Words on… Poetry Africa 2023, with Indigene ‘Gene’ Corefio

By Africa in Words on 10 October , 2023 • ( 0 )

AiW note: This marks the latest in our new “Words on… Poetry Africa” Q&A series, brought to you in collaboration with the Poetry Africa festival 2023, which is running this year across 3 cities (Johannesburg, Durban, Bloemfontein) from the 5th to the 17th October. (For more and what’s on next, see the links and details below.)

The theme for this, the 27th edition of Poetry Africa, is VOTE4POETRY: MORE THAN WORDS, drawing on centuries’ long traditions to celebrate poets who uphold the principles set down that offer us new directions now, and that work to reclaim a “more optimistic future”.

And it is on this note, that it is our great pleasure to share this “Words On… Poetry Africa 2023” from Indigene “Gene” Corefio, who joined the international stars of Rudy Francisco (USA), Sarah Lubala (Congo/SA), Raphael D’Abdon (Italy/SA) and Amee Slam (Ivory Coast), and fellow South African poet Steel the Poet, in the total sell-out performance last Saturday (the 7th October, the last night of the Johannesburg leg of this year’s Festival, before it moved down to UKZN at Durban, pre- the Bloemfontein run on the 16th-17th).

GENE (South Africa) is an internationally published performance poet whose writing engages themes of love, ancestry, sexuality, society, and mysticism. GENE has been performing poetry since 2005 and was a member of the legendary “Likwid Tongue” collective. GENE produced and co-directed her debut poetry album! Habesi (Roots) in 2023. GENE’s more recent work has been published in Voices Unbound, an anthology of poems that were performed at the 8th International Symposium of Poetic Inquiry. GENE is the founding Director of |Kx’am and is a master’s candidate at UCT researching indigenous healing methodologies.

AiW: We are very grateful to hear from you – thank you for giving us your time for this Words On…Poetry Africa Q&A. Could you please tell us a bit about your involvement with the Festival this year to start us off?
GENE: My name is Indigene “Gene” Corefio and I performed a set of 3 poems at the Poetry Performance that took place at the University of Johannesburg alongside Dr d’Abdon, Rudy Francisco, and other amazing poets from around the world, with Torsten Clear Rybka as the host with the most. This year’s theme was looking at how poets advance values of constitutional democracy.

The poems I selected to share all related to |Xam and Khoe people who are currently erroneously classified as extinct in this country, our genocide, our historical exhibition in human zoos, and our resurgence as is seen in Khoisan Revivalism. South African first nation people, the |Xam and Khoe people, were massacred during colonization, then subsequently classified as “coloured” by the Apartheid regime, and as a result suffered the erasure of our identities, histories, languages, cultures and traditions, and the seizure of our land. The current political dispensation doesn’t recognize the human rights of |Xam and Khoe nations, and is considering making sign language a twelfth official language while our indigenous languages face extinction. We seek reparations. We seek redress. We seek the equality that is enshrined in our Constitution and in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. My poetry speaks about this historical dispossession, our remembrance of who we are, and the recreation of ourselves and our delightful future.

The first poem was written in commemoration of our Heritage. The second poem is a tribute to Sarah Baartman. The third poem speaks about indigenous land rights and the reclamation of ourselves, transmuting the darkness weaponized against us into light.

All three poems were accompanied by indigenous instrumentation produced by Mntana weXhwele from Indigenous Frequency Cast and |Kx’am (our non-profit company). These sounds were created for !Habesi (Roots), a multimedia exhibition we created to raise awareness of indigneous land rights that recently won both the State of the ART(ist) Award and the Fak’ugesi Award for Music. These tracks featured wisdom from Queen Katrina, a Khoe living legend and cultural activist fighting for the preservation of the language of her people – N/uu.

It was an honor to share this work at the esteemed Poetry Africa and I’m grateful for the creative community who celebrates and keeps poetry thriving.

Could you also let us in to a bit about your (other) work — your writing and/or any other kinds of work, roles, or the more general and different sorts of professional hats you wear?
I am an internationally published performance poet whose writing engages themes of love, ancestry, sexuality, society, and mysticism.

I’ve been performing poetry since 2005 when they hosted open mic sessions at “Cherry Jam” in Tshwane. I was a member of the legendary “Likwid Tongue” collective who hosted open mic sessions at the “Horror Café”. I have performed at the 8th International Symposium on Poetic Inquiry, Urban Voices, Jozi Book Fair, MTV Base, Y-fm, Power fm, and the Art Lexcia Podcast. I will be part of a panel discussing writing poetry beyond the stage at the 9th Women Writers Symposium along with Dr d’Abdon, Mandi Vundla and Vus’umuzi Phakhati.

Our more recent work has been published in “Voices Unbound”, an anthology of poems that were performed at the 8th International Symposium of Poetic Inquiry. These poems were written, performed and published in both English and !Ora.

Our poetic inspirations include Dana Bryant (Ronny Jordan – The Jackal), Ursula Rucker, Staceyann Chin, Saul Williams, Myesha Jenkins, Lebo Mashile, Xabiso Vili, 340ml, Kwane Experience, and Tumi Molekane.

We co-produced and co-directed our debut poetry album “!Habesi” (Roots) in 2023, which won the Fak’ugesi Award for Music.

We are the founding Director of |Kx’am (Green), a non-profit company that seeks to research, restore and distribute primarily |Xam and Khoe indigenous knowledge systems, art, culture, and methods of healing with the use of new media. |Kx’am’s debut exhibition, ”!Habesi”, won the “State of the ART(ist) Award. The work was subsequently exhibited at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria in September 2023. “!Habesi” is a multidisciplinary exhibition merging poetry, indigenous instrumentation, fine art, photography, and augmented reality that seeks to raise awareness of indigenous land rights in South Africa.

We are a Masters candidate at UCT registered for a Social Sciences degree in Psychology researching |Xam indigenous healing methods using Poetic Inquiry as research methodology with the intention of developing a theory of wellness, and hopefully a theory of African Psychology at PhD level.

We are currently exploring poetry as a means to embody ancestral wisdom and recall erased cultures through creative memory. Poetry is a vehicle through which to recall past futures – Sankofa.

//’oe /’e (one heart)

What would you say is the best investment you’ve made in your professional self / selves, and/or the most valued advice you’ve received about navigating your industry (or industries)?
The best investment we made in our professional self was to learn about our history, our ancestry, our identity, and to show up as that authentic-multidimensional self. We spent decades of our lives camouflaging who we were in order to gain superficial public approval. Learning about and embodying our authentic self has allowed us to attract our soul tribe and that deeply profound level of community has been invaluable to our work and birthing professional projects that resonate in a world that extends beyond the illusion of our egos (the conscious mind) and into realms of the universal (super consciousness). Community is everything.

The most valued advice we received about navigating our industry is to “Stay blessed, stay true, and stay in alignment.”

What’s the strangest, most significant – outrageous, even – thing you yourself have done, or would do, because of, or for a book (text / story / poem/ piece of writing)? Is there a serendipitous, interesting, perhaps even uncanny book / text related thing that’s happened to you? Perhaps a happy, weird accident that has occurred around books that you can share with us?
Lol. What a random question. Funny you should ask. It brings to mind a particular experience I had when growing up. I lived with my mother at the time. I had this habit of praying at bedtime, but would fall asleep during prayer, so I decided to remedy the situation by burning a candle on my bedside table that I would need to blow out on conclusion of my prayers before sleeping. It worked, a few times, but one night I fell asleep during prayer, again, and this time the candle burnt all the way down to the flammable substance I had erected it on. I was aroused from a deep sleep by the sound of crackling noises. I jumped out of bed and saw that there was a fire burning in my bedroom that had already spread to the curtains, the carpet, the headboard, the sheets I had been sleeping in, the teddy bear I had been sleeping with, and the pillow I had been sleeping on. I screamed, and my mom, thinking I had had a nightmare, grabbed out to reach the spot on my side of the bed to hug me, and subsequently burnt her hands. Upon later investigation it was discovered that the inside of the mattress had been burnt too. I had a sound system in my bedroom with my Bible placed on top of it, which had had pages burnt out of it and the visible page that my Bible had been burnt open to had the following verse on it:

Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

What are the most ethical and/or heart-lifting changes in practice in your working life that you’ve seen happening across your industry/industries recently? Is there anything you would like to see become more visible and celebrated going forward?
We really are proud of poetry evolving from an arena of clapping, punchlines and finger snapping to a space of healing and vulnerability. Particularly men of colour coming forth and sharing the challenges and pressures they face; the bottomless pit of social expectations that have boxed and distorted male being and expression. It’s beautiful and necessary to see their gentler, emotional, more feminine sides; to see men embody their “Hieros gamos” in Jungian terms – the marriage of our inner masculine and feminine divinity.

Moving forward, in our personal opinion, we would like to see the development of art movements, as opposed to artists working in silos or in the context of short-lived creative collaborations. Art movements that stand out in my memory are Resistance art, Surrealism, Dada-ism, Pop art and Expressionism. We already understand the power of art and its ability to influence and shape the world around us, what more could we achieve as artists dedicated to creating a particular kind of art driven toward particular goals together over a sustained period of time?

Finally, how can our blog, books, and online communities best offer support for your work with African writing?
What would be interesting to see is utilizing the blog, books and online communities and their vast network of contributors to spur creative collaboration by linking people in various spheres but with similar interests.

For the full programme and so much more, check the Poetry Africa website: https://poetryafrica.ukzn.ac.za/.

After the rave sell-out successes of the Johannesburg leg, the festival continues on this week in Durban, featuring poetry, more poetry, poems and spoken word poetry – performances, discussions, music collabs, and the highly anticipated Slam Jam finals!

Tickets for all events are available via Webtickets online or at Pick n Pay stores.

For those that can’t be there in person for tix sales, check out the online streamed events, all this week of the Durban leg, on at 3pm (South Africa time): www.youtube.com/centreforcreativearts and www.facebook.com/poetryafrica

After Durban, the festival wraps up in Bloemfontein from the 16-17 October.

We’re thankful to Poetry Africa for facilitating and sharing with us some of this years’ participating poets’ words, so we can share with you (pls share and share alike!.)…

Our first Words on… Poetry Africa 2023 Q&A was with the Festival’s Featured Poet, Eugene Skeef.

“Each year Poetry Africa honours a leading South African poet who stands as a beacon to uphold South Africa’s Constitutional Democracy and whose voice is a reminder about the values in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
https://poetryafrica.ukzn.ac.za/about/featured-poets/

And yesterday we were able to share Solly Ramatswi’s, aka Soetry, who performed in the Fest yesterday, as one of The Four Horsemen, and who competed in the Slam Jam competition semi-finals last week, bagging one of the coveted finalist spots, which’ll be battled out this Sat, the 14th Oct:

“On the evening of the 6th, the Slam Jam semi-finals electrified audiences, with judges selecting the top 5 finalists who will go on to compete in Durban on Saturday, 14 October. The 2023 Slam Jam finalists are Katlego Mofokeng, Lethu Nkwanyana, Natasha Mubanga, Olive Olusegun and Solly Ramatswi.”
(i-Support Creative Business, Press Release)

Catch the 2023 Words On… Poetry Africa Q&As via our homepage, or see them all – including our previous Festival coverage – at this link – or click through via the taster excerpts below…

…AiW: What would you say is the best investment you’ve made in your professional self / selves, and/or the most valued advice you’ve received about navigating your industry (or industries)?
Eugene Skeef:The best investment I’ve made in my professional self is expressed through the braided strands of self-belief, respect for humanity and nature, and valuing the benefits of deep listening through creative immersion in the power of the arts as the root of social transformation.

AiW: What are the most ethical and/or heart-lifting changes in practice in your working life that you’ve seen happening across your industry/industries recently? Is there anything you would like to see become more visible and celebrated going forward?
Solly Ramatswi: There is a saying that it is a good time to be a poet. And indeed, it is really a good time to be a poet in the country right now as we can see with the changes that have been happening. Not only that, but we’re seeing people be more open to poetry, whether it’s in theatre spaces, whether it’s in advertising, marketing, copywriting… We find people being poets in those spaces, and being able to do that. We can mention Yamoria, Thuthukani Myeza, Jonathan Lefenya – that’s what I look up to.

Also, the fact that poetry is something that people think is worthy, especially the people who do it…

Poetry Africa is supported by the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the National Arts Council of South Africa, the KZN Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, the French Institute of South Africa and Total Energies. The festival is co-presented in Johannesburg with UJ Arts & Culture and in Bloemfontein with PACOFS. The 27-year-old festival in Durban cements the city’s status as a UNESCO City of Literature.