There are no free rides. His poem, Getting off the Ride, written in 1977, delivers a series of keenly observed sketches that temper a sense of hopelessness with snatches of courageous optimism and resilience. Written in another, equally difficult era, his words stand as the point of departure for inspiration to interpret where we stand today.

Members were invited to submit an artwork that speaks to themes, thoughts or ideas uncovered in Gwala’s vivid words.

WINNERS

First Prize | Robin Moodley
Second Prize | Kenneth Shandu
Third Prize | Siphesihle Ntsungwana
KZNSA Merit Award | Jessica Bothma

Judges Mario Pissarra, Rachel Baasch and Wonder Buhle commended the works on show and our members diverse interpretations of the theme. The prizes are generously sponsored by the Key Foundation and Claire Lewis, the daughter of Joan Emanuel, was at the gallery to present the awards.

For more information or enquiries, please email gallery@kznsagallery.co.za. To download the poem, click here

from: Getting off the Ride by Mafika Gwala

I know this ride bloody well.
I’m from those squatted mothers
Those squatted mothers in the draughty air;
Those mothers selling handouts,
Those mothers selling fruits,
Those mothers selling vegetables,
Those mothers selling till dusk
in the dusty street of Clermont, Thembisa,
Alex, Galeshewe, Dimbaza, Pietersburg.
Those mothers in dusty and tearful streets
that are found in Stanger, Mandeni, Empangeni
Hammarsdale, Mabopane, Machibisa, Soweto.
I’m one of the sons of those black mamas,
Was brought up in those dust streets;
I’m the black mama’s son who vomits
On the doorstep of his shack home, pissed with
concoction. Because his world and the world
in town are as separate as the mountain ranges
and the deep sea.
I’m the naked boy
running down a muddy road,
the rain pouring bleatingly
in Verulam’s Mission Station;
With the removal trucks brawling for starts
Starts leading to some stifling redbricked
ghetto of four-roomed houses at Ntazuma.
I’m the pipeskyf pulling cat
standing in the passage behind Ndlovu’s barbershop
Making dreams and dreams
Dreaming makes and makes;
Dreaming, making and making, dreaming
with poetry and drama scripts
rotting under mats
or being eaten by the rats.
I’m the staggering cat on Saturday morning’s
West Street. The cat whose shattered hopes
were bottled up in beers, cane, vodka;
Hopes shattered by a system that once offered
liquor to ‘Exempted Natives’ only.
I’m the bitter son leaning against the lamp post
Not wishing to go to school
where his elder brother spent years, wasted years
at school wanting to be white; only to end as
messenger boy.
I’m the skolly who’s thrown himself
out of a fast moving train
Just to avoid blows, kicks and the hole.
I’m one of the surviving children of Sharpeville
Whose black mothers spelled it out in blood.
I’m the skhotheni who confronts devileyed cops
down Durban’s May Street . . .
Since he’s got no way to go out.
I’m the young tsotsi found murdered in a donga
in the unlit streets of Edendale, Mdantsane.

. . .

I’m the puzzled student
burning to make head and tail of Aristotle
because he hasn’t heard of the buried
Kingdom of Benin or the Zimbabwe Empire,
The student who is swotting himself to madness
striving for universal truths made untrue.
I’m the black South African exile who has come
across a coughing drunk nursing his tuberculosis
on a New York pavement and remembered
he’s not free.
I’m the black newspaper vendor
standing on the street corner 2 o’clock
in the morning of Sunday,
Distributing news to those night life crazy
nice-timers who will oneday come into knocks
with the real news
I’m the youthful Black with hopes of life
standing on file queue for a job
at the local chief’s kraal,
This chief who has let himself and his people
into some confused Bantustan kaak
Where there’s bare soil, rocks and cracking cakes
of rondavel mudbricks.
I’m the lonely poet
who trudges the township’s ghetto passages
pursuing the light,
The light that can only come though a totality
of change:
Change in minds, change
Change in social standings, change
Change in means of living, change
Change in dreams and hopes, change
Dreams and hopes that are Black
Dreams and hopes where games end
Dreams where there’s end to man’s
creation of gas chambers and concentration camps.
I’m the Africa Kwela instrumentalist whose notes
profess change.