Ten Flapping Elbows, Mama

the long version

Lisa Combrinck, Sowetan, 30 July 2004 This is an interesting collection of poetry since a new voice is brought to light that speaks in experimental language and through a literary, metaphorical and mythical landscape he can call his own. Like the poetry of Lesego Rampolokeng, it also pays tribute to a previous generation of urban poets who wrote in and about Johannesburg. The title poem ten flapping elbows, Mama, is both a sad tribute to his late mother, but also an acknowledgement of the influence that Mongane Wally Serote has had on South African literature.... The book is filled with descriptions of cityscapes that resemble wastelands, with "neon songs", "concrete shrouds" and "cotton wool words". In his poemdramatic - a poem that tries to combine drama and prose as well - the main character is a massgravedigger and the door to the future "is a contraceptive / reeking of wreath or confession of pus / inside a pimple mole". Yet even here, the poet through his characters searches for liberation "so that I may find a cure for a crinkling road" and tries to make meaning out of cracks and skids and skewed directions, so that the right path and direction can become a living reality. Nxumalo's poems can also be tender and filled with love as both creation and also creativity. The poems are also filled with references to oceans, so that one feels the freedom of meandering and being sea-bound. Like the lines from the Swahili quoted by Mineke Schipper in her book on African literature entitled Imagining Insiders, Nxumalo would probably agree that "knowledge is like an ocean. Once needs to embrace it with one's arms."