The word “kotaz” is derived from the English term "quarter". It was in popular use in isiXhosa and tsotsi taal in the 90s, used by young people in the streets in Bhlawa (New Brighton) to refer to ingenious paths, blind alleys and side streets that they used to roam around the township. 

 

The young people were often told to learn English and speak it properly. The English language became a fetish, forced down young people's throats in a devilish drive towards whiteness, to be "civilized".

 

For the writers who came together in 1997 in Bhlawa to conceive of Kotaz, the word "kotaz" offered the possibility of a new start, giving vision to an innovative journal that would carry their writings and address their confusion of not knowing where to publish their poems. The townships’ literary landscapes had no thunderstorms and no clouds. We looked out of the windows and saw men masked as military dogs and snipers. Their faces overwhelmed the day!

 

Like bleating sheep township residents were closely monitored by the apartheid state, then assigned numbers and a dompas. Township planning and its discordant spatial arrangement was a tool to control their movements. 

 

Townships had one entry/exit point. One road slithering like a snake through its bruised body. 

 

The main road served as a cruel path to town where blacks were turned into laughable slaves, forced to eke out a mean stingy life as adult boys and girls, slaving it out in kitchens and bedevilled factories.

 

Young people in Bhlawa and other black townships were experimenting with poetry, denouncing their anger and revulsion against the apartheid state in political rallies in stadiums, in social, religious and cultural gatherings. Poetry became a weapon to attenuate and sever the bonds of state oppression. 

 

From its beginning in the late 90s Kotaz became a vehicle to free many voices to protest against oppression using their poems, writing about themselves and what they felt. Talking anger. Using language expressively so that children don't die, old people don't go to sleep! It was the age of great hope. We thought that everything was possible. Blaring out the sounds of the rifles and the guns with the whispering breath of our poetry!

 

Poetry to everybody's surprise, with statements that leaked blood and pus, arose from the ashes burning to present the beautiful faces of liberation and freedom. It was walking like a horse. I saw the grinding world crestfallen and prostrate. Poetry walking down Westbury Street watched by perverts and low-lifes!

 

The magazine continues to play that noble role for the writing arts, for poetry is in chains. South African writers and poets continue to be oppressed by powerful forces.