As we head towards the Launch Of Best "New" African Poets 2017 Anthology at National English Literary Museum (NELM), we decided to engage one of the poets who will be gracing the occasion and reading his poems in the anthology at the event, Anton Krueger
Tell us about
yourself
I haven’t
shaved in about two weeks and I’m at that sort of inbetween stage where I have
to decide whether to commit to a beard or let it go.
Tell us about the
poetry scene in your country
There seem
to be a lot of readings around, and I would guess maybe ten or so publications
a year in English, possibly more in Afrikaans and maybe less in other African
languages, I don’t know. There are a few
quality magazines and journals like New Contrast and New Coin.
Prufrock isn’t bad and there are
some good sites, like Aerodrome, Litnet and so on.
You are Assistant
Professor at Rhodes University in the Drama Department, how much does poetry
influence your work in theatre, or how much does theatre influences your
poetry. Recently a fellow poet at a reading advised us poets to act out our
poems, to make theatre out of our poems so as to get them to the readers, do
you feel this will help.
There seems
to be a slight divide in SA between poems produced that are inherently
performative, that lend themselves to vocalization and gesture and personality
of the performer and so on; as compared to writers who are better at style, by
which I mean the text on the page, (stylus – the instrument used to make
an inscription) rather than vocalization. So some poems might not go over well
at public readings, whereas others wilt when they’re on the page and can only
be appreciated as performance in front of an audience. So there are different
approaches.
On 21 September you will be one of the poets
reading at NELM on the Launch of Best New African Poets 2017 Anthology. What
will you promise those who will attend? What does a poet reading his own
poem(s) brings to the listeners of a poem that they don’t get when they read
the poem themselves.
I can promise that the audience will
get chips and snacks and maybe some nice cheese. Nelm, usually gets in quality
catering. As for your second question, well, I think there is something in the voice
that conveys meaning, maybe hidden meanings that even the writer isn’t aware
of, that could resonate with listeners.
Tell us about your three poems in Best New
African Poets 2017 Anthology.
Two of them have been published
before, they’re part of a series of family poems. My Sister Sonia and Uncle
Noodle. So those are personal poems about family members and my
relationship with them. The third one Seraphine hasn’t
been published yet, it’s about the great French Outsider artist Seraphine
Louis, who I got to know about via this Belgian film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9raphine_(film)
Give us an overview of your published books so
far.
I’ve done two academic books, a
collection of poetry, and co-written a book of comedy monologues / stories.
Then I also have a bunch of plays available at publish on demand type sites
like Playscripts.com and Stagescripts in the UK.
Your debut novel was recently shortlisted for
a prize, tell us about this novel and what it means to you to be shortlisted.
The manuscript has been longlisted,
the short list isn’t out yet. (It might be by the time you put this up, but I’m
not sure if I’m on there or not). It’s a story that takes place during the Fees
Must Fall protest of 2016 which involves real incidents, such as the police
firing on students and so on. I interviewed people involved in the situation
from different points of view; but the characters are all fictional. The story
is told from seven very different points of view and my hope was that even though
they might not agree on how and why things happened the way they did, different
people in the conflict might still at least feel that their view has been somewhat
represented. Okay, that might sound like a heavy book, but actually it’s quite
fast paced and also has a lightness to it and hopefully some humour as it moves
rapidly between multiple intersections in the lives of diverse people from
different generations.
What type of sports
are you into.
Not any, really. I used to play a bit
of squash with my dad. He’s very much the scientist and always looked down on sports
as a bit silly. I did try to educate myself later and to get into the sporting
meme but its tough. I can watch an important game if it’s like the final of
something or other. It’s better to watch it with other people who are into it;
so I guess that can be fun. The only Rugby game I’ve ever watched was the World
Cup final in 1995, when I was in Japan. And I did see a cricket game once as
well, and also the last World Cup soccer final. That’s pretty much the sum
total of all the matches of things I’ve seen.
If you were a poem,
what type or form will you be in, and why?
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