Syncretism as a strategy of political resistance in the poetry of Lesego Rampolokeng

Abstract

This article deals with the importance of hybridity and syncretism in postcolonial and postapartheid writing as ways of resisting dominant political and cultural discourses. Specifically it concerns the poetry of Lesego Rampolokeng as an example of this strategy. It examines specific cultural influences that give Rampolokeng's poetry its syncretic and non-aligned aspect, notably praise poetry and the poetry of the Black Consciousness movement. The syncretism of Rampolokeng's work can also be related to poetry of the diaspora, in particular the Caribbean dub poets. The argument demonstrates how Rampolokeng uses the debasing techniques of Caribbean dub and the tactics of the carnivalesque to subvert privileged forms of "high art" poetry and de-centre hegemonic discourse. This demonstration is based on a brief comparison of the verse of Rampolokeng and the Caribbean-English poet, Benjamin Zepheniah, noting the similarities in their textual strategies of resistance