A leboko is a voice at one with identity

The poet reckons with its poetry, but leboko is poetry and more. The poet wrestles with its verse, rhythm, and line endings, but then without these, it couldn’t honestly be poetry as it is universally understood. Yet, the poet also brings to it a Botswana sensibility and then projects the passion, energy, and sultriness of their spoken words to the audience. But it still retains individuation as it allows every poet to break the mold of its content, presentation, and appreciation.

Imagine the following: It is a little while after daybreak one morning in the early 1850s in an area which more than 100 years later would be part of the new sovereign country called Botswana. Bakwena people are assembling and thus make small pockets of dust to rise at their Kolobeng kgotla.