The audience’s emotions ride easily on the crest of the poetic wave. The Kwela Poets take us swiftly up a steep hillside and for a brief moment they let us have a glimpse of the greenery and luxuriance of some promised land beyond. I feel hot all over, and it is not only because we are closely packed together inside the church. These boys are really something, man! A spontaneous ‘Amandla!’ is shouted from the back and, with eyes brimful of tears we respond ‘Ngawethu!’ The sandy-haired boy (funny, I don’t think of him as white anymore) lets us down gently from the heights, with his last stanza.