Chapbook Chats: Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto Interviews Crying in My Mother’s Tongue: Ukulila Author Qhali
To celebrate KUMI New-Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set, Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto is talking to poets whose chapbooks are included in the KUMI edition of the wonderful ongoing series. Enjoy this conversation between Chinua and and poet Qhali.
Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto: Congratulations on the release of your chapbook, Crying in My Mother’s Tongue: Ukulila, featured in the 2024 New-Generation African Poets series! Could you share your experience of seeing your work published in this acclaimed series, and what it means to you personally and professionally to be part of this important moment for African poetry?
Qhali: This is my first published collection of poetry, and getting published under this series feels like one of life’s warmest embraces. I grew up following the series and its authors, as well as authors who have won prestigious prizes under the APBF. Authors like Safia Elhillo, who received the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, inspired me to be subversive in my resolve to ensure that my mother and father tongues are present on pages that once erased them. Having Safia Elhillo then write the preface of my book felt like something grand and invisible had paused to hug me, give a cheeky wink, and gently push me forward.
Professionally, this publication means I get to move forward with limitless opportunities as an author published under the APBF’s New-Generation African Poets series. I get to engage in conversation with a new cohort of African poets whose work, in response to urgent and senseless times, offer indawo yokuphumla noku sabela (refuge), iyeza (medicine), nethemba (and hope) for more inclusive and nurturing futures. I am also deeply grateful to the APBF for continuing to champion the representation of indigenous languages in literature, which aligns with this collection’s multilingual approach.
C. E-O: How did you arrive at the title for your chapbook?
Qhali: As a child, whenever I was hurt, I imagined myself being inside my mother as the safest place on earth. Years later, in my early twenties, when I was first violated by a man, all I wanted was to return to my mother. Then, a few years later, when I had my daughter, I felt immense joy and a deep need to protect her within that joy. I finally understood why I had envisioned being in my mother during previous moments of pain or sorrow—my belly felt like the safest place on earth for my daughter. But she, too, had to leave to experience what she came here for—both joy and sorrow.
I wrote most of the collection during a year of grieving, however many of the memories that surfaced in that year were long past experiences I had buried or stories I had chosen to forget—a coping mechanism which James W. Pennebaker, a Professor of Psychology, explores in his research on writing to heal, citing that there needs to be a substantial time between the trauma and the act of writing the trauma in an attempt to heal. However, after writing the poems, I felt a profound sense of release and a hope I hadn’t experienced in a while. When I had to assemble this collection for the APBF chapbook series, I realized that both writing and assembling the collection was a form of mourning, remembering, and healing—which is ‘ukulila’ in my mother tongue. I felt that was the title.
As a bilingual writer, I also wanted to include a translation. I sought an isiXhosa and English title that would encapsulate the collection and serve as an invitation to remember, mourn, and begin healing. While the most direct translation of “ukulila” is “to cry,” in my mother tongue it represents a sacred experience of mourning which includes crying. With the title in mind, I envisioned myself crying inside my mother, and thus translated it to reflect how I choose to lament in poetry—crying inside my mother, both in English and isiXhosa, in her language, in the first rhythms I heard in the water.
C.E-O: Can you talk about the organisation and how you chose the poems included in Crying in My Mother’s Tongue: Ukulila?
Qhali: I knew how I wanted the collection to begin and end—with a daughter and a mother. This set the foundation for selecting poems that would tell the story of a daughter who became a mother and a mother who was once just a daughter: two lives intertwined, souls moving between time. It couldn’t be linear because life isn’t. The first poem, “Daughter,” was actually written after the rest of the collection was complete. I sat down, read all the poems from beginning to end, and then penned a mother’s invitation to her daughter—and to herself. This collection is an invitation to women, daughters and mothers, an invention into vulnerability and dialogue.
C.E-O: “Ukulila” is an isiXhosa word meaning “mourner.” As you have mentioned elsewhere, IsiXhosa is your mother tongue. The first thing that came to my mind when I came across the word “Ukulila” was the idea of place and identity. Can you speak on this?
Qhali: Thank you for this question. Yes, the word “Ukulila” indeed presents both place and identity. It was important for me to title the collection in both English and isiXhosa, my mother’s culture and language, especially since the collection serves as an invitation to daughters and mothers.
The title locates my mother’s language, whose culture, in my country, is not automatically mine or passed down if the parents are married or if the child has been accepted into the father’s family following a ceremony called “imbeleko.” Although I am Sesotho because my father is moSotho, I chose to learn to read and write in isiXhosa after both my parents’ languages were set aside for me to attend schools in the suburbs post-apartheid. With all indigenous languages in South Africa under threat, dating as far back as 1652, our memories and identities are also at risk.
In isiXhosa there are words that on surface can mean the same thing, whilst a single word can carry different meanings. For instance, the isiXhosa words “ukukhala” and “ukulila” both translate to “to cry” in English, but in isiXhosa, they evoke different emotional, lyrical, and physical images and are tied to distinct rituals. “Ukulila” refers to crying and mourning—crying from a deep, untouchable place that transforms you, unlike “ukukhala,” which is crying without mourning. Ukulila is a sacred ritual that cannot be disturbed. There is another isiXhosa term, ‘ukuzila,’ linked to mourning but this is specifically a ritual of mourning a passed loved one. When someone mourns, xa elila umntu, you offer them space and whatever support they need, but you do not disturb them—they are navigating their way back to the living, and to disturb them is to risk losing them.
C.E-O: In some of the poems like “Daughter,” “Graves,” “June 17, 1994: Dear Qamata, Why’d You Give Tata Small Hands” and others, there is the use of the mother tongue which is translated into English. How does the use of multiple languages enrich the narrative, and what cultural or personal significance do these phrases hold for you?
Qhali: Using multiple languages in poetry adds texture to the narrative, much like a painting that blends various colors to tell a complex story which is open to the reader’s interpretation. This multilingual approach in literature enriches the narrative, allowing it to capture the nuances of different cultures, creating a more immersive and multifaceted experience for the reader. Languages are a reach into practices, tastes, scents, sounds, rhythms, land, time, and memory. I therefore believe multilingual writers allow their characters and readers to touch these elements, even if only through story and language.
The work of South African multilingual poets, such as vangile gantsho and Isabella Motadinyane, exemplifies the richness that multilingualism brings to literature. The late activist poet, Isabella Motadinyane, who wrote in her mother tongue, English, and Afrikaans during and after apartheid, was able to capture the context of dynamic and urgent times —reflecting a pivotal era in South Africa’s history.
Writer and healer, vangile gantsho, in her use of indigenous language, creates visceral imagery of landscapes, spirituality, and culture, regardless of the subject matter, transporting the reader into the world of her characters.
The cultural and personal significance of multilingual writing for me is based on the reasons above and is furthermore based on the reality that I write how I speak. I am a being with many tongues, which is the experience of many Black South Africans who grew up speaking English in classrooms, their different indigenous languages on playgrounds, and then infusing these languages upon return to our homes because our parents required that we speak our languages but also practice English in front of them, affirming what they were paying for and to ease their fears of the future that they fought for. I believe that multilingual poetry is an act of selfishness, reclamation, honesty, and generosity.
In my writing, I try to offer translations that closely reflect the original meaning. I attempt to only use English translations that at the very least either contribute to the poem’s rhythm or imagery, as seen in “Graves,” where the translation is turned on its head to depict the burial of both body and language.
While this collection is primarily in English—because it is the language I was given access to growing up and it is the language that indeed opens doors for me—I cannot help but step into rooms and with fragments of my languages and culture. To leave them out would be to leave me. I am grateful to the APBF for supporting my use of multiple languages, there is a long battle ahead for the representation of indigenous languages in literature.
C.E-O: In “Daughter,” you explore the duality of light and dark within the context of memory and trauma. How did you approach balancing these opposing forces in your writing, and what message do you hope to convey through this struggle?
Qhali: Once a poem is written, it no longer belongs to me; it leaves, creating space for me to be present alone in the space it left. This practice allows me to immerse myself in the next poem and in the departure of that poem too, until I sit in the quiet awaiting the next poem. I have learned to approach each poem and each life experience, with this practice of presence, acknowledging that a poem of loss might include the soothing scent of a newborn’s hands serving as a healing balm. Some poems offer no comfort at all, only an invitation to remember and let go. This mirrors life’s intimate dance between light and dark, but I have found that love persists in both, with love beginning with oneself, growing to encompass others.
I approached this balance of light and dark by allowing each stanza or poem to unfold as it longed to, without favoring one side over the other. If dark holds you longer at times, then it holds you longer, eventually you both shall let go. I do not view light and dark as opposing forces but as intertwined aspects of human experience, both necessary for a complete understanding of our journeys. I no longer shy away from the dark in my life or writing—whether it’s about loss, trauma, or depression – I tried to and the poems sucked. I think the ritual of writing is itself a process of balancing these forces.
I wrote the poem “Daughter” after completing the collection. The poem as you describe explores this duality and concludes with the character of a mother recognizing the love for a little girl she once was and simultaneously the daughter returning to recognize the love that she always carried. I didn’t set out to convey a specific message, but with the opportunity of this question, perhaps the message is that life is a dance between light and dark, with love as the anchor and light always waiting—to move past the dark one must simply go through it.
C. E-O: The titles of several poems in the chapbook mention a character, Qamata. Can you talk about ‘Qamata’ and your choice to use this poetic device?
Qhali: Qamata is an isiXhosa word representing a supreme being, the source or ‘the creator’ among amaXhosa in South Africa. Even among other indigenous cultures in the country, though the names may differ, there is a belief in ‘a source’. The closest English equivalent is ‘God,’ but the translation and meaning of this term into English are highly contested. This contestation stems from South Africa’s colonial history, where colonizers perpetuated a narrative in which indigenous people were ‘non-believers’ who needed saving. They then wrote into history a depiction of a people living without an awareness and connection to a supreme being, a people separated from the source, until white missionaries—who arrived with colonization—crossed the vast seas, finally reaching the indigenous peoples to usher them into the light with the introduction of a Christian God.
Certainly, the above summary of the relationship between missionaries and colonization is not as cynical, it is simply more violent. Some South Africans oppose the direct translation citing contrasting belief systems whilst other cite the Christian view of Africans as non-believers.
However, despite this contestation, there was no such debate when I was growing up. I knew Qamata to be God and vice versa because, to me, Qamata or God represented the existence of an invisible being who created my parents and their parents, the world, and one who held all the answers. However, as I grew older, both terms—and the source itself— seemed to slip further away from me.
I chose this word for its complexity, it ambiguity, and its ability to locate a people whose history and identity have been left out of recorded history. In the poems where the isiXhosa word is used, these poems are written as letters to Qamata. I chose the epistolary format as a poetic device because letters are sacred and can serve as a medium to lament freely. Initially, the letters to Qamata are written by a child who feels they can only freely communicate with this supreme being. However, as the child grows older, their relationship with Qamata becomes more complicated, and the letters eventually stop.
C. E-O: In your poem, “January 17, 1994: The Pregnant Tree In Our Village” Mamorena, in her lasting presence in Tsolobeng village, is depicted as a mythic figure with a profound connection to nature. What inspired you to create this character, and how does she embody the themes of legacy and transformation? Can you also discuss the significance of the village of Tsolobeng and its role in the poem’s exploration of memory and continuity?
Qhali: Though this narrative presents a phantasmagorical world, it couldn’t be closer to reality for the child who saw her grandmother this way. The character was inspired by my paternal Sesotho grandmother, who lived in a village called Tsolobeng. By the time I was born, she had these blue eyes, and over the years, a hunched back, but to me, she was the tallest being in the world.
I never met my grandfather; he passed away decades before I was born while my grandmother was pregnant with their last born. They had six boys and two girls, but their last born passed away on my grandmother’s back, shortly after her husband, while she was walking to the nearest clinic. This character’s story is based on how a child saw this very real character. The poem seeks to remember my grandmother the way I first experienced her, and still do to this day, as a child. Every night, she would tell us tales, which is why this poem is also written in this style—she was as mythic to me as the characters in her tales.
The relationship between the character and nature is linked to my grandmothers’ tentativeness to her small plot. She spent her days farming on her land, the same land that fed her children and which she relied on as her source of income along with selling other products to the village. When I was younger, I saw my nkgono (grandmother) as a towering tree with enough branches to hold each of her offspring, and their offspring, and so on.
Tsolobeng, the village, is my ancestral land, where she birthed and raised all of her children and where we spent our holidays surrounded by mountains and rivers. She is now buried on that same land, and though her spirit is free, her bones rest there. The significance of Tsolobeng lies in access—not only to her bones but also to those of many other ancestors buried on the same land; it is also access to culture and memories, recalled with each visit to Tsolobeng, both in memory and physically.
C. E-O: “A Dying” is a haunting poem. The poem portrays the intense fear and helplessness experienced during a sexual assault. How did you approach writing about such a traumatic experience? What challenges did you face in conveying the raw emotions and physical experiences of the speaker?
Qhali: “A Dying” is one of the most difficult poems I have ever written. It captures the experiences of many mothers around the world who have been assaulted in the homes they built as havens for their children. This story, however, was very close to home for me. After writing it, I became physically ill. I approached it using a stream of consciousness, placing myself in the house where the assault occurs and immersing myself in the body of the speaker. I wrote many poems about trauma that year, but this one had the most intense impact on me—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. For a long time, I did not read it and I still struggle to, but this is what women have experienced not just read or written.
C. E-O: Why the use of dates in the poems’ titles? How did you intend for the dates to shape the poems and their narratives?
Qhali: The use of dates in some of the poems serves several purposes. Firstly, dates act as anchoring tools, helping the character to return to the memory and the specific period in which the event took place. Poetry functions as much as a tool for memory and healing as it does a form of art. Beginning the poem with a date allows both the character and the writer to journey back to that moment and, importantly, to find their way back from it.
Secondly, dates often introduce journal entries or letters, and some of the poems adopt this format. I chose to write some of these poems in the epistolary form because it offers a certain freedom when writing about trauma or loss.
Lastly, the dates serve to imprint the traumatic act of gender-based violence, which, in environments that uphold patriarchy and sexism, often goes unrecorded or unacknowledged. The dates make these memories indelible, refusing to let them go away unnoticed.
C. E-O: The speaker describes being a witness to Umama’s suffering and the aftermath of Tata’s violence in “June 17, 1994: Dear Qamata, Why’d You Give Tata Small Hands.” How did you approach writing from the perspective of a witness of domestic violence, and what emotions did you aim to evoke?
Qhali: Before writing this poem, I had read several surrealistic works which are my favorite kind, including “Fish in Exile” by Van Khi Nao, and I was deeply fascinated by the author’s approach to their surrealistic style. This style resonates with me because I grew up hearing fairytales from my grandmothers, where everything was magical, paradoxical, and never quite as it seemed.
I approached writing from the perspective of a child, which made it easier for me to write as a witness. Children, while imaginative, are often brutally honest about what they see and feel, especially when they feel safe enough to express themselves. This is why the child in the poem writes a letter to Qamata, a benevolent presence that makes her feel secure.
In the letter, the child brings a complaint against Qamata, then goes on to describe what happens in her home because of the hands Qamata gave to her father. The poem aims to explore how a child might make sense of the violence they witness at home. In the poem, the child attributes her father’s violent acts towards her mother to his small hands, which infuriate him, contrasting them with the mother’s seemingly larger hands—a metaphor for her mother’s character and resilience versus her father’s insecurities. The child tries to understand why her mother stays in a house that drains her blood, seeing it as a ritual of sacrifice—a tradeoff for another day with her indicating that the child is aware of her mother’s love. To survive this reality, the child finds solace in the moon, her companion and co-witness.
The poem takes a surreal approach because I believe that only children can experience such tragedies and transform them into something enchanting as a means of survival.
Chinụa Ezenwa-Ọhaeto is an Igbo and Nigerian poet, fiction and nonfiction writer, and essayist, exploring the themes of culture, religion, lineage, ancestry, divination (dibia afa), post-colonialism, migration and the complexities of existence. His full- length poetry collection, The Naming, will be out on December 1, 2025 with African Poetry Book Fund via Nebraska press. The Naming explores the movements, excesses, and extremes of existing as a postmodern individual, connecting these experiences to familial ancestry and lineage.