“And the ocean found peace”
After I drank all its water
the ocean is in me.
I’m home to shipwrecks
I speak rolling waves
Slave ships capsized in my throat
I grow a garden of bones in my gut
I was once a lover of fish
Before they tossed bodies in me to drown
Now I’m a liquid graveyard with unmarked graves.
Xitha Makgeta is a South African, Pretoria based writer, poet, performer and art activist who also experiments with paint and videography.
In (2008) he independently published his first studio record (E.P) titled In Fragments, followed by another studio record (E.P) titled Rap-Oetree in (2010). Xitha wrote and produced his first theatre play titled Bits and Pieces in (2012), which inspired his poetry chapbook with the same title, published in (2016) and was launched at Split This Rock poetry festival in Washington D.C.
He has graced many stages in his career, some include-: The indigenous languages festival, PMAE(Lesotho), Amasiko Heritage festival, Grahamstown national Arts Festival, Feast of the Clown festival. He is former ambassador of the Unisa Poetry Society. He was a runner up at the Youth Expression Slam Poetry Competition in (2014) hosted by the S.A State Theatre. He got second place at the Tshwane Speak Out Loud Poetry competition (2015).
He is currently the founder and facilitator of the WriteUsAnonymous Poetry Program running at the Stanza Bopape Library in Mamelodi Township, Pretoria.