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Reimagining the path | Sihle Ntuli
18 days ago
How can we embrace the future with confidence yet hold onto the best that the past has to teach us?
As South Africans celebrate Heritage Day on 24 September, the AVBOB Poetry Project pays tribute to the work of Sihle Ntuli, award-winning poet and academic. He has released three full-length collections and two chapbooks. His most recent collection, Owele, was published by uHlanga in 2025. In its pages, he explores the history, rituals and ceremonies of his tribe, clan and family in searching, evocative language, both in English and in isiZulu.
“The choice to include poems in isiZulu came quite late,” Ntuli explains. “But I do feel it was appropriate. There are poems here that act as a last line of defence for philosophies of the indigenous. The only way to have done justice to such questions was to ask them in Zulu. I wanted to write a collection that moved away from the urban and focused on the rich landscape of KwaZulu. There is definitely a sense of return and reclaiming but also a reimagining of what it means to be Zulu in a contemporary world that almost demands that we assimilate in order to be seen.”
Ntuli admits to feeling a sense of discomfort as he started writing in his mother tongue, especially as someone who has lived in the city for a long time. (He describes his neighbourhood as one where “only the sound systems refuse / to die. The presence of an elder no longer lulls subwoofers to sleep…”)
One particularly moving poem, ‘Mother’, which could be addressed to a language as well as to a person, begins: “I barely hear you / as I speak / inside // thick coats / of theirs…” It continues:
Asked what celebrating Heritage Day means to him in this context, Ntuli stresses the importance of mutual tolerance and deep listening across cultures and generations.
“Ideally, cultures should be in conversation with one another rather than assimilating and merging into one. Co-operation is only possible if everyone is willing to participate in cultivating harmony. To learn, to listen while learning, to wait for your turn to lead having learnt, to lead, to yield and let others lead, to provide guidance, and sometimes even teach those who are leading. I feel this is how it should have been, but isn’t.
“Heritage is something we should carry with us everywhere we go. To celebrate Heritage Day is not merely to remember where we come from but also the opportunity to reimagine how we will walk the paths ahead.”
Towards the end of the collection, in a poem called ‘You Are the Elders Now’, Ntuli finds a piercingly beautiful image for the sense of continuity and co-operation that can be so elusive in an ever-changing world:
In the next few days, write a poem in which you enter into a conversation with something precious that you consider to be part of your heritage.
The annual AVBOB Poetry Competition opened its doors for submissions on 1 August 2025. Visit www.avbobpoetry.co.za today and learn more about what you have to do to enter your best words.
As South Africans celebrate Heritage Day on 24 September, the AVBOB Poetry Project pays tribute to the work of Sihle Ntuli, award-winning poet and academic. He has released three full-length collections and two chapbooks. His most recent collection, Owele, was published by uHlanga in 2025. In its pages, he explores the history, rituals and ceremonies of his tribe, clan and family in searching, evocative language, both in English and in isiZulu.
“The choice to include poems in isiZulu came quite late,” Ntuli explains. “But I do feel it was appropriate. There are poems here that act as a last line of defence for philosophies of the indigenous. The only way to have done justice to such questions was to ask them in Zulu. I wanted to write a collection that moved away from the urban and focused on the rich landscape of KwaZulu. There is definitely a sense of return and reclaiming but also a reimagining of what it means to be Zulu in a contemporary world that almost demands that we assimilate in order to be seen.”
Ntuli admits to feeling a sense of discomfort as he started writing in his mother tongue, especially as someone who has lived in the city for a long time. (He describes his neighbourhood as one where “only the sound systems refuse / to die. The presence of an elder no longer lulls subwoofers to sleep…”)
One particularly moving poem, ‘Mother’, which could be addressed to a language as well as to a person, begins: “I barely hear you / as I speak / inside // thick coats / of theirs…” It continues:
I wonder
if I still have enough
of you saved
for the day
I walk barefoot
in the rural rustic land
of Zulu
how else might
I let relatives
long lost
know in words
that I’ve become
more accustomed
to shoes, that the
bareness of grass
fields hurt my feet?
if I still have enough
of you saved
for the day
I walk barefoot
in the rural rustic land
of Zulu
how else might
I let relatives
long lost
know in words
that I’ve become
more accustomed
to shoes, that the
bareness of grass
fields hurt my feet?
Asked what celebrating Heritage Day means to him in this context, Ntuli stresses the importance of mutual tolerance and deep listening across cultures and generations.
“Ideally, cultures should be in conversation with one another rather than assimilating and merging into one. Co-operation is only possible if everyone is willing to participate in cultivating harmony. To learn, to listen while learning, to wait for your turn to lead having learnt, to lead, to yield and let others lead, to provide guidance, and sometimes even teach those who are leading. I feel this is how it should have been, but isn’t.
“Heritage is something we should carry with us everywhere we go. To celebrate Heritage Day is not merely to remember where we come from but also the opportunity to reimagine how we will walk the paths ahead.”
Towards the end of the collection, in a poem called ‘You Are the Elders Now’, Ntuli finds a piercingly beautiful image for the sense of continuity and co-operation that can be so elusive in an ever-changing world:
hard to break the tar rigid roads underfoot yet even through all this
their whispers still come to us saying you are the elders now.
their whispers still come to us saying you are the elders now.
In the next few days, write a poem in which you enter into a conversation with something precious that you consider to be part of your heritage.
The annual AVBOB Poetry Competition opened its doors for submissions on 1 August 2025. Visit www.avbobpoetry.co.za today and learn more about what you have to do to enter your best words.
