Ditaola Di A Itlhathola/The Oracles are Self-Deciphering

Lefifi Tladi’s writing and spoken word sling piercing wisdoms of “word consciousness” and scalding impatience, through his existential harangues, cracking with literary fireworks and intellectual rigor-the-hammer. He floats above like the Mapungubwe Hill bearded eagle, lending wings to Malopo Spirit, Malombo, Dashiki Poets, Malopoets, Last Poets, Ujebe Masokoane, Ingoapele Madingoane, Lesego Rampolokeng, Kgafela Oa Magogodi, Mutabaruka in Jamaica and Malik in Trinidad. He peers unflinching into the abyss of our hesitant times, testifies to its brutal histories with their shameful, salt-less tears and bewildering predicaments. Lefifi is sepoko-the-ghost-come-back dragging a bloody three legged and sooty cast iron cauldron, over-spilling with our brutal past, peering with his red third eye into this present of fake news. His sePedi and seTswana aphorisms and tongue-twisting proverbs, his yawning alliterations, demanding a price for us to pay, to access the bounty of his divine love that leaves us blushing, clutching the rosary at his blasphemous humour. Our comforts may be hidden elsewhere, but please we must listen to his unnerving, his undeniable truths, and bask in the timelessness, in the seeding-words of Lefifi Tladi.

- Vusi Mchunu