St John Page Yako (19011977) was a Qokolweni-born

Xhosa Xhosa may refer to: * Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa * Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people See als ...

poet and professor of

Xhosa literature Xhosa literature is the spoken and written literature of the Xhosa people of Southern Africa. The Xhosa language is spoken in South Africa and Zimbabwe. 20th-century literature Poet and teacher St John Page Yako wrote poetry using motifs derived fr ...

in the

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in ...

, South Africa. A translation of one of his poems was published as "The Contraction and Enclosure of the Land" in ''The Lava of the Land'', an anthology of South-African poetry edited by Denis Hirson. "The Contraction and Enclosure" uses imagery from oral poetry to illustrate the consequences of race-based land legislation of South Africa in the 1950s that destroyed the traditional ways of life of many tribes.

Bibliography

*''Umtha Welenga'' ("Ray of the Sun", 1959) *''Ikwezi'' ("Poems", 1959)

References

People from the Eastern Cape Xhosa-language poets 1901 births 1977 deaths {{SouthAfrica-writer-stub