Strange Things

Mzi Mahola's childhood was spent at the foot of the Hogsback. He was educated in Port Elizabeth Lovedale and Healdtown and at the time of publication, he was an educational officer with the Port Elizabeth Museum. His life spans the experience of a whole Eastern Cape generation - a peaceful though poverty-stricken rural family with its traditions intact, coexisting with the political awareness and militancy of the past 1976 generation. His deceptive simple lucid poetry has a deep respect for the processes of nature and for traditional wisdom. It is the record of a man sadly watching these processes erode while embracing the political anger which replaces them. His work is a search for a common morality traditional and political. He is a poet writing got his people, insisting that they do not oversimplify issues. Urging them not to jettison their past as they move into the future. Published in 1994 by Snail Press. This volume received positive reviewing and was amongst those selected to represent South Africa in Geneva in a World Book Fair in 1995. Numerous translations of this collectionMy Soul MateWe entered into a covenantto tread this path togetherback to backfight our battleswater and nurse one anotherand let on one put us asunder. Yes, we knew thatno union of two mindsis ever faultlessbut all these yearswe have not knownthe taste of our tears. Our greatest ambitionif God so desiresis to shuffle the final stretchto the finishing pointholding our hands. We vowed to die with our secretof which I need not remind you;now it's forty-two yearssince we made the promise. Beyond that horizonlooms our destination. It will benefit our offspring,if we unwrap the secret,before the sun sets,peel it to the last leafreveal what kept our lantern glowingour fountain flowingwhat fanned our lovetightly glued our familyand fundamentallywhat kept our faith rooted. My soul mate,for all these virtuesI thank you abundantly. I Dedicate Strange Thingsto my wife Lulu and childrento my peopleto friends who encouraged me to writeSuzie Mabie and Robert Berold. I Should Commit a CrimeSuddenly it dawns in methat I should unslingmy haversackset fire to the parliament houseso that I too can be internedseeing that I lack the knackto be a stranger to shameand make my family proudby bleeding the state bone dry