Phumlani Mhlanga

Phumlani Mhlanga was born in the small town of Estcourt, Natal Midlands near the Drankensburg Mountains. Back and forth he would visit his relatives in Pimville, Soweto where he resided for some time.  Most of the poems in this collection were written during a time when the ‘beauty’ of criticism enormously emerged, so much so that he shied from performing his work. An informal event hosted by Likwid Tongue Movement at the Victoria Theatre afforded him the one opportunity to give a short reading. As is the case with so many young artists, insecurity about his writing - in comparison to the seemingly highly competitive Johannesburg poetry scene - led him to proclaim a personal vow: to write a poem every day and never again step up to a podium, feeling it was a waste of his time to rehearse what he had written. Phumlani has written more than 1000 poems from 2005 until the present (2012). Phumlani writes poetry out of love, and life experiences; moreover from the embroidered menacing, incessant desire to break all the rules in modern poetry.  His writing style is moulded around his admiration of the works of DH Lawrence, poet Atukwei Okai, Douglas Reid Skinner, Ngungi Wa Thiong’O and Herman Charles Bosman.