Mdantsane Breathing - Celebrating Mdantsane

Mdantsane Breathing is my latest book, a coffee table hard cover lavishly illustrated poetry book which is first of its kind describing in poetry and watercolors the vibrant culture of Mdantsane which is the second biggest township after Soweto.
The world knew about the Soweto Uprising, the Sowetan Poets and Winnie Mandela who still lives there.
The popular news paper The Sowetan remains a mark of courage during the apartheid times and after.
But nobody wrote about Mdantsane and its heroic participation against the apartheid government.
This book brings to you for the first time of a strange life that insists to be told and that persists within all of us who were witness of those struggle days.
A poem and water color of Siviwe is on the jacket flap of this book
Siviwe is a former soldier of Umkhonto We Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress.
The book is dedicated to the brave people of Mdantsane.

Wikipedia -About Mdantsane


Mdantsane Breathing
Publisher - Poets Printery, South Africa
ISBN - 978-0-620-46040-8
Price - Rand 760 including postage

Women carrying water

women carrying water
take the gravel road to home
fields and a sky
enter a conspiracy
to shun the sun
children play the coke tops
on a placid river afternoon
mdantsane sings to the occasional rushing
wind
and cars that never stop
there.

Poetry and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Waiting for taxi

waiting for a taxi
going to town
a sun drenched afternoon
picks up the green instead
distant clouds remain aloof
share this spectacle
in suburban
mdantsane.

Poem and Watercolor by Amitabh Mitra

Mdantsane Girls

Preparing for my next exhibition, this one is a water color/pastel drawing in a pine frame

From my Art Collection

Early nineteen century watercolor with its original frame

Siviwe, Poems of Mdantsane

so much has changed
there is no longer the bush war nor
the beatings
siviwe only remembers a sky that staged
a sudden coup
on his dreams and disparity
the sky
the sun
and the overgrown road looks different now
he thinks of the stars
what was once promised to him
his proud khakis still in his shack
tries to stop
a bleeding
river.

Drawing and Poem by Amitabh Mitra

Tembeka

a rustic sun
in stealth
catches
tembeka
through stained glass windows
droplets of green
turns
day
into deeper shades
of a lingering smile.

Poem and Drawing by Amitabh Mitra