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Unfamiliar things | Sindiswa Busuku
1 day ago
Sometimes, our daily routine can make the world feel so familiar that we lose touch with our capacity to be surprised by it. It is at such times that we turn to poetry to help us experience it again in all its exhilarating strangeness.
Sindiswa Busuku is a poet and lecturer as well as editor-in-chief of New Contrast magazine. In her debut collection, Loud and Yellow Laughter (Botsotso, 2016), which won the Ingrid Jonker Award in 2018, she explores her origin story, writing in the richly imagined voices of her parents as well as younger versions of herself. This month, she shares the opening stanzas of one of these poems, in which a young child responds to her mother’s inexplicable behaviour.
Read the poem Sindiswa has shared and rediscover the strangeness of the world as experienced through the senses of a child. Then, find a copy of her collection and explore whether she resolves the child’s crisis in the poem or leaves it open-ended.
Notice that, from the beginning, we experience this situation entirely from the child’s perspective. Just like her, we do not have all the information we would need to understand what is happening. We are not told what sort of indiscretion the child suspects. All we know is that her mother no longer smells “of anything familiar”. Clearly, it is precisely the fact that her mother’s behaviour falls outside the scope of her experience that unsettles her.
Of course, not everything in the scene is unfamiliar. The moon and the sky remain recognisable, like the mother’s body under her winter coat. But at the moment when the mother kneels at her bedside, the moon is dead, and her hands “don’t / feel the same anymore. The stars / have gone out.” This is the moment when the child is most aware of her mother’s separateness, and also the moment when she turns and bites the hand that is caressing her face.
At this point, the child clearly feels triumphant. For now, she has reasserted a measure of control over her mother’s body. Her “loud and yellow laughter” (a phrase that is important enough to provide the entire collection with its title) tells us that her confidence has been restored. At the same time, we know that such a triumph must always be temporary: The mother remains a separate being, and the world remains profoundly unpredictable.
In the next few days, write a poem from the point of view of a younger, less articulate version of you. Describe what is difficult to understand from the point of view of this wide-eyed person.
The annual AVBOB Poetry Competition opened its doors for submissions on 1 August. Visit www.avbobpoetry.co.za today to familiarise yourself with the competition rules.
Sindiswa Busuku is a poet and lecturer as well as editor-in-chief of New Contrast magazine. In her debut collection, Loud and Yellow Laughter (Botsotso, 2016), which won the Ingrid Jonker Award in 2018, she explores her origin story, writing in the richly imagined voices of her parents as well as younger versions of herself. This month, she shares the opening stanzas of one of these poems, in which a young child responds to her mother’s inexplicable behaviour.
Read the poem Sindiswa has shared and rediscover the strangeness of the world as experienced through the senses of a child. Then, find a copy of her collection and explore whether she resolves the child’s crisis in the poem or leaves it open-ended.
Portrait of a Mother and Indiscretion
My mother smells of indiscretion
– in fact she smells of strange things.
Not camphor or ZamBuk;
not of anything familiar.
My mother walks slowly, crossing
the bedroom in high-heeled shoes.
In my grey window I see the sky.
In the sky the moon is round. She
hides her smile behind the curtain
lace and whispers, “My child sees
everything.”
I’m waiting for her to hang her
winter coat. I am eager to glimpse
her body. Buttons fall away. She is
kneeling at my bedside, upright.
Her hand on mine. It’s raining. She
is lipsticked and caressing my face.
The moon is dead. Her hands don’t
feel the same anymore. The stars
have gone out. I turn and bite her
sad hand; she flies backwards. I am
loud and yellow laughter…
My mother smells of indiscretion
– in fact she smells of strange things.
Not camphor or ZamBuk;
not of anything familiar.
My mother walks slowly, crossing
the bedroom in high-heeled shoes.
In my grey window I see the sky.
In the sky the moon is round. She
hides her smile behind the curtain
lace and whispers, “My child sees
everything.”
I’m waiting for her to hang her
winter coat. I am eager to glimpse
her body. Buttons fall away. She is
kneeling at my bedside, upright.
Her hand on mine. It’s raining. She
is lipsticked and caressing my face.
The moon is dead. Her hands don’t
feel the same anymore. The stars
have gone out. I turn and bite her
sad hand; she flies backwards. I am
loud and yellow laughter…
Notice that, from the beginning, we experience this situation entirely from the child’s perspective. Just like her, we do not have all the information we would need to understand what is happening. We are not told what sort of indiscretion the child suspects. All we know is that her mother no longer smells “of anything familiar”. Clearly, it is precisely the fact that her mother’s behaviour falls outside the scope of her experience that unsettles her.
Of course, not everything in the scene is unfamiliar. The moon and the sky remain recognisable, like the mother’s body under her winter coat. But at the moment when the mother kneels at her bedside, the moon is dead, and her hands “don’t / feel the same anymore. The stars / have gone out.” This is the moment when the child is most aware of her mother’s separateness, and also the moment when she turns and bites the hand that is caressing her face.
At this point, the child clearly feels triumphant. For now, she has reasserted a measure of control over her mother’s body. Her “loud and yellow laughter” (a phrase that is important enough to provide the entire collection with its title) tells us that her confidence has been restored. At the same time, we know that such a triumph must always be temporary: The mother remains a separate being, and the world remains profoundly unpredictable.
In the next few days, write a poem from the point of view of a younger, less articulate version of you. Describe what is difficult to understand from the point of view of this wide-eyed person.
The annual AVBOB Poetry Competition opened its doors for submissions on 1 August. Visit www.avbobpoetry.co.za today to familiarise yourself with the competition rules.
