The Language of Violence

South African poet Qhali’s Crying in My Mother’s Tongue: Ukulila, is a searing meditation on language and identity, intergenerational trauma, sexual violence, healing, and the intimate ties of motherhood and family.

If indeed there is a perfect metaphor for everything, then the perfect metaphor for journaling would be a bridge—that is, a bridge between our inner world and our external reality. Its transformative though quiet roles in our lives seem so endless as the reach of the imagination. It does not only shape our understanding of self—a way of processing our experiences, emotions and trauma—but also stands in as a repository of our personal history and cultural memory, our dated entries also anchoring private happenings in broader historical contexts. In the South African poet Qhali’s hands, in her debut short collection of poems titled Crying in My Mother’s Tongue: Ukulila, poetry becomes a refined, distilled form of journaling. The book is a startling and thorough exploration of language and identity, intergenerational trauma and healing, sexual violence and culture, motherhood and family relationships, each as complex as it is illuminating...