VONANI BILA (South Africa)

By IM Soqaga

Bilakhulu, a newly minted poetic book by Vonani Bila is already dazzling and attracting colossal number of literary aficionados.  Literary pundits have since highlighted that this is another triumph by the author; as witness:

“Vonani Bila’s voice in Bilakhulu! is as buoyant and direct as ever; his emotional range is broad, incorporating humour and lament. These seven narrative poems, ranging from three to 35 pages in length, are grounded in the poet’s family and village, but at the same time making visible the wider forces that impinge on rural life. They are engaging and politically outspoken yet personal, and filled with vitality and humour.”

Bila is a multifaceted, vigorous and prolific outstanding bard whose proud origins hack back to the Limpopo province (South Africa).  His latest remarkable book of poetry Bilakhulu which is his latest offering in a glittering career is published by Deep South Publishing.

Over the years, Bila’s contribution to literature has earned him an enormous respect in the world as the bard who has the powerful gift to write in English and in African indigenous languages.  Moreover, he constantly endows his community with profound assistance, as he is the founder and editor of the Timbila poetry journal and directs the Timbila poetry project, editing newspaper Community Gazette and working with schools and other institutions.  He has been instrumental in getting the works of rather marginalised poets into circulation, and has been a nurturing inspiration for aspiring poets, holding workshops and actively encouraging new voices.

Bila’s proverbial works which embody African pride are significant in the sense that they have facilitated and promoted quintessential literature amongst African people.  Centrally, he is widely known as an intriguing voice of the African people, proud of his rural background.  Tentatively, he may sometimes be mistakenly considered as someone who might have “negative” ideas about social or political issues in his country.  Also to somewhat his poetical expression can also be viewed as some sort of antagonism towards the democratic government in South Africa.

However, a broad minded reader who is au fait with Bila work’s of poetry will simply fathom that Bila poems touches genuine aspects of life.  From a Pan African perspective Bila can be regarded as a courageous bard who might not necessarily concur with halcyon equanimity which in actual fact does not exist. 

Arguably Bila might even hardly be accepted in certain countries of Africa because of his honest unequivocal expression about the woeful malady that wreaks havoc in so many of our African societies  His poems contain essential messages that are pertinent in our societal context.  Rhetoric and delusional political promises, good moral conduct and rural improvement are some of his concerns in his poetry.  Below are some excerpts of his riveting poems:

Beautiful Daughter

Beautiful daughter
Stop walking at night
It's too dark
There's no light in this land
The sun has long died
You'll be pricked by thorns
Fall into a donga

Beautiful daughter
This morning eagles discovered her
Your petite friend with brazen long hair
The girl with dark-liquid eyes
Song-bird, leader of the church choir
Eagles discovered her this morning
Lying in a pool of blood
Skirt torn apart, a rag
Her throat throttled
Her sharp, pointed breasts missing
Virgin girl, now a frozen corpse
No white sheet nor blanket
To cover her disfigured body

In the name of Amandla 

In the name of Amandla
Tell me what has changed in this village
There's no food in the kitchen
Bare children with chapped lips can't go to school
Another hungry child knocked down by a rich man's car
The child is gone, the rich man contributed a cheap coffin
Everyone thought he would rot in prison.
It's winter, the school has no desks, textbooks & windows
Our leaders send their children to private schools
Ask them

Bila will always be the embodiment of African pride that earnestly hankers for development of his own African people.  His extraordinary literary prowess needs to be recognized as engrossing.  For the fact that he can brilliantly write in African languages, Bila a poet writing in English and Tsonga has authored at least eight storybooks in English, Northern Sotho and Tsonga for newly literate adult reader.  Obvious Bila must be a figure to be reckoned with in making sure that African languages are popularly supported.

Protagonists like Bila can also be used to translate African indigenous literature into English.  Bila has performed his poetry in Africa and abroad and some of his best poems have been translated into different languages of the world.  Bila has performed in Belgium, Sweden, Holland, Ghana and Brazil. In 2005, he was nominated for the Daimler Chrysler 2005 South Africa Poetry Award.

Africans should be vividly audacious and be keenly inspired by fascinating literary works of Bila’s poetry.  Africa as big as it is, also has a huge number of countless writers who also write in their mother tongue.  It will be beneficial therefore for millions of inhabitants of Africa to get access to this precious literary material view translation. 

For the benefit of literacy, Africa with its sublime indigenous writers can bring another groundbreaking experience by making sure that indigenous books produced by African writers are translated into languages of the West that are used in Africa like French, Portuguese, English and Arabic too.  Consequentially, indigenous African writers need to ponder the availability of modern technology as an opportunity to disseminate literature throughout Africa and beyond its borders.

Bila’s impressive literary odyssey continues...

Works by Bila

Handsome Jita : selected poems by Fred Vonani Bila

I love Ohazurike

In the name of Amandla

Magicstan fires

Pension money

The girl with a golden tooth

Magweya

Mali ya mudende

Bilakhulu! : longer poems by Fred Vonani Bila