Durban – Solly Ramatswi, the Limpopo-born poet known as “Soetry”, has been crowned winner of the Poetry Africa National Slam Jam.
He won the final at the Durban Playhouse on Tuesday night, 6 October 2026, with “Born Free”, an interrogation of freedom, protest and memory three decades into democracy. Glen Mokoena was runner-up, and Tsholang Bodibe placed third.
Ramatswi took home R20 000 in prize money and will represent South Africa at the World Poetry Slam Championship in Japan next year, 2027.
Ramatswi will carry the national title onto the international stage.
“I am a testimony of what community is. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for a lot of people,” said Ramatswi.
“I may have walked to the stage alone, but I wouldn’t have made it without a lot of my loved ones.
“Oh, it feels so fulfilling to love and be loved for doing what you love. I will continue dreaming. I will grow.”
In “Born Free”, Ramatswi turns the language of the struggle (the chant of “Amandla!”, the raised fist, the voting queue) into a reckoning with what freedom has delivered to the generation born after 1994.
The poem closes on its central tension:
She voted,
I slam.
My trophies are tombstones for all the obituaries I’ve written as poems.
I open my notebook and find my country’s faults.
I open my mouth and slam.
“The Slam Jam was a reminder that, beneath the dance of words, poetry remains a conversation between people trying to make sense of the world through their own truths – turning our different realities into something profoundly shared,” said Ian Gwag, board member of the World Poetry Slam Organisation and a member of the Slam Jam jury.
Raised in the village of Pollen, Ramatswi writes about black boyhood and masculinity.
He is a former Word N Sound Poetry League champion and the founder of Soetry Media and Project Translation, which pioneered the “Sign-In” Slam, combining performance poetry with South African Sign Language.
His win closes the national leg of Poetry Africa’s 30th edition.
The festival now turns to the 5th World Poetry Slam Championship, which brings 40 poets from 40 countries to Durban and runs until the final on 9 October.
The week also includes a staged production of Putuma’s Water on 9 October.
The full programme can be found on poetryafrica.ukzn.ac.za. Tickets are available on Webtickets.
About Poetry Africa
Poetry Africa is an annual international poetry festival curated and presented by the Centre for Creative Arts at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in Durban.
Running since 1997, the festival brings together spoken-word and published poets from South Africa and around the world for performances, panel discussions, campus and school visits, poetry exchanges, book launches, open mic sessions and slam competitions.
Over 30 years, Poetry Africa has created a platform for poets and audiences to reflect on the role of poetry in society and social change, while also supporting academic scholarship in contemporary poetry at UKZN.
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