‘Lost or Found World’ Mongane Wally Serote (1944-)
Skies of truth are now scenes
At the mercy of my curtain eyes, Theatre
I wink often more often, Tears
To draw the curtains Blood – ink
Flowers
To cut and forget the skies. Bees
Old
The sea of identity is tears, New
A too salty expression
Bleeding my blue veins that’s my pen,
On the loose sands that shall sip,
And the wind shall help cover it,
From the needy arteries.
Mountains of hope are flowers,
Passes attracting cars like bees,
For the precious modern honey,
That is money.
This modern madness
Snaps flowers from their stems
Leaves dry dead bodies, walking up the street.
Old wishes is present deeds,
Bright with blinding for old
Dark with wonder for the new,
That’s where we are
Lost or found world!
, Biographical information
• Grew up in Alex and Soweto.
• Instrumental in uprising.
• He was politized with the ANC and BC in high school.
• Put in solidarity confinement in 1969.
• He wrote this poem shortly before he went into exile in USA: Captures his torn
feelings to SA.
• He got an arts degree from Columbia, worked in Botswana as a Sangoma.
Meaning/ message
Black consciousness agenda and personal grappling with his relationship to South Africa
Imagery/ figures of speech/ Diction
Takes natural imagery and combines it with the struggle of apartheid.
Structure:
• Irregular:
→ line length and number of lines in each stanza differs.
→ Some lines are enjambed some aren’t (lines are fragmented).
• Inconsistent rhyme scheme (sky, eye; honey, money).
• Emphasises a broken South Africa is. He is torn and inconsistent in the way he views
South Africa.
Tone/Mood
Depressing, fearful, muddled, disorientated.
Skies of truth are now scenes
At the mercy of my curtain eyes, Theatre
I wink often more often, Tears
To draw the curtains Blood – ink
Flowers
To cut and forget the skies. Bees
Old
The sea of identity is tears, New
A too salty expression
Bleeding my blue veins that’s my pen,
On the loose sands that shall sip,
And the wind shall help cover it,
From the needy arteries.
Mountains of hope are flowers,
Passes attracting cars like bees,
For the precious modern honey,
That is money.
This modern madness
Snaps flowers from their stems
Leaves dry dead bodies, walking up the street.
Old wishes is present deeds,
Bright with blinding for old
Dark with wonder for the new,
That’s where we are
Lost or found world!
, Biographical information
• Grew up in Alex and Soweto.
• Instrumental in uprising.
• He was politized with the ANC and BC in high school.
• Put in solidarity confinement in 1969.
• He wrote this poem shortly before he went into exile in USA: Captures his torn
feelings to SA.
• He got an arts degree from Columbia, worked in Botswana as a Sangoma.
Meaning/ message
Black consciousness agenda and personal grappling with his relationship to South Africa
Imagery/ figures of speech/ Diction
Takes natural imagery and combines it with the struggle of apartheid.
Structure:
• Irregular:
→ line length and number of lines in each stanza differs.
→ Some lines are enjambed some aren’t (lines are fragmented).
• Inconsistent rhyme scheme (sky, eye; honey, money).
• Emphasises a broken South Africa is. He is torn and inconsistent in the way he views
South Africa.
Tone/Mood
Depressing, fearful, muddled, disorientated.
