Palimpsests: Poems Based on the Classics that Speak to the Present by C. Mann

Abstract

Reviewed by: Palimpsests: Poems Based on the Classics that Speak to the Present by C. Mann Sihle Ntuli Mann, C. 2021. Palimpsests: Poems Based on the Classics that Speak to the Present. Cape Town: Dryad Press. Pp. 60. ISBN 978-1-990992-26-1. ZAR200. Palimpsests is a 2021 poetry collection by the late South African poet Chris 'Zithulele' Mann, published by Dryad Press and released not long after his untimely death in March 2021. In the same month, The Johannesburg Review of Books published his obituary, which serves as an appropriate tribute to a highly celebrated literary career.1 Throughout the article and the collection, it is abundantly clear that Mann was a South African poet who immersed himself in the indigenous Nguni culture of South Africa. The book's subtitle reads, 'poems based on the classics that speak to the present' and this is the broader focus that this review will consider. In particular, the question of whether these poems really do speak to the present requires an in depth look at Mann's sentiments as they are presented throughout Palimpsests. In addition, it is important to acknowledge that Palimpsests serves as the final message of one of the major figures of South African poetry. One main challenge that Mann takes on in this collection is the inclusion of numerous classical elements in ways in which the modern reader is able to grasp. In the book's preface, Michael Lambert explains the significance of the collection's title: 'Like many words in English, "palimpsest" originates in ancient Greek: it conjures up a manuscript written on parchment so precious that one text is rubbed out and replaced by another' (p. xi). Lambert was an appropriate choice to write the book's preface as his academic record reflects a classicist acutely aware of the field's need to locate itself together with, rather than against, black South African cultures.2 Mann has chosen to grapple with the modern world sometimes directly, though more often indirectly, through a recentering of the Classics. From this position he offers subjective observations of the present. He has chosen to utilize a hybrid approach that conflates elements of contemporary history with antiquity. The reader is presented with a question of balance, however, and particularly the question of whether the subject matter in this collection is weighted too heavily in favour of one side or the other. Mann begins philosophically; the opening poem 'Heraclitan heresies' immediately sets the tone for what is to come and, more importantly, is [End Page 292] programmatic of what Palimpsests sets out to do. The opening couplet begins, 'So what if map and satellite | can fix your place in space and time?' (p. 1). Mann sets up his poetic apparatus of comparison by way of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus, who was known for the assertion that everything is in a state of flux. 'Heraclitan heresies' does the work that an opening poem of a collection should do, which is to capture the reader's interest and lay down the work's foundations. The reader is quickly confronted with notions of unity and the balance of self: 'Is life not flux sinewed by strife? | Is strife not bonded in the whole' (p. 1). The structure of this work as a whole is the juxtaposition of a series of comparisons between the ancient world and banal everyday life. This is seen particularly in poems such as 'The curse of Sisyphus' (p. 10), 'The Ithaca of the internet' (p. 22), and 'The plague of Athens (430-426 bce)' (pp. 31-36). Next Mann forefronts his South African present with indigenous Nguni elements: poems such as 'The clan bard of the Drakensberg' (pp. 11-13) and 'A picnic beside Hlambeza Pool' (pp. 16-17) are representative of this mode. It is also seen especially in 'In praise of the shades' (pp. 18-19), in which the shades are what the abeNguni refer to as the amadlozi, or 'ancestral spirits'. The poem is particularly notable for being one of the few instances of a specific indigenous-culture element composed in a way that is not comparative. The third, and most striking of these references...