New word order – SA slam poet Xabiso Vili’s ‘battle cry’ conquers the globe

Xabiso Vili began writing poetry at just 12 years old. His passion for poetry is what has kept him alive: “It is how I have coped and made sense of the world around and inside me.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP3YPlABNmw

His upbringing in rural South Africa has shaped his work as a poet and how he navigates the poetry space. “As a born male and being raised to be traditionally masculine, while interacting with my blackness and queerness, there are so many stories I have unravelled within and around my identity that many South Africans can resonate with,” he says.

When Vili performed his slam poem, Forget How to Die, in Brussels in the final round of the World Slam Poetry Competition, it was, he explains, the realisation of one of his lifetime dreams – the poem is a universal piece that speaks to marginalised communities, from women to queer communities to black people.

“I brought this title home for other South African poets who are looking toward the future. 

“It was a reclaiming of life, a battle cry that we will no longer die at the hands of society, of ourselves, and of the bureaucratic world we are leaning toward,” Vili explains.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGDKFsymem4

Now 31, Vili is an award-winning performer, writer, new media artist, producer, digital strategist and social activist. He has released an album, a one-man show and a poetry collection, and co-authored a young adult novella, to name a few of his achievements.

Vili plans to use this title to “explore what spaces poetry can access and what kinds of societal healing poetry can bring about”. 

“I’m strategising the ways that poetry can shift the world… I’m imagining the reality that poetry can change our society, starting with healing individuals.”

Read in Daily Maverick: Saving African poetry from obscurity

A step forward for South African poetry

He’s passionate about South African poetry, noting that it operates like a mirror in which other people can see themselves. South Africans are able to find profound healing, insight and understanding through coming together and bearing witness to each other’s stories. He believes South African poets are doing vital work, trying to make an impact; they are “innovating” and “exploring new mediums of creation”, he says. “South Africa has the best poets in the world, and it is a ripe breeding ground for some of the most powerful poetry I’ve ever seen.” 

Vili has travelled all over the world and met many international poets who have influenced him, but “there is something about South Africa’s history, dynamics and languages, and being born into a culture and tradition of protest, that allows such incredible insight into the human and political condition of the country”, he adds. 

Xabiso Vili is the winner of the 2022 World Slam Poetry Competition. Image: Supplied

Xabiso Vili performing. Image: Supplied