Poet, writer and playwright LESEGO RAMPOLOKENG was born in Soweto in 1965 and was part of the Black Consciousness movement demonstrations against apartheid.

Rampolokeng’s early work reflects influences from diverse sources: the reggae of dub Caribbean poets, like Linton Kwesi Johnson, the strident political rap of North Americans such as Gil Scot-Heron, street poetry, as well as elements from talking dithoko songs, stemming from seSotho traditions. His bitter-sweet and radically incisive alternative soundtrack to the new South Africa has made him a widely sought after poet on stages around the world.

Rampolokeng’s poetry collections include Horns for Hondo (1990), Talking Rain (1993), Rap Master Supreme – Word Bomber in the Extreme (1997), and The Bavino Sermons (1999). He’s also recorded his poetry in End Beginnings (1993), a collaboration with The Kalahari Surfers, Blue V’s (1998) and The h.a.l.f ranthology (2002). Rampolokeng’s plays include Fanon’s Children and the recently staged Bantu Ghost (alongside dancer Nelisiwe Xaba). His novels are Blackheart (2004) and Whiteheart (2005).

On the relationship between performing and publication he had this to say in New Coin: “I’ve always tried to tread the midline between the word in motion, the word free – I mean without bounds – and the written word. I’ve always tried in a way to marry the two: tried to make poetry that would leave a smudge on the page as it would on the stage.”

“What is important to me is that I write, and I write what I feel and in the way I feel it should be written. Whether that pleases the kings and princes of this earth is absolutely of no importance to me.”

Notes For The Closet Ticks & Slick Fleas (Extract)

(i am a potentiality for nothing says fanon i am fully that which i am
i am that i am echostrummed tosh the kalashnikov guitarmystic-
man)
still, tush is how it end & begin for them who question
no whore lullabies…that’s Mista Gwala in brokenbackfl ipped
declaration
before poet-tricks&tics became fl esh-merchant fashion
(salon-bred snouts gaped for the power-puke
dreadlocked puppies in the chamberpot of commerce
pedicured kitties’ withdrawals at the spermbank
media-mated lotto-genic
faces of the anal-lick-tick)
*
The sounds of my world /// my world of sounds
Never doing the rent-a-cunt rounds
*
Derogates) this ill-literary era erases
/Goes abrogate on ) what won’t sing its praises
They poetry-court martial me
for my lines being too free
*
Calling Mista Autophagous
Regurgitating curdled cum for his itchy rectum
Self-dicking failed pornographer
dirty-white stenographer disguised as writer-publisher
tried kill my muse cos what i excrete thru refused abuse
Gave him paper he wanted rectal pages
So he could engage in cock-vexation
& that murdered my book at birth
(but read on the bright side)
i earned death-wish critics
cream-&-jism stuck to their pens/pants
*
does ‘governmental/national orders’ mean
tongue passing thru the presidential anus’ border/bed-posts?
*
baby-bloodbath-oil anointed be the cosmetico sofi sticato
africanistos
who wipe their shame-pooed & broken-air conditionered &
mensesdrenched
in cur-fume arses with their designer dreadlocks
*
i write & read poems not dictate/deliver telegrams
exist in a world that know no difference
hate sex-tablished geriatrics
fi ngers gouted out of decent creation
going as ‘prostitute god pimp poetic’
wrapped IN smells of cobwebbed punkarses
caught in skunks’ squirts
seeing mediocrity-swamp crisis
yet telling fresh brain-death it’s possessed of genius.
the stench hits past faeces cumming thru yapping
out of phallic-dagger serrated rectal lips
some evil crapping their sperm-turned-snot on the sinus sidethat
castrated horse-shrieking /// break-prancing arthritic hips
cos the wind-breaking too thick&long&deep&skull-diddle-wide
wrong stepping the nymph-o-manic/vok-&-kak-praat/freak
parake

  all poems' rights remain with the author