Keorapetse Kgositsile
Encyclopedia
Keorapetse William Kgositsile (b. 19 September 1938 in Johannesburg
) is a South Africa
n poet and political activist, and was an influential member of the African National Congress
in the 1960s and 1970s. He lived in exile in the United States
from 1962 until 1975, the peak of his literary career. Kgositsile made extensive study of African-American literature and culture, becoming particularly interested in jazz
. During the 1970s he was a central figure among African-American poets, encouraging interest in Africa as well as the practice of poetry as a performance art; Kgositsile was known for his readings in New York City
jazz clubs. He was one of the first to bridge the gap between African poetry and Black poetry in the United States, and thus one of the first and most significant poets in the Pan-African movement.
, and grew up in a small shack in back of a house in a white neighborhood. His first experience of apartheid, other than having to go to school outside of his neighborhood for reasons he did not then understand, was a conflict with a local white family after he fought a white friend of his who hesistated when other friends refused to join a boxing club that denied Kgositsile membership. The experience was a formative one, and joined with other experiences of exclusion that increased throughout his teenage years. For Kgositsile, adulthood—being a "grown up nigger"—meant an entrance into apartheid.
Kgositsile attended Matibane High School in Johannesburg, as well as others in other parts of the country. During that time he was able (with some difficulty) to find books by Langston Hughes
and Richard Wright
, and influenced by them as well as by European writers (principally Charles Dickens
and D. H. Lawrence
), he began writing stories, though not yet with any intention of doing so professionally. After working a series of odd jobs after high school, he took to writing more seriously, and got a job for the politically charged newspaper New Age
. He contributed both reporting and poetry to the newspaper. These early poems, anticipating a lifetime of Kgositsile's work, combine lyricism
with an unmuted call to arms, as in these lines from "Dawn":
Any early interest in fiction was replaced by the sheer urgency of communication Kgositsile felt. As he said later, "In a situation of oppression, there are no choices beyond didactic writing: either you are a tool of oppression or an instrument of liberation."
to write for Spearhead magazine (unrelated to the right-wing British magazine
of the same name), but the following year emigrated to the United States. He studied at a series of universities beginning with Lincoln University
in Pennsylvania
, where he "spent a lot of time in the library trying to read as much black literature as I could lay my hands on."
After studying at the University of New Hampshire
and The New School for Social Research, Kgositsile entered the Master of Fine Arts
program in creative writing at Columbia University
. At the same time, he published his first collection of poems, Spirits Unchained. The collection was well received, and Kgositsile was given a Harlem Cultural Council Poetry Award and a National Endowment for the Arts
Poetry Award. He graduated from Columbia in 1971, and remained in New York, teaching and giving his characteristically dynamic readings in downtown clubs and as part of the Uptown Black Arts Movement. Kgositsile's most influential collection, "My Name is Afrika," was published in this year. The response, including an introduction to the book by Gwendolyn Brooks
, established Kgositsile as a leading African-American poet. The Last Poets
, a group of revolutionary African-American poets, took their name from one of his poems.
Jazz was particularly important to Kgositsile's sense of black American culture and his own place in it. He saw John Coltrane
, Nina Simone
, Billie Holiday
, B. B. King
, and many others in the jazz clubs of New York, and wrote to them and of them in his poems. Jazz was crucial to Kgositsile's most influential idea: his sense of a worldwide African diaspora united by an ear for a certain quintessentially black sound. He wrote of the black aesthetic he pursued and celebrated:
Freedom from a constricting white aesthetic sensibility and the discovery of the rhythmic experience common to black people of all the world were, for Kgositsile's, two sides of the same struggle.
Kgositsile also became active in theater while in New York, founding the Black Arts Theatre in Harlem. He saw black theater as a fundamentally revolution
ary activity, whose ambition must be the destruction of the ingrained habits of thought responsible for perceptions of black people both by white people and by themselves. He wrote:
The Black Arts Theatre was part of a larger project aimed at the creation of literary black voice unafraid to be militant. Kgositsile argued persistently against the idea of Negritude
, a purely aesthetic conception of black culture, on the grounds that it was dependent on white aesthetic models of perception, a process Kgositsile called "fornicating with the white eye." This work took place while Kgositsile was teaching at Columbia in the earlier seventies; he left to work briefly at Black Dialogue Magazine.
In 1975, Kgositsile decided to return to Africa despite his blossoming career in the United States, and took up a teaching position at the University of Dar es Salaam
, in Tanzania
. In 1978, he married another ANC exile, Baleka Mbete, who was also living in Tanzania. Still from exile, he renewed his activities with the ANC, founding its Department of Education in 1977 and its Department of Arts and Culture in 1983; he became Deputy Secretary in 1987. Kgositsile taught at several schools in different parts of Africa, including Kenya
, Botswana
, and Zambia
. Throughout this period he was banned in South Africa, but in 1990, the Congress of South African Writers
(COSAW), with which he was already associated, decided to attempt a publication within the country. The successful result was When the Clouds Clear, a collection of poems from other volumes, which was Kgositsile's first book to be available in his native country.
. In 1990, however, it was still a place of great confusion, particularly for the many exiled black writers, artists, and intellectuals pouring into the country. In a 1991 essay, "Crossing Borders Without Leaving," Kgostitsile describes his first trip back to Johannesburg, where he was sponsored by COSAW: "Here are my colleagues and hosts. Can you deal with that? Hosts! In my own country." But it is not his country anymore: "there are no memories here. The streets of Johannesburg cannot claim me. I cannot claim them either." Still, he returned to the country as a kind of hero to young black writers and activists:
Despite that sense of distance from the country, he dove immediately back into politics and cultural activism, and was quick to say that less had changed then should have: "there is the reality," he said in a 1992 interview, "that the South Africa that alienated black people to a very large extent still exists." Kgositsile was quick to criticize black leaders as well as white for this status quo, accusing the ANC of "being criminally backward when it comes to questions of culture and its place in society or struggle." In the early 1990s he served as vice president of COSAW, fostering the careers of young writers while continuing his steady critique of South African politics.
Kgositsile's most recent poems are more conversational and perhaps less lyrical than his earlier work, and, compared to his once-fiery nationalism, they are muted, and even skeptical. They speak of doubt rather than certainty, a doubt often reinforced by rhythmical understatement, as in the short, uneven lines of "Recollections":
is the former Deputy President of South Africa; his daughter Ipeleng (from his previous marriage to the late Melba Johnson Kgositsile
) is a journalist and fiction writer who has written for Vibe
and Essence magazines. His son, Thebe Kgositsile, is also known as the young hip-hop artist Earl Sweatshirt
of Odd Future. Keorapetse Kgositsile has returned to the United States several times, including a visiting professorship at the New School. He was a member of the editorial board of This Day
newspaper in Johannesburg, and remains one of the deans of contemporary South African literature.
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
) is a South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n poet and political activist, and was an influential member of the African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
in the 1960s and 1970s. He lived in exile in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
from 1962 until 1975, the peak of his literary career. Kgositsile made extensive study of African-American literature and culture, becoming particularly interested in jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
. During the 1970s he was a central figure among African-American poets, encouraging interest in Africa as well as the practice of poetry as a performance art; Kgositsile was known for his readings in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
jazz clubs. He was one of the first to bridge the gap between African poetry and Black poetry in the United States, and thus one of the first and most significant poets in the Pan-African movement.
Early life
Kgositsile was born in JohannesburgJohannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
, and grew up in a small shack in back of a house in a white neighborhood. His first experience of apartheid, other than having to go to school outside of his neighborhood for reasons he did not then understand, was a conflict with a local white family after he fought a white friend of his who hesistated when other friends refused to join a boxing club that denied Kgositsile membership. The experience was a formative one, and joined with other experiences of exclusion that increased throughout his teenage years. For Kgositsile, adulthood—being a "grown up nigger"—meant an entrance into apartheid.
Kgositsile attended Matibane High School in Johannesburg, as well as others in other parts of the country. During that time he was able (with some difficulty) to find books by Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
and Richard Wright
Richard Wright (author)
Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...
, and influenced by them as well as by European writers (principally Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
and D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
), he began writing stories, though not yet with any intention of doing so professionally. After working a series of odd jobs after high school, he took to writing more seriously, and got a job for the politically charged newspaper New Age
New Age (newspaper)
New Age was an influential leftist newspaper in Johannesburg operating from 1953 to 1962. It was formed with the co-operation of a number of left-wing groups in the area; New Age received the assets of the communist Jewish Worker's Club, which had been liquidated in 1948...
. He contributed both reporting and poetry to the newspaper. These early poems, anticipating a lifetime of Kgositsile's work, combine lyricism
Lyric poetry
Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...
with an unmuted call to arms, as in these lines from "Dawn":
- Remember in baton boot and bullet ritual
The bloodhounds of Monster VorsterB.J. VorsterBalthazar Johannes Vorster , better known as John Vorster, served as the Prime Minister of South Africa from 1966 to 1978 and as the fourth State President of South Africa from 1978 to 1979...
wrote
SOWETOSowetoSoweto is a lower-class-populated urban area of the city of Johannesburg in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for South Western Townships...
over the belly of my land
with the indelible blood of infants
So the young are no longer young
Not that they demand a hasty death
Any early interest in fiction was replaced by the sheer urgency of communication Kgositsile felt. As he said later, "In a situation of oppression, there are no choices beyond didactic writing: either you are a tool of oppression or an instrument of liberation."
The years of exile
In 1961, under considerable pressure both for himself and as part of a government effort to shut down New Age, Kgositile was urged by the African National Congress, of which he was a vocal member, to leave the country. He went initially to Dar es SalaamDar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam , formerly Mzizima, is the largest city in Tanzania. It is also the country's richest city and a regionally important economic centre. Dar es Salaam is actually an administrative province within Tanzania, and consists of three local government areas or administrative districts: ...
to write for Spearhead magazine (unrelated to the right-wing British magazine
Spearhead (magazine)
Spearhead was a British far right-wing magazine edited by John Tyndall until his death in July 2005. Founded in 1964 by Tyndall, it was used to voice his grievances against the state of the United Kingdom...
of the same name), but the following year emigrated to the United States. He studied at a series of universities beginning with Lincoln University
Lincoln University (Pennsylvania)
Lincoln University is the United States' first degree-granting historically black university. It is located near the town of Oxford in southern Chester County, Pennsylvania. The university also hosts a Center for Graduate Studies in the City of Philadelphia. Lincoln University provides...
in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, where he "spent a lot of time in the library trying to read as much black literature as I could lay my hands on."
After studying at the University of New Hampshire
University of New Hampshire
The University of New Hampshire is a public university in the University System of New Hampshire , United States. The main campus is in Durham, New Hampshire. An additional campus is located in Manchester. With over 15,000 students, UNH is the largest university in New Hampshire. The university is...
and The New School for Social Research, Kgositsile entered the Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
program in creative writing at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. At the same time, he published his first collection of poems, Spirits Unchained. The collection was well received, and Kgositsile was given a Harlem Cultural Council Poetry Award and a National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
Poetry Award. He graduated from Columbia in 1971, and remained in New York, teaching and giving his characteristically dynamic readings in downtown clubs and as part of the Uptown Black Arts Movement. Kgositsile's most influential collection, "My Name is Afrika," was published in this year. The response, including an introduction to the book by Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was an American poet. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968 and Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1985.-Biography:...
, established Kgositsile as a leading African-American poet. The Last Poets
The Last Poets
The Last Poets is a group of poets and musicians who arose from the late 1960s African American civil rights movement's black nationalist thread...
, a group of revolutionary African-American poets, took their name from one of his poems.
Jazz was particularly important to Kgositsile's sense of black American culture and his own place in it. He saw John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
, Nina Simone
Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon , better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music...
, Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
, B. B. King
B. B. King
Riley B. King , known by the stage name B.B. King, is an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter.Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at No.3 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. According to Edward M...
, and many others in the jazz clubs of New York, and wrote to them and of them in his poems. Jazz was crucial to Kgositsile's most influential idea: his sense of a worldwide African diaspora united by an ear for a certain quintessentially black sound. He wrote of the black aesthetic he pursued and celebrated:
- There is nothing like art—in the oppressor's sense of art. There is only movement. Force. Creative power. The walk of Sophiatown totsi or my Harlem brother on Lenox Avenue. Field Hollers. The Blues. A Trane riff. Marvin GayeMarvin GayeMarvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....
or mbaqangaMbaqangaMbaqanga is a style of South African music with rural Zulu roots that continues to influence musicians worldwide today. The style originated in the early 1960s.-History:...
. Anguished happiness. Creative power, in whatever form it is released, moves like the dancer's muscles.
Freedom from a constricting white aesthetic sensibility and the discovery of the rhythmic experience common to black people of all the world were, for Kgositsile's, two sides of the same struggle.
Kgositsile also became active in theater while in New York, founding the Black Arts Theatre in Harlem. He saw black theater as a fundamentally revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
ary activity, whose ambition must be the destruction of the ingrained habits of thought responsible for perceptions of black people both by white people and by themselves. He wrote:
- We will be destroying the symbols which have facilitated our captivity. We will be creating and establishing symbols to facilitate our necessary and constant beginning.
The Black Arts Theatre was part of a larger project aimed at the creation of literary black voice unafraid to be militant. Kgositsile argued persistently against the idea of Negritude
Négritude
Négritude is a literary and ideological movement, developed by francophone black intellectuals, writers, and politiciansin France in the 1930s by a group that included the future Senegalese President Léopold Sédar Senghor, Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, and the Guianan Léon Damas.The Négritude...
, a purely aesthetic conception of black culture, on the grounds that it was dependent on white aesthetic models of perception, a process Kgositsile called "fornicating with the white eye." This work took place while Kgositsile was teaching at Columbia in the earlier seventies; he left to work briefly at Black Dialogue Magazine.
In 1975, Kgositsile decided to return to Africa despite his blossoming career in the United States, and took up a teaching position at the University of Dar es Salaam
University of Dar es Salaam
The University of Dar es Salaam is a university in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam. The university was born out of a decision taken in 1970 to split the then University of East Africa into three independent universities; Makerere University , University of Nairobi and University of Dar es...
, in Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
. In 1978, he married another ANC exile, Baleka Mbete, who was also living in Tanzania. Still from exile, he renewed his activities with the ANC, founding its Department of Education in 1977 and its Department of Arts and Culture in 1983; he became Deputy Secretary in 1987. Kgositsile taught at several schools in different parts of Africa, including Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, Botswana
Botswana
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens are referred to as "Batswana" . Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966...
, and Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
. Throughout this period he was banned in South Africa, but in 1990, the Congress of South African Writers
Congress of South African Writers
The Congress of South African Writers is a South African grassroots writer’s organisation.Launched in July 1987, its initial aims were to promote literature and redress the imbalances of apartheid education...
(COSAW), with which he was already associated, decided to attempt a publication within the country. The successful result was When the Clouds Clear, a collection of poems from other volumes, which was Kgositsile's first book to be available in his native country.
"Your destination remains / Elusive"
In July 1990, after 29 years in exile, Kgositsile returned to South Africa. He arrived in a country wholly different from the one he had left, transformed by the beginning of the end of apartheid and the release and later the political triumph of Nelson MandelaNelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
. In 1990, however, it was still a place of great confusion, particularly for the many exiled black writers, artists, and intellectuals pouring into the country. In a 1991 essay, "Crossing Borders Without Leaving," Kgostitsile describes his first trip back to Johannesburg, where he was sponsored by COSAW: "Here are my colleagues and hosts. Can you deal with that? Hosts! In my own country." But it is not his country anymore: "there are no memories here. The streets of Johannesburg cannot claim me. I cannot claim them either." Still, he returned to the country as a kind of hero to young black writers and activists:
- Usually, when we met, there would be a little amused giggle or mischievous grin from them as we shook hands and hugged or kissed, depending on the gender. When I would want to find out what the joke was so that we could share it if I also found it funny, one or several of them would recite some of my work, complete with the sound of my voice to the degree that had I heard the recitation without seeing who was reciting, I would probably have said, "Wonder when I recorded that."
Despite that sense of distance from the country, he dove immediately back into politics and cultural activism, and was quick to say that less had changed then should have: "there is the reality," he said in a 1992 interview, "that the South Africa that alienated black people to a very large extent still exists." Kgositsile was quick to criticize black leaders as well as white for this status quo, accusing the ANC of "being criminally backward when it comes to questions of culture and its place in society or struggle." In the early 1990s he served as vice president of COSAW, fostering the careers of young writers while continuing his steady critique of South African politics.
Kgositsile's most recent poems are more conversational and perhaps less lyrical than his earlier work, and, compared to his once-fiery nationalism, they are muted, and even skeptical. They speak of doubt rather than certainty, a doubt often reinforced by rhythmical understatement, as in the short, uneven lines of "Recollections":
- Though you remain
Convinced
To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive.
Family and recent activities
His former wife Baleka MbeteBaleka Mbete
Baleka Mbete is the former Deputy President of South Africa. She was previously Speaker of the National Assembly of South Africa from 2004 to 2008....
is the former Deputy President of South Africa; his daughter Ipeleng (from his previous marriage to the late Melba Johnson Kgositsile
Melba Johnson Kgositsile
Melba Johnson Kgositsile was an American civil rights activist. She spent much of her life in New York City, where she was the executive director of the Council on Interracial Books for Children. She was also a vocal critic of apartheid and a supporter of the African National...
) is a journalist and fiction writer who has written for Vibe
VIBE
Vibe is a music and entertainment magazine founded by producer Quincy Jones. The publication predominantly features R&B and hip-hop music artists, actors and other entertainers...
and Essence magazines. His son, Thebe Kgositsile, is also known as the young hip-hop artist Earl Sweatshirt
Earl Sweatshirt
Thebe Kgositsile , better known by his stage name Earl Sweatshirt, is an American rapper and member of the Los Angeles hip hop collective Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All.-Biography:...
of Odd Future. Keorapetse Kgositsile has returned to the United States several times, including a visiting professorship at the New School. He was a member of the editorial board of This Day
This Day
This Day could refer to:Newspapers*Thisday, a Nigerian newspaper*This Day *This Day Music*A song from the album Porcelain by the Emil Bulls* This Day , a song by Emma's Imagination...
newspaper in Johannesburg, and remains one of the deans of contemporary South African literature.
Poetry collections
- Spirits Unchained. Detroit: Broadside, 1969.
- For Melba. Chicago: Third World, 1970.
- My Name is Afrika. New York: Doubleday, 1971.
- Places and Bloodstains: Notes for Ipeleng. Oakland, California: Achebe Publications, 1975.
- The Present is a Dangerous Place to Live. Chicago: Third World, 1975. 2nd ed. 1993.
- When the Clouds Clear. Johannesburg: Congress of South African Writers, 1990.
- To the Bitter End. Chicago: Third World, 1995.
- If I Could Sing: Selected Poems. Roggebaai, South Africa: Kwela and Plumstead, South Africa: Snailpress, 2002.
- This Way I Salute You. Cape Town: Kwela and Snailpress, 2004.
Other books
- The Word Is Here: Poetry from Modern Africa. New York: Anchor, 1973.
- Approaches to Poetry Writing. Chicago: Third World, 1994.