, ideally a good book must be physically attractive, the content must show sterling reading and writing patterns; real writers are readers and
are supposed to write regularly; and also – perhaps the most important - is to write about what you know. I have read most of the books written in our province since 1996 and cannot say I
was moved by more than ten percent of them.

One grievous mistake that people make when deciding to become authors
is the illusion that they will make money out of writing. Let me be
the first to tell you, that is just being naïve. Great authors died
paupers simply because no matter how good authors they were, people
don’t buy books in numbers let alone poorly written books. The only
time when you can make some money out of writing would be when your
book gets prescribed for schools and universities. I can say in confidence that only about less
than ten black authors in Free State currently stand a chance of that
happening to them.

I would like to nip my note down to the art of writing poetry, I am
not an expert and do not claim to be one, it is just that I have read
a lot in this genre and learned a thing or two. First let me express
my dissatisfaction with what slam poetry has caused. We have today
probably 80% of plastic poets in Free State Province calling
themselves poets because they sat down and wrote something about
themselves and called it poetry.

I ask myself all the time why do people in my province hurry to
publish, and came to a conclusion that it could have everything to do
with wanting fame or thinking that they will make money out of their
writings. It saddens me a great deal to hear people talk in the street
that Free State poets are “playing” as compared to KZN, Jozi or Western
Cape poets. I think we should focus as a province on creating a group
of professional editors or maybe just two professional editors to edit
our work before we consider putting it out there on the shelves. I can
understand what these spoken word sessions try to achieve and do not
disagree with the intention; just the content of what is blurted out to
the public.

I am a concerned aspiring Free State Poet and I challenge all aspiring
writers and poets of my province to rise above what some think of us
by other writers in other provinces and begin to realize how important
it is to take time to sharpen the skill as well as share with
professionals one’s draft manuscript for perusal and advice so that
by the time one considers to publish, the material is worth
publishing.

I hope my note will be read in a positive light, those with BIG egos
will probably want to criticize me, or label me arrogant, bastard or
whatever fancy name they will think of; well you are more than welcome
to and those with open minds I am available to help.

With all the love in my heart

* Mr. Kgosietsile Dintlhoane, a poet and literary essayist, formerly wrote a column titled “The Bibliophile” for Free State News.