What is it about?
It is about poetry curricula in formerly colonized nations. The article challenges foreign canonical curricula. Instead it advocates using indigenous poetry and the poetry of local communities in education. Using South Africa as a case study, it promotes and discusses local contemporary poems. The concept of indigeneity is stretched to include contemporary, hybridized ideas.
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Why is it important?
It is important in education at all levels to include poems that speak to local audiences at all levels of the educational spectrum from early education through to university. This advances and promotes indigenous cultures and arts.
Perspectives
I believe in and have experience of teaching foreign canonical poetry as well as local and indigenous poetry. It is crucial in my view to include both in curricula, but the emphasis of the article is on the local. I would love to see the issue debated, particularly in relation to the poems discussed in the article.
Professor Denise Newfield
University of the Witwatersrand
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Living Archives and the Project of Poetry Recurriculation in South Africa, Scrutiny2, September 2020, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/18125441.2020.1864460.
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