219 books
—
260 voters
Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “Collective Amnesia” as Want to Read:
Collective Amnesia
by
This highly-anticipated debut collection from one of the country's most acclaimed young voices marks a massive shift in South African poetry. Koleka Putuma's exploration of blackness, womxnhood and history in Collective Amnesia is fearless and unwavering. Her incendiary poems demand justice, insist on visibility and offer healing. In them, Putuma explodes the idea of autho
...more
Get A Copy
Paperback, First Edition, 112 pages
Published
March 2017
by uHlanga
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Reader Q&A
To ask other readers questions about
Collective Amnesia,
please sign up.
Be the first to ask a question about Collective Amnesia
Community Reviews
Showing 1-30

Start your review of Collective Amnesia

I read and reread and loved so much poetry in high school, then I don't know what happened. Mostly read dead white men but also some poignant works by South African poets on Apartheid.
Haven't been giving poetry the attention it deserves since, and I know I'm not the only one who can't remember when or how their relationship with poetry began fading away.
Last year during the best book fest in the world, the Abantu Book Festival of course, I got to experience this young and bewitchingly smart poe ...more
Haven't been giving poetry the attention it deserves since, and I know I'm not the only one who can't remember when or how their relationship with poetry began fading away.
Last year during the best book fest in the world, the Abantu Book Festival of course, I got to experience this young and bewitchingly smart poe ...more

Favourite Part:
14 |
To be honest,
I am terrified of lovers who come without baggage
Where do you come from?
Where have you packed your stuff?
Where did you leave it?
Why is it not here?
What are you hiding?
11 |
I want to stop
slaughtering myself
and calling you
the sacrifice
_
Reflexive. Nothing has been forgotten.
14 |
To be honest,
I am terrified of lovers who come without baggage
Where do you come from?
Where have you packed your stuff?
Where did you leave it?
Why is it not here?
What are you hiding?
11 |
I want to stop
slaughtering myself
and calling you
the sacrifice
_
Reflexive. Nothing has been forgotten.

It's not every day that I get offered complimentary copies by publishers and I am mighty glad that it had to be this one.
I've watched a few YouTube videos of Koleka Putuma's and I was in awe of her powerful delivery. Reading a collection of her work is a hundred times more powerful. The poetry is grouped into 3 lots of very uncomfortable works. These are not syrupy let-me-count-the-ways type of poems. These are not sonnets, limericks nor haikus.
There are no forms, rhymes nor defined stanzas. Th ...more
I've watched a few YouTube videos of Koleka Putuma's and I was in awe of her powerful delivery. Reading a collection of her work is a hundred times more powerful. The poetry is grouped into 3 lots of very uncomfortable works. These are not syrupy let-me-count-the-ways type of poems. These are not sonnets, limericks nor haikus.
There are no forms, rhymes nor defined stanzas. Th ...more

This book of poems must be read with mind and book open simultaneously . Putuma expresses interesting , thought provoking and emotive viewpoints on death, Christianity, misogyny, land, race, homophobia , rape, education , God, alcohol abuse, Mandela and many more. The titles of her poems are not obvious. They are out of the box kind of stuff. Her poems are easy to read, especially for people who are not poetry inclined.
Kakstad, Hand Me Downs, Growing Up Black And Christian, On Black Solidarity, ...more
Kakstad, Hand Me Downs, Growing Up Black And Christian, On Black Solidarity, ...more

First I thought, not this again. Political poetry just doesn't work for me most of the time (yes, I know this comes from a place of privilege but I'm talking about esthetics now).
Then I thought, wait, this is actually becoming pretty good.
Then Putuma started writing less political and more personal and I had my doubts about that (personal poetry tends to only become good when it reaches some point of universality, I think, and that can be hard when writing really personal).
Then those poems turne ...more
Then I thought, wait, this is actually becoming pretty good.
Then Putuma started writing less political and more personal and I had my doubts about that (personal poetry tends to only become good when it reaches some point of universality, I think, and that can be hard when writing really personal).
Then those poems turne ...more

“I don’t want to die with my
hands up
or
legs open.”
- Koleka Putuma
Collective Amnesia is a black South African memoir and album of poetries that speaks to and about the silences endured from womxnhood, blackness, religionism, colonialism, traditionalism and lesbianism.
“Her incendiary poems demand justice, insist on visibility and offer healing.” - as per official praise to KP for continually elevating our poetic history as black Africans.
The cryings, the rejoicings, the angers and the voicings in ...more
hands up
or
legs open.”
- Koleka Putuma
Collective Amnesia is a black South African memoir and album of poetries that speaks to and about the silences endured from womxnhood, blackness, religionism, colonialism, traditionalism and lesbianism.
“Her incendiary poems demand justice, insist on visibility and offer healing.” - as per official praise to KP for continually elevating our poetic history as black Africans.
The cryings, the rejoicings, the angers and the voicings in ...more

Here is a review by Lorraine: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
...more

Jul 05, 2017
Zvikomborero Blessing
added it
It doesn’t even make sense to mark this book as read, as in finished, it’s the type of book I will for a long time be “currently reading” (but I have to meet my goodreads reading challenge so its now read)
I have not read or listened to a lot of poetry, just occasionally moved by the popular ones, so this was a great “introduction”.
The poems are gentle, even though they are addressing difficult topics.
The poems read like she sat in my jumbled up brain organised my thoughts and selected the most b ...more
I have not read or listened to a lot of poetry, just occasionally moved by the popular ones, so this was a great “introduction”.
The poems are gentle, even though they are addressing difficult topics.
The poems read like she sat in my jumbled up brain organised my thoughts and selected the most b ...more

Koleka Putuma’s poetry collection titled “Collective Amnesia” is effortlessly written while painstakingly revealing intimate realities faced by black, queer womxn bodies in post-Apartheid South Africa. Her thematic poems underscore contradictions within conservative Christianity, and question the hetero-patriarchal normative that is derivative of Eurocentric colonialism. Her survivorship through traumas is evident in every page, such as growing up in her father/pastor’s home while masking her se
...more

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.

I easily went into this knowing it would be a full five stars. Yes, I did have a hint of doubt at some point but it was immediately gone by the time I started reading it. I've had the fortunate of hearing Putuma read and her poems command attention. The title, "Collective Amnesia" immediately grabs attention. What is this "Collective Amnesia" Putuma speaks about? Being South African, I had an idea. A common idea that we all share as South Africans that something is wrong or offbeat. By calling i
...more

Collective amnesia is a poetry collection that explores the South African Black, queer and womxn experience. The poems are divided into three parts: “Inherited Memory, “ Buried Memory,” and “Postmemory,” which take the reader through Putuma’s life from childhood to present. She writes about the traumas she's experienced and the struggles and complications of being a Pastor’s child while being queer. In addition to the more personal poems, Putuma also explores the politics and history of South Af
...more

Jul 20, 2019
Nyakallo Maleke
added it
Putuma's writes with a tone, prose, a silence and a simplicity that is direct but also detailed with intricate sentiments, metaphors and complexities that are embedded within and experienced by a woman who, by context of the social categories and differences constructed by a cis heteronormative society she cheekily unfolds the complexities and impacts of what it means to be a black /queer/ woman in South Africa, navigating between religious upbringings, navigating between space and ways of defin
...more

Only 4 stars bc I'm not really into poetry, but this was a nice collection of poems.
They were critical, personal, heart-wrenching, confronting and gave unique insights and universal hardships for a person that is on the 'minority' side of the intersectionality scale.
Collective Amnesia takes the bull of collective, convenient forgetting by its horns and is an unapologetic eye-opener.
It also feels like a battle song in some parts: the revolution is coming, and we (people of color, women/womxn, a ...more
They were critical, personal, heart-wrenching, confronting and gave unique insights and universal hardships for a person that is on the 'minority' side of the intersectionality scale.
Collective Amnesia takes the bull of collective, convenient forgetting by its horns and is an unapologetic eye-opener.
It also feels like a battle song in some parts: the revolution is coming, and we (people of color, women/womxn, a ...more

Totally totally amazing book. A definite recommended poetry book, not to give anything away but it covers all aspects of life and makes you think and also questions the cultural and social conventions that we have constructed for our survival. From life, relationships, religion, sexual orientation, apartheid, the land issue (yes that one) and so many other areas, this book visit them all through the lense of poetry and story telling. GET BOOK. READ THIS BOOK. INTERNALISE AND UNDERSTAND THIS BOOK
...more

These are not poems you read but poems you feel and experience. One made me burst into tears and many other had me raving. So good and so honest, it cuts right through all imperialist-white supremacist-capitalist-patriarchal-bullshit. I'm a fan. I've already read most of these poems twice and I know I will turn to them again and again. Thank you Koleka Putuma
...more

Certain of these poems hit me like a brick in the face.
Certain of these poems I couldn't recite to my partner without choking back tears.
Some of these poems gave me an insight I didn't have before into black South Afrika.
All of these poems should be read. ...more
Certain of these poems I couldn't recite to my partner without choking back tears.
Some of these poems gave me an insight I didn't have before into black South Afrika.
All of these poems should be read. ...more

2.5
I've been looking for this book everywhere, I had such high expectations after reading rave reviews. The first 3 pieces are really good, reincarnation was my favourite.
I don't care too much for love/heartbreak poetry so the rest of the book was just o.k. ...more
I've been looking for this book everywhere, I had such high expectations after reading rave reviews. The first 3 pieces are really good, reincarnation was my favourite.
I don't care too much for love/heartbreak poetry so the rest of the book was just o.k. ...more

Engaging with memory, love(rs), trauma, religion, and justice as a queer Black woman in contemporary South Africa, Putuma's Collective Amnesia offers a collection of gorgeous poems that demand multiple readings, ones full of care.
...more

As one who is consistently in pursuit of authors who examine the African narrative, Putuma is the poet I never knew I need in my life. Granted the African experience is broad if anything, but Putuma's poetry book portrays the sameness in those experiences. There's a poem for everyone.
...more

A very interesting & moving conclusion to my visit to Cape Town. I suspect I'll read it a few more times over the next few years.
...more

Aug 12, 2019
Carmen
added it
Loved every moment reading this book.

The closest collection of poetry I've read to me, my time, and my words. References to religion, pop culture, and the connected world
...more
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Related Articles
Danielle Evans was just 26 when she released her short story collection Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self in 2010, a multi-award-winning...
16 likes · 1 comments
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
“Quiero dejar de embellecer las cosas muertas
Mi amor no es un ataúd”
—
1 likes
More quotes…
Mi amor no es un ataúd”