Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “Collective Amnesia” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

Collective Amnesia

Koleka Putuma (Goodreads Author)

4.49 · Rating details · 324 ratings · 45 reviews

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

More Details... Edit Details

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

Lists with This Book

Anticipated Literary Reads For Readers of Color 2017

219 books — 260 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

Average rating 4.49 ·

Rating details

· 324 ratings · 45 reviews

More filters

Sort order

Start your review of Collective Amnesia

Apr 24, 2017 Boitshepo rated it it was amazing

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

flag 14 likes · Like · see review

Apr 18, 2019 Nicole Scavino rated it it was amazing

Shelves: people-recomendations, poetry-not-bullshit, femminista

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.

flag 9 likes · Like · see review

Apr 08, 2017 Lorraine rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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

flag 8 likes · Like · see review

Jun 25, 2017 Puleng Hopper rated it it was amazing

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

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Jun 25, 2018 Sipho Lukhele rated it it was amazing

I not really a poetry fan and I loved this book. The language is accommodating and most of the themes I can relate to. Some of the poems are less than five lines yet fully packed and will get leave you thinking.

Koleka is an important voice and is gifted!

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Jul 15, 2020 Nora Kirabo rated it it was amazing

This book made me weep and somehow consoled me simultaneously. This book felt like a gospel to keep returning to.

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Feb 10, 2018 Francine Maessen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, feminism

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

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

May 11, 2019 M. Ainomugisha rated it it was amazing

“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

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jul 23, 2017 Lorraine rated it it was amazing

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

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Feb 28, 2021 Chandra rated it it was amazing

This book of poetry is illustrative, powerful, and something I will return to to read again.

flag 1 like · Like · see review

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

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jan 18, 2019 Anh Nguyen rated it it was amazing

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 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 sexuality, being raped by a family member, undergoing a miscarriage with her abusive, arranged husband and challenging a society that doesn’t recognize her as legitimate. Putuma’s work epitomizes resistance through art; she bears the emotional labor for her South African counterparts to unlearn the entrenched roots of slavery, colonialism, Apartheid society, and white-imposed Christianity. She empowers readers to relive her suppressed vulnerabilities in order to truly understand the aftermath impacts of centuries of exploitation. Koleka Putuma strategically links seemingly unrelated themes of patriarchy and colonialism because to be a male’s private property is all too similar with a white settler claiming land and slaves as private property.

Putuma wants readers to wholly grasp the difference between power in people versus power in people, endowed by white approval. In other words, 1994 did not mark the end of Apartheid and beginning of justice. Instead, it marked a façade of post-racial society in which black people are implicitly second-class citizens. For example, as Putuma remarks in “1994: A Love Poem”: “I want (...) a lover who will build Robben Island in my backyard and convince me that I have (…) freedom,” (Putuma 101). This line demonstrates how colonizers developed a political exile for heretics, and albeit its closure in 1991, the island still represents everlasting struggle. Likewise, in her subsequent poem titled “Mountain”, she makes note of the Native Land Act of 1913 to illustrate the reverberating impacts of territorial segregation which has now lead to modern gentrification.

Furthermore, Koleka Putuma explores the contradictory nature of her Christian upbringing that preaches love and equality, while condemning the LGBTQIA community and subordinating women. Growing up with a pastor father, Koleka questions the blind reverence of a white Jesus imposed upon them by settler-colonialists. In her poem, “No Easter Sunday for Queers”, she questions “tell me if God can love us them unconditionally and be homophobic at the same time,” (Putuma 30). This powerful line tells readers of the homophobia within Christianity that only further propagates Eurocentric agenda of heterosexual reproduction for productivity. In a similar piece, “X-Mas Dinner with Skeletons”, Putuma opens up about her religiously devout uncle who raped her. She articulates, “madness sits at the dinner table, too, saying grace with one eye open,” (Putuma 94). Putuma reveals intersecting values between the patriarchy and the church and how both aim to diminish the woman’s body and autonomy. Lastly, Putuma concludes “No Easter Sunday for Queers” with an open letter to her father in which she states, “Would you preach about me? And what would you say? My daughter was murdered yesterday or a lesbian was murdered yesterday,” (Putuma 33). In which, she notes that even her own family has disowned her, favoring God over one’s kin.

Koleka Putuma reintroduces the theme of black womxnhood within her works to unpack intersectional feminism. This is demonstrated through her curt yet stark piece, “Memoirs of a Slave and Queer Person,” “I Don’t want to die with my hands up or legs open,” (Putuma 75), symbolic of how her body is both violently policed and sexually violated for being a black lesbian. When comparing Putuma’s art to similar work, Bev Ditsies’ “Simon and I” also exposes patriarchal motives within revolutionary movements that undermine womxnhood. This is problematic because womxn are therefore not only systematically oppressed but are challenged within their own safe spaces. Much like how Bev Ditsie distanced herself from the GLOW organization to make woman issues like rape more amplified, Koleka calls out revolutionaries that put womxn at the frontlines of violence. In fact, she dedicates an entire poem towards the names of womxn who have sacrificed their lives for liberation and justice—a powerful retort against mainstream activism. Koleka Putuma belongs on this list of womxn revolutionaries for her poetic, radical take of a true South African “struggle song”.
...more

flag Like · see review

Jan 18, 2019 Callan Garber rated it it was amazing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Through Putuma’s haunting and transformative prose, Collective Amnesia reveals the scars white colonialism and apartheid have left on the black South African communities. The collection of poems are divided into three parts; “Inherited Memory, “ Buried Memory,” and “Postmemory,” take the reader through Putuma’s life from her childhood to present. The content is heavy; at times every next word is more distressing than the last, weaving into haunting stories that leave both the reader and Putuma r Through Putuma’s haunting and transformative prose, Collective Amnesia reveals the scars white colonialism and apartheid have left on the black South African communities. The collection of poems are divided into three parts; “Inherited Memory, “ Buried Memory,” and “Postmemory,” take the reader through Putuma’s life from her childhood to present. The content is heavy; at times every next word is more distressing than the last, weaving into haunting stories that leave both the reader and Putuma raw, together.

Colonialism, specifically European imperialism, is not a new concept. From a Western perspective– especially an American perspective– colonialism has created everything around me–it is woven into the very fiber of my being. However, to me, and perhaps to others, it can be easy to forget what came alongside the benefits of European expansion–which was, inarguably, the systemic mass murder of indigenous groups. Putuma demands that we remember the history written in the blood of those deemed “extinguishable” by the body politic. Her poetry, most notably the poem “Water,” (which is available for listening ((for free!)) on YouTube) forces us to confront the reality of the past. The images she paints are uncomfortable to observe at times, but her bewitching language transfixes you, and you can only sit and watch as she continues to paint the “other” side of history. She responds like a viper to attacks on her culture, countering jibes on blackness by ripping back the curtain. In reply to stereotypes regarding a stereotype surrounding a fear of water by black families, Putuma writes, “Yet every time our skin goes under,/it’s as if the reeds remember that they were once chains,/and the water, restless, wishes it could spew all of the slaves and ships/onto shore,/whole as they boarded, sailed and sunk.” The image is jarring, but it reveals a history that has been excluded from the international discourse, one that has been conveniently forgotten by the aggressors. Putuma is here to remind us.

Beyond its political and historical commentary, Collective Amnesia serves as Putuma’s personal journal, as she gives us a glimpse into her own personal trauma. Putuma’s personality comes alive on the page– she is unabashed and unafraid, poised for attack. However, the intensity persona that Putuma embodies through her poetry does not always seem to match the persona she presents to the world. In particular, Putuma’s interactions with family suggest a timidity that is not present in other parts of the collection. For example, in “No Easter Sunday For Queers” touches on Putuma’s fear to come out to her family (“Twenty years of hiding who and how I love/A family I cannot shame”). The poem, which is formatted as a bullet-pointed list, gradually picks up pace as Putuma becomes fixated on the commonness of violence against queer women of color, her words and thoughts racing as she wonders if she could become another statistic (she was queer/she was straight/…/a fact/ a figure/ a number/ a body/dead body/dead lesbian body/…/all because of hate/…I could die.). The tone quickly shifts, as she begins to ponder about her father, a preacher, and the beliefs he sermonizes. She imagines her father preaching about the “blood of queer bodies/lesbian bodies,” and begins to wonder if her father would preach about her to his congregation if she were to be murdered in cold blood, another victim of hate crime. She reflects “I wonder,/Should I be murdered tomorrow,/Would he, my father, preach about me with the same passion he preaches about the death of a white man he has never raised?,” a heartbreaking contemplation for a daughter to have about her father. Her writing shifts for a final time to a more dulcet tone, addressing her father as “Daddy.” The closing stanzas illuminate Putuma’s insecurities surrounding her father’s affection for her; specifically, a fear that his love for her is not genuine. “Daddy?/Would you even preach at all?” she asks him, questioning how he would react to her imagined death-by-hate-crime. Her voice is restrained, and the timidity of her speech denotes the skepticism she has for her father. Is she significant to him? Or would her death be written off as yet another figure in an ever-growing list?

Collective Amnesia is a piece of work that seeks to disrupt your day to day. We have forgotten the reality of our global history, and Putuma aims to remind us. And it is a righteous piece of work, forever linking the injustice and suffering of black history to the histories we know. ...more

flag Like · see review

Aug 08, 2018 Sandisiwe Magadla rated it it was amazing

Shelves: lgbtqiap

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 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 it "Collective Amnesia" there's a suggestion that we're all suffering from it but some, like the speaker in the book haven't. The speaker isn't described and I took a step back from assuming that Putuma and the speaker might be the same person because I don't know and I don't want to make that assumption.

The poems evokes vivid and realistic imagery. In "Growing Up Black & Womxn" Putuma writes, "if our underwear drawers could speak they would bleed (I tell you) pillows would hemorrhage on our behalf". I could not stop imagining all this blood. Dark red blood spilling out of marginalized genders bodies because of the violence. And Putuma reveals this violence in most of the poems. Putuma is not afraid to talk about all the silences and how violent they are. In the blurb of the book, Collective Amnesia and Putuma are described as demanding justice which most of these poems do.

But while most of these poems address and call out violence, some are about loss, memory, belonging and you'll find yourself surprisingly laughing at some lines. I found myself giggling a bit in "No Easter Sunday for Queers" when the speaker is at church and the pastor is talking, "He is preaching about our sins/about crucifixion /how it can save us
I am bored/and hungover/and horny". I found the last lines so funny. Because whose thoughts have not wandered away while some man went on and on? And this humor does not just end there. In "Black Joy", Putuma addresses this notion of black people seemingly being miserable all their lives by talking about growing up and these moments of joy. I reluctantly agreed with this poem. I say reluctantly because it is very easy to see how similar Putuma's poems are to the black South African experience and for me, some of what Putuma described wasn't necessarily a joyful moment but it isn't Putuma's responsibility for it to be.

I borrowed the copy I read from a good friend of mine but as soon as I have the funds I will with no doubt get myself a copy because this book cannot be read once. ...more

flag Like · see review

Sep 24, 2020 Onyishi Uju rated it it was amazing

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

flag Like · see review

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

flag Like · see review

Oct 11, 2018 Jacqueline rated it really liked it

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

flag Like · see review

Jan 23, 2020 Ferdinand rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

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

flag Like · see review

May 15, 2017 Fleur rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2017, poetry

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

flag Like · see review

Mar 22, 2019 LitGirlLiv rated it really liked it

This was the first book of poetry I’ve ever read. I picked it up during a trip in Johannesburg. I especially enjoyed the poems: No Easter Sunday for Queers, Coming Home, 21 Ways of Leaving, Promise Land, Water, and 1995: A Love Poem.

flag Like · see review

Jul 30, 2019 Patrick Al-de Lange rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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

flag Like · see review

Sep 19, 2019 Caroline rated it it was ok

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

flag Like · see review

Feb 06, 2020 i. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: blackness, black-feminism, poetry

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

flag Like · see review

Mar 02, 2020 Mac Samora rated it it was amazing

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

flag Like · see review

Mar 17, 2020 Bjørn Treumer rated it it was amazing

Wow awsome book, very powerful poetry and it hit me hard in a good way. Its a MUST, read it now. I have read it in Danish and English. I preferred the English version.
A book that I will read again and again

flag Like · see review

Dec 01, 2017 Kathleen Ebersohn rated it it was amazing

Utterly stunning. Koleka Putuma speaks frankly and uses words to demand justice. Her poetry is devastating, beautiful and necessary. I intend to buy this book many times and for many people.

flag Like · see review