The train as motif in Soweto poetry

Bibliographic Data

ID9003383
AuthorsMegan Jones (0009-0001-4325-3505, Stellenbosch University, corresponding author), Megan E B Jones (0000-0002-3820-7061, Stellenbosch University, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume53
Issue1
Pages21-42
Publication date2016-04-28
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Journal of Commonwealth Literature (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-9894 • E-ISSN: 1741-6442
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0021989416640321
OpenAlexW2345129003
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited16

This article considers protest poetry written between 1961 and 1976. I argue that the Soweto poetry of the 1970s enabled activism that would change Johannesburg’s landscape, facilitating the racial mixing of inner city areas and eroding the segregationist policies that had defined the city from its beginnings. Concomitantly, the paper focuses on representations of the train as a site through which black localities were produced as resistance. Via close readings of poetry by Mbuyiseni Oswald Mtshali, Sipho Sepamla, and Mongane Wally Serote, I show how the train establishes Soweto as a “neighbourhood”, while also constructing a white “other” against which its identity is affirmed

Aesthetics · Art · Identity (music · Literature · Motif (music · Neighbourhood (mathematics · Poetry · Sociology · White (mutation · Gender Studies · History · South African History and Culture

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