Young poets express themselves through poetry

During June, Avbob Poetry Project announced a mini-competition on social media inviting South Africans poets, aged 18 and younger, to reflect on their experience of surviving the pandemic.

Avbob has recently released the names of the winners and their amazing poems.

Winners include Kiara Naidoo, Alister Hichens and Athikshay Maharaj who each won prizes of R1 000, R700 and R300 respectively.

Naidoo who is the overall winner, matriculated at Saheti in Johannesburg last year. She moved to Stellenbosch this year to study a BSc in molecular biology and biotechnology. Her poem, Rising Thespians, used the sophisticated form of the villanelle that challenges experienced poets.

Her language and concept engages the reader from the first line, setting the stage powerfully in theatrical fashion for a tragicomic portrayal of the pandemic.

Rising Thespians
Today we wear our Sock and Buskin
To mask in sarcasm callow distress
With youthful pretence we can begin.
Comedic containment with memes akin
As youth we connect; in social media we bless
Today we wear our Sock and Buskin.
With online school to make our heads spin
All that Math and Science is just a guess
With youthful pretence we shall begin.
A mocking façade of what has been
Sanitiser, soap, and all that mess
Today we wear our Sock and Buskin
To hide behind exaggerated grins
The lurking depression and shroud of stress
With youthful pretence we will begin.
Confined within the walls of West Berlin
For even in our home, there is no rest
Today we wear our Sock and Buskin
With youthful pretence we begin.

Second-place winner, Hichens, discovered his love of poetry at Westerford High School and enjoyed publication in the school magazine.

He is studying a BA Law online through Wits University and lives with his mother in Muizenberg. His father died in 2014 suddenly. Alister entered the Avbob Poetry Competition in 2020 and his powerful work, A Poem for my Late Father, that articulates the anguish of losing a parent was published in the Avbob Poetry Library.

His second-placed poem, Covid Diary, takes the form of a daily journal. He succeeds in writing a harrowing yet wry account of facing his mother’s mortality.

Covid Diary
7th June: Mom has Covid. We don’t know who or where from.
8th June: Panic. I have no clue where Mom can stay… I can’t leave the house… who’s going to buy the food… What if I catch it?
9th June: Relief – Jessica orders us groceries. We can eat for a week. Doctor says I must stay inside and self-isolate until next Friday. 10 more days
10th June: I fear things are getting worse – Mom has Covid-induced pneumonia. She isn’t eating, and her cough is horrible. 9 more days.
11th June: Mom’s oxygen monitor readings are low. I sit in my room with my door wide open listening out in case she calls me at any time.
12th June: Mom is still not in good shape. I have to take a new wet towel for her forehead every 2 hours. I spend my day worrying about her.
13th June: The Doctor does some tests on Mom; she says she will be OK. 6 more days.
14th June: She is stabilising… back to normal life on Friday… I can see my girlfriend… go to the gym with some friends… 5 more days!
15th June: Mom is back on her feet.
6th June: I am SO excited to go outside!
17th June: Getting a cautionary Covid test today… don’t want to endanger my girlfriend and her family…
18th June: Just got the results back from the Doctor… Covid-positive.
19th June: 10 more days.

Third-place winner, Maharaj, wrote Suffering Day – a lyrical rap that unpacks the weird world that put his generation into disarray. His rhythm and rhyme beg for a drum beat and a mic.

Suffering Day
Every day same room, same doom, same flow,
I just want to jump in the car with my friends and go
to the mall, to the matric ball,
but covid made all these dreams fall.
I’m dreading hearing the hospital call.
Mom lost her job, I tried to make her tears stop.
People walking around without their masks,
till they see the cops.
My matric year was a fail,
but I tried to hit the hammer on the nail.
Every time a friend coughed,
I just turned pale.
So, I grabbed my pen and my pad,
maybe lockdown won’t be so bad.
I turned the whole world on mute,
this is my commute.
It’s like I’m a lost soul, Covid is the devil,
I met him at the crossroads.
I forgot the feeling of the breeze on my face,
no more smiling at pretty girls in my case.
All the days in my Covid mansion,
reading books, trying to get my brain
to maximum expansion,
all this pain and contraction,
each human being had a different reaction.
Truth is we’re afraid,
so, we sit inside our rooms,
and we pray.
Pray for God to stay,
and take this Covid away.
The government is lying,
trying to keep us calm through the sirens,
people without supplies
were resorting to violence.
A mall became a ghost town,
and people look like clowns,
except they’re all wearing a frown.
It’s a war everyone will remember,
because we’re all in this together,
maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
We will give a fair fight.
Our heroism will shine bright.

Meanwhile, to enter the fifth Avbobo poetry competition opening on August 1, register on www.avbobpoetry.co.za. Poets are welcome to send up to 10 poems each. A first prize of R10 000 will be awarded in all 11 official language categories.

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