Constructing a Poetics of Connections
From Network to Relation in Pandemic Poetry Performances from South Africa
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2174306 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Susanna L Sack (0000-0002-4226-3824, Howard University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue | 3-4 |
| Pages | 575-596 |
| Publication date | 2024-05-18 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Interventions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1369-801X • E-ISSN: 1469-929X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/1369801x.2023.2290567 |
| OpenAlex | W4389866798 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 18 |
This essay analyses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on poetic production in South Africa to theorize connection as a dominant motif in contemporary poetry. In South Africa, poets compensate for the lack of state or market support for the arts through community organizations and collaborations. Under lockdowns, in-person events like open mics were replaced by digital programmes hosted on corporate-owned public platforms like Facebook Live, as artists sought to transmute social capital into material support. Performance poetry, in particular, exploded in popularity, offering comfort and connection amidst isolation. With the turn to the digital, spaces for community formation increasingly reflect the neoliberal logic of the network. The South African literary organization Hear My Voice raised a “Poetry Relief Fund” to pay honoraria for weekly poetry performances on Facebook Live. At the same time, poet and playwright Siphokazi Jonas reconceived her politically urgent poem-play #WeAreDyingHere as an international call to arms, reaching new audiences around the world. These events, alongside international festivals like Zukiswa Wanner’s Afrolit Sans Frontières, created new possibilities for understanding connection within the creative economy. But what kind of community is instantiated through those platforms? Who, specifically, is supported, and under which terms? And how does poetry itself mediate those relationships? I analyse both individual poems and the media platforms in which they are embedded to argue that, if relationality and networks represent two different models of sociality, connection offers a paradigm that acknowledges the ascendance of network modes of production without acceding to their logics
Aesthetics · Art · Digital media · Literature · Media studies · Poetics · Poetry · Political science · Politics · Popularity · Sociology · The arts · Artistic and Creative Research · History · Law · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies · Theatre and Performance Studies
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |