| Poet: Pumla Dineo Gqola |
| Title: miniature magicians |
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Pumla Dineo Gqola is a feminist writer and academic. She was educated between 1978 and 1989 in schools in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. She is a graduate of the universities of Cape Town, Warwick (England) and Munich (Germany), and has published poetry, short stories, creative experimental essays and academic articles in various magazines, journals and collections, including Chimurenga, Agenda, Drum, Wasafiri , Postcolonial Text and Tyhume. |
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| Statement: Pumla Dineo Gqola |
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My poem ‘miniature magicians’ plays with a sense of discovery and a kind of freedom that should be the entitlement of all children. The little sister and brother in my poem are alike in some ways, but can be quite individual, and, although they are described, rather than speaking directly for themselves, the voice interpreting them is allocated a subordinate breathing space. I tried to capture a child’s world with the possibility of colour, imaginative playing, and celebrating being good at what they each love. I also wanted to highlight the children’s delight in several things that are unlinked, and the little boy and girl’s desire to pick and choose with complete freedom.
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| I was concerned in this poem, then, with the experience of children who enjoy the rights outlined in the South African Bill of Rights, and how much more there is to the experience of childhood when these rights are protected. The little girl and boy are magical because of the variety of possible ways they live and interact, even when they fight. They are themselves magicians, because they have not yet learnt to be inhibited adults in their exchanges. |
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