Indigenous South African poetry as conduits of History: Epi-poetics – a pedagogy of memory

Abstract

This conceptual article argues that a pedagogy of poetic memory, or epipoetics, can be used to remember and 're-member' the past in the present in the history classroom. Epi-poetics as a theory encapsulates the dynamic interplay of language (including indigenous poetry), the body (both physical and psychological remembering of the past) and the socio-cultural and physical environments in memory construction. As a pedagogy, epi-poetics allows for the indigenisation of the curriculum by tapping into Indigenous Knowledge constructs, specifically indigenous poetry and how it relates to memory, trauma and history. The indigenous poetry is both a source of memory, and, therefore history, and a fount and font of inter-generational experience and trauma.

Decolonisation through Poetry: Building First Nations’ Voice and Promoting Truth-Telling

“…It also involves carefully interrogating our own entangled histories, geographies, cultural knowledge and standpoints, as feminist scientist Sandra Harding (2004) and Torres Strait Islander scholar Martin Nakata (2007) have argued. We are a team of First Nations Australian and transcultural Australian and South African writers, who have been inspired by the work of the transcultural South African Poetry Project (ZAPP) team (Byrne 2014;Genis 2019;Newfield and Bozalek 2018;Newfield and d'Abdon 2015;Newfield and Maungedzo 2006). The ZAPP project prompted Catherine to bring together a team of First Nations and non-Indigenous colleagues from diverse disciplines and from other Australian universities to begin working on an Indigenous Australian poetry project.…”

“…Writing in Australian and a number of global contexts, scholars have foregrounded the importance of poetry as a significant vehicle for the retrieval, revitalisation and ongoing growth of Indigenous Knowledges (e.g. Byrne 2014;Genis 2019;Martiniello 2002;Newfield and Bozalek 2018;Newfield and Maungedzo 2006). Genis (2019, 60) proposes the use of "a pedagogy of poetic memory, or epipoetics" in history classrooms, which incorporates "the dynamic interplay of language (including indigenous poetry), the body (both physical and psychological remembering of the past) and the socio-cultural and physical environments in memory construction".…”

Poetic Bodies: Weavings of Bodies, Languages and Environments in War Poetry by S.E.K. Mqhayi

“…The concept of poetic bodies can also serve as a methodology and pedagogy for teaching and learning indigenous poetry and poetry with marked traces of loss in the school and university classroom. The three-tiered, or rather three-aspect approach of the Bodily, Inner Bodily and Outer Bodily can be consciously applied to assist learners, students, teachers and lecturers to analyse, experience and re-embody poetic texts in the classroom (Genis 2019).…”

“…These poems were created to be performed, and the oral, gestural, visual and spatial modalities become as important as the written in analysing and understanding the poem. Analysis and experience can not be separated (Genis 2019). The Mendi death-drill that accompanied Wauchope's izibongo is a case in point: the dramatic or theatrical meaning of the poem is lost if it is only read and analysed as a written text.…”

“…These languages were and are still used to embody narratives that are deeply embedded in the social, cultural and historical memory of South Africa. The ancient tradition of storytelling and poetry in all these languages is part of South Africa's literary fibre (Genis 2019).…”