FORMER Witsie and 2004-05 SRC president Mohlouoa Ntsasa is on the brink of launching a ground-breaking “one-of-a-kind” poetry book. Poetic Therapy contains 170 poems and is the first poetry book in Africa to contain all 61 recognised different poem types.
Poetic Therapy showcases some of Ntsasa’s best language and literature work. The poems depict a diversity of contemporary issues such as love, gender, divorce and the origins of Africa and South Africa.
“The use of language should be beyond mere communication, so this book helps preserve the mathematics of language and is aimed at inspiring people to express themselves and feel enthusiastic about language,” said Ntsasa, whose curiosity about language motivated him to write the book.
Another unique feature of the book is that it contains the world’s longest palindrome, a piece of writing containing words and phrases such as “eye”, “121”and “madam” which can be read forward and backward and still make sense.
The 335-word palindrome makes Ntsasa the first poet in the past 100 years to write one longer than 226 words.
This wordsmith, academic, linguist, poet and grammarian will launch Poetic Therapy midyear in Johannesburg and people interested in attending the launch can e-mail booklaunch@ymail .com. People at the launch will receive a Poetic Therapy hamper which includes a signed copy of the book and DVD and a poetry compilation CD. There will be live performances by national and international poets, authors and comedians.
The book will also be launched in Canada, India and Poland.
Otshepeng Mmelesi, BA African literature student, said: “I love poetry [I] and always read it; I will definitely attend the launch because it will be valuable and worthwhile.”
For further information visit www.ptdejavu.co.za
