In the rhythm of our daily routines, the world can easily lose its wonder. We become so accustomed to its familiar motions that we forget to be astonished by it. Yet, poetry—at its most potent—has the power to return us to that place of raw awareness, where language stirs the senses and the world feels new again.
South African poet Sindiswa Busuku, a celebrated writer, lecturer, and editor-in-chief of New Contrast magazine, captures this very tension between the known and the strange in her work. Her debut poetry collection, Loud and Yellow Laughter (Botsotso, 2016), which earned her the Ingrid Jonker Award in 2018, delves into the complexities of memory, family, and identity. Through her writing, Busuku brings to life the voices of her parents and her younger self, exploring the intricate ways in which personal history shapes perception.
This month, Busuku invites readers to revisit that childlike sense of wonder and confusion with the opening stanzas of her poem “Portrait of a Mother and Indiscretion.” Seen through the eyes of a child, the poem unravels a moment of both tenderness and bewilderment—where a mother becomes suddenly foreign, and love takes on an edge of mystery.
From the very first line, Busuku immerses us in the consciousness of a child—one who senses change but cannot yet interpret it. The world is filtered through sensation: smell, sight, and touch. When the mother “smells of strange things,” the poem signals the beginning of an emotional shift. The familiar symbols—the moon, the coat, the stars—lose their steadiness as the child struggles to understand this new, unknowable version of her mother.
The child’s response—biting her mother’s hand—becomes a powerful act of reclaiming control in a moment of confusion. The “loud and yellow laughter” that follows is both an expression of defiance and fragility, embodying the child’s effort to make sense of a world that has suddenly turned unfamiliar.
Busuku’s poem reminds us that the journey of understanding begins with disorientation. It is through our confrontation with the unfamiliar that we rediscover meaning, both in others and within ourselves.
Imbizo Reflection
In the spirit of Sindiswa Busuku’s work, we invite our readers to look inward. Write a poem from the perspective of your younger self—one who could feel but not yet explain. What memories remain vivid, strange, or unresolved? What did the world look like before you learned its rules?
Rediscover your own unfamiliar things.