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Johannesburg-based poet Thabiso Mohare (‘Afurakan’) looks at how digital platforms are serving poets across the continent, from emerging writers to established voices, and particularly those carrying forward ancient oral traditions. He meets the poets and entrepreneurs spearheading developments, and explores the possibilities of what the digital space can offer poets in African countries where there is a lack of publishing infrastructure, or publishers are pulling back from poetry.

Badilisha Poetry X-Change, based in Cape Town, is creating an online audio archive of the work of African master poets across the continent, carrying out valuable work in preserving and archiving oral traditions, or orature. Linda Kaoma is Badilisha’s project manager, and it is her job to track down such poets and record them. Also based in Cape Town, but looking north across the whole of Africa, Bozza offers the opportunity for anyone with an internet connection to share their poetry, music and video content, in any language, and talk to their own community.

Thabiso talks to Mak Manaka, one of the poets excited by the opportunities to carve their own path, not only against those who value a published collection as proof of your worth, but also against the European model of success. And he talks to a mentor, professor Keorapatse Kgositsile, the poet laureate of South Africa, asking what the role of the poet has always been in African societies, how that translates into the online space, and what he sees the pitfalls as being.

(Photo: Poet Thabiso Mohare. Credit: British Council)