Pleiades: Isilimela, the latest collection by South African poet Vusi Mchunu (64), is a piercing autobiographical dance choreographed under the trauma of a terminal illness, fractured friendships and the death of some dear friends. South African literary historian and mentor Ntongela Masilela says, Pleiades: Isilimela “engages the poetic musicality” of Mazisi Kunene, and many influences from the world’s indigenous cultures such as the Maori, the Maya and Chokwe. Once a first-class mathematics student at school, the poet dishes a forceful rendition of poetry as enticing predicate calculus of the imagination. “Alaa of the yellow sun, of laundry white gowns bellowing from forgotten Nubia/ Your mehdi maps on your hands ochre-red, nay, blue of the Omdurhman Nile …” The poet asks to be given “the harmony, lyrics of thunder from Keri Nyaga,” pleading, “the coat of the Mau Mau is heavy.”