Rethabile Masilo

Pamela Mordecai’s poem Thomas Thistlewood and Tom confronts a familiar anger dilemma in the annals of slavery: the disproportionate endurance of the oppressor’s voice. Thistlewood, a historical plantation boss, left behind a particularly detailed diary of his life and deeds. That record, preserved and studied, offers a chilling clarity about the everyday goings-on of plantation cruelty.

POET'S CORNER When it comes to the endless wars of this world, it would seem that rather than us making the same mistakes over and over, we are refusing to see them as mistakes. After all, the reasons for war are cloaked in rationality. The list of wars is so long that it dulls the senses. (Image: Davinci.ai) The dead have a message for us – one we keep refusing to listen to. Across continents and decades, different voices that have been maimed or killed by the same wound are ignored.

The patriarchy has had power for centuries and the results speak for themselves. Isn’t it time for change? The poem Wisdom by Helen Moffett begins: “I’m inclined to trust her, / this woman with a child’s clear vision / who points out the scabrous sores / on the emperor’s bare bum.” It appears in her 2016 collection Prunings (uHlanga). In my view, women often possess a clearer vision than most men, along with a natural ability to notice and call out nonsense.