Tell us about yourself:
I'm known by many names. My Christian name, if you will, is Jacobus Gideon Louis Nieuwoudt. My chosen name is King Kobi or just Kobi <3 - As spoken by the sweet, satisfied voice of a woman that smells of dead roses and hunger - I was born in Pretoria, South-Africa, in a military hospital. I write satire, comedy and acid horror. I'm known for Fifty Shades of Adolf, Dingue! and Sixteen and Dead.
Tell us about the poetry scene in your country:
Well, it's split down the middle as most things are. You get black poetry and white poetry. The poets you are taught about in school all wrote about depression, regret, history and our country. That's what I know about. Black poetry deals with similar themes but includes slavery, communism, socio-economic questions and colonialism as well.
The scene itself - from what I know - is very self-inclusive. It's a scene that revolves around itself. It's not mainstream and those that tend to consume poetry also partake themselves. Publishers shy away from it so it makes it hard to make a living from it.
That being said, like most of the arts, it's pretty liberal. And I've noticed that if you do not share the same ideas as those that run many of the outlets available to poets you are ignored. Your opinion only maters if it is indeed routed in the popular opinion. Right now, it seems, that you're either Far/Militant Left or considered a Nazi for not agreeing with a certain agenda. And they don't associate with Nazis. They glorify the opposite.
What influences your creativity? When and how did you get to be a poet?
Music, film, day to day life. Stories I hear.
I've always been a writer. There's no way around it. My imagination took president over everything and everyone else. I have always had a certain level contempt for the world I was born into. I hate that it's so dull and boring. I hate that this is all there is to us. I never fit in and as such I've always been an outcast. A dissident. But a pleasant one. I like to laugh and most of the time I enjoy making other people laugh. I guess there's a part of me that just wants to see the world happy?
The trouble is that I understand certain truths about us as a species and how society impacts us - on not only an emotional level - but on a cultural one as well. How social engineering is employed to fuel capitalism and consumerism. How money is used to degrade and control. How we become puppets in a manufactured society. I don't like that.
What was it that Patti said? "Outside of Society, is where I wanna be?"
Yeah, I'm like that. Gnostic. Manson said, "I don't need to choose a side."
I'm quite inclined to that idea. I guess that makes me a little dangerous.
I've been taught to partake, some would even say genetically inclined to, but when the moment comes - I refuse - is that strange? To not inhale?
I don't know, really. But I would like to see my people free. If only mentally. To know when the magician is sprinkeling fairy dust on them as opposed to closing their eyes and blissfully looking the other way when it happens.
What do you think is lacking in writing, or poetry making in the continent and how do you think we can solve this?
It's easy: Mainstream accessibility. And this will change when the stigmas surrounding poetry is dismantled. It starts in school. "Poetry is boring!" Ever hear this? "Poetry is hard!" well yes it is kind of difficult, if it wasn't it wouldn't be good poetry. Give the kids what they want. Give them Rap Music.
What's lacking: Humor.
If you were a poem, what type of form will you be in, and why?
I'd be a disjointed poem. Maybe a medieval limerick about sex and violence, filled with what the popular opinion perceives today as "problematic
themes" about slaying your enemies, subjugating warrior women and giving no quarter to the weak. Something funny but wholly offensive.
Maybe something about witches being burned at the stake for giving all of the village children "frogs legs" or something. The punch line being that the witches turned the children into White Supremacists. Because frogs are racist. Oh hell. I shouldn't have laughed at that one. Deep cuts.
If you were the president of your country, tell us what your presidency will be like?
This is a dangerous question. My answer will surely offend a couple of people if not most. As I identify as a Fascist-Socialist-Monarch. I'd not be a president but a King. And as such my word would be supreme law and whatever I said would go. And because I'm not a traditionalist the church wouldn't have a say in the matter. In my Kingdom there'd be religious freedom - true religious freedom - with monuments to Gods and Goddesses of every main religion practiced in my Kingdom. Of the old Gods and the new Abrahamic ones. Black and White.
My people would love me. Adore me. Worship me as I abolish debt left, right and centre and proceeded to tell a certain "worldly" ruling class to make like a tree. I'd make Education, Water and Electricity, Healthcare and certain foodstuffs tax deductable - because really now. It's 2017. In a modern society these things should be a right for all.- And if you're not paying tax you'll be put to work for me. Building my Coliseums, where my people can watch pedophiles, rapists and other ungoodly monstrosities being eaten by wild, ravenous animals and, yes, there shall be chariot races and gladiatorial games with large sums of gold awarded to the winners - as it should be.
I shall make sure that my people are safe. All the citizens of my Kingdom - black and white - from unruly Cultural - Marxist nonsense, that seek to make victims of its subscribers like some ugly cult, by regulating the amount of so-called "revolutionary" - trash my Kingdom is allowed to consume by giving them a better - more local - diet of the entertainment that they'd want to digest. I shall give the arts the kind of money it has never seen! And make the kind of film that would rival even the biggest markets on the planet.
Soon the rest of Africa would call for my caring hand to envelope them as well. And not long and my troops will march into their cesspits and clear it of the corrupt filth that calls itself their leadership and thus my Kingdom will grow. And the American media will vilify me as the Devil as I, Your Majesty, King Kobi, puts a smile on every one of my Kingdom's inhabitants. One at a damn time!
Also. I'll put a cap on the population limit. Two children per household. If you go over, I'll have you fixed. This ain't a democracy. So don't try that shit with me. A vote is a vote and a boat is a boat and with me in charge that ship has sailed. Ya dig? Good.
Tell us about your poems in BNAP
It's about Colonialism/Imperialism and its affect on my people. The Afrikaners. Spoiler Alert: It made us weak and stupid.
What do you think can be done to improve BNAP anthology:
Use the money that is made from the sales to promote it on larger outlets. Get it into schools as prescribed reading?
No comments:
Post a Comment