{"title":"“我所能看到的我的国家”:Mxolisi Nyezwa诗歌选集中不稳定的表现","authors":"Kyle Allan","doi":"10.1080/1013929X.2020.1795347","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"With poems that convey concisely the existential state of living in precarity, Mxolisi Nyezwa offers a unique and crucial voice in South African literature. This article discusses representations of precarity and related concepts of “slow death” (Berlant 2007), “slow violence” (Nixon 2011), and “cruel optimism” (Berlant 2011), focusing on several selected poems from Nyezwa’s (2011) volume Malikhanye. The article engages with his ability to react to precarity via the revitalisation of language and the effective mobilisation of innovative aesthetic strategies. Nyezwa’s poems foreground the precarity that has been experienced through socio-politico-economic factors, including the often neglected factor of environmental degradation; they also emphasise the process(es) of grieving and the concept of grievability, and encourage an embrace of human vulnerability, while simultaneously connecting personal loss to the greater context of societal precarity. His work reveals that a revitalisation of poetic language can react to and challenge precarity.","PeriodicalId":52015,"journal":{"name":"Current Writing-Text and Reception in Southern Africa","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2020-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/1013929X.2020.1795347","citationCount":"1","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"“All I can See of My Country”: Representations of Precarity in Selected Poems of Mxolisi Nyezwa\",\"authors\":\"Kyle Allan\",\"doi\":\"10.1080/1013929X.2020.1795347\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"With poems that convey concisely the existential state of living in precarity, Mxolisi Nyezwa offers a unique and crucial voice in South African literature. This article discusses representations of precarity and related concepts of “slow death” (Berlant 2007), “slow violence” (Nixon 2011), and “cruel optimism” (Berlant 2011), focusing on several selected poems from Nyezwa’s (2011) volume Malikhanye. The article engages with his ability to react to precarity via the revitalisation of language and the effective mobilisation of innovative aesthetic strategies. Nyezwa’s poems foreground the precarity that has been experienced through socio-politico-economic factors, including the often neglected factor of environmental degradation; they also emphasise the process(es) of grieving and the concept of grievability, and encourage an embrace of human vulnerability, while simultaneously connecting personal loss to the greater context of societal precarity. His work reveals that a revitalisation of poetic language can react to and challenge precarity.\",\"PeriodicalId\":52015,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Current Writing-Text and Reception in Southern Africa\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.1000,\"publicationDate\":\"2020-07-02\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/1013929X.2020.1795347\",\"citationCount\":\"1\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Current Writing-Text and Reception in Southern Africa\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1080/1013929X.2020.1795347\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"N/A\",\"JCRName\":\"LITERATURE\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Current Writing-Text and Reception in Southern Africa","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1013929X.2020.1795347","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"N/A","JCRName":"LITERATURE","Score":null,"Total":0}
“All I can See of My Country”: Representations of Precarity in Selected Poems of Mxolisi Nyezwa
With poems that convey concisely the existential state of living in precarity, Mxolisi Nyezwa offers a unique and crucial voice in South African literature. This article discusses representations of precarity and related concepts of “slow death” (Berlant 2007), “slow violence” (Nixon 2011), and “cruel optimism” (Berlant 2011), focusing on several selected poems from Nyezwa’s (2011) volume Malikhanye. The article engages with his ability to react to precarity via the revitalisation of language and the effective mobilisation of innovative aesthetic strategies. Nyezwa’s poems foreground the precarity that has been experienced through socio-politico-economic factors, including the often neglected factor of environmental degradation; they also emphasise the process(es) of grieving and the concept of grievability, and encourage an embrace of human vulnerability, while simultaneously connecting personal loss to the greater context of societal precarity. His work reveals that a revitalisation of poetic language can react to and challenge precarity.
期刊介绍:
Current Writing: Text and Reception in Southern Africa is published bi-annually by Routledge. Current Writing focuses on recent writing and re-publication of texts on southern African and (from a ''southern'' perspective) commonwealth and/or postcolonial literature and literary-culture. Works of the past and near-past must be assessed and evaluated through the lens of current reception. Submissions are double-blind peer-reviewed by at least two referees of international stature in the field. The journal is accredited with the South African Department of Higher Education and Training.