Preface

These poems emanate from a challenge to my writerly self. After submitting six poems found in Lauretta Ngcobo’s novel, And They Didn’t Die, Barbara Boswell – the co-editor of Scrutiny 2: issues in English studies in southern Africa, volume 22 (1) 2017, a special issue commemorating the novelist Lauretta Ngcobo’s life and writings – asked me to write notes on my finding and writing process. I did. And then I wondered if I would be able to repeat the process and if so, how different it would be. Then I waited for the novel that would urge me to repeat this process.

A few months later in early 2017 Barbara asked me to write a back cover blurb to her then manuscript, Grace: A Novel, I read the manuscript and wrote the three-sentence blurb. I promised myself I would read the novel when it comes out, this time, for sheer pleasure.

It was during this reading in August that the words began to reveal themselves as they jumped off the pages and demanded my attention. At first, I thought it was because the words were just beautiful. I continued to read determined not to read Grace for the second time aiming for a tangible outcome beyond the sheer pleasure of reading. In time, further along the chapters, I realized that these words were in fact formatting themselves into poems somewhere in an unknown part of my brain. I started paying attention. Then I remembered the vague wonderings I had had the year before, about whether a whole collection of poems from one source was possible…..