When I
first encountered The Second Chapter,
I was intrigued by its linguistic aesthetic which seemed to transcend linearity
of thought as well as emotion.
A
subjective observation of his work from my part is not overpowered by the
temptation to ‘defend’ or ‘promote’ him, but merely to pay homage to a book
that awakened my diabolical senses. When reading this somewhat forgotten
anthology, it is as though a triad exists, where the writer reads to my inner
me, while using my own voice; inner speech which is the mechanism by which I
become one with this "live thought" sacerdotal text.
There has
been a wave of reclusive expressionism which borders on escapist remodeling of
reality that permeates common interpretations of our present condition as a
people. One would thus assume that the extent to which our writers are avoiding
or obfuscating truth in a cluttered
world of anguish has reached 'thought-police' level. But Lesego has long
abandoned this idealist chivalry of confining words and has proclaimed that:
between
assimilation & alienation they don't ban
they
throw the switch on communication
&
from selling-out to buying in is a grey-matter line
the monstrosity is
regent
now
poetry is beauty pageant
jump the
class fence & land in affluence
but what
lies beyond the prettiness of the performance
when
gangrene sets in after the applause?
Paul
Wessels writes that "Lesego Rampolokeng has abdicated whatever distance
exists between words and their meaning in favour of a subjective presence which
pushes subjectivity (not to mention language) to the extreme. It is no idle
coincidence that much of his poetry is intensely difficult to read. The writer
who ablates himself, who eschews humanist notions such as identity and
representation, becomes a singular voice, an absolute presence. There are many
pretenders, and many imitations of what is considered to be his
"style". None succeed. If one can even talk about style in relation
to his work, it has to be an anti-style, a style that when imitated or assumed,
ends in death. Sorry, wrong prescription , wrong dosage. The patient is dead."
And I
couldn't agree more. His ingeniously lucid
style of story-telling about what the unobservable rage of generations has left on monuments of our terror on record.
It's
either you emphatically loathe him or disgustingly adore his brutal oratory,
but this Artaudian anomaly is a blister on the wrinkly arm of the
literati.
When
South African literature is becoming a prosaic flagellation exercise by the
wanna-be depressed artists; with relish and zeal, armchair critics and their
proletariat, the resultant archives are ordaining mediocrity as literary genius.
Some of
the contenders for the coveted title of
"deepest" writers have proven to be culprits who obfuscate proponents of regurgitated intelligentsia.
But the
dreary staccato tone of his voice is a constant reminder, which nags the
senility out of any ear, un-worded inner furnaces split ajar by the vulgarity
of his truths.
His
tenacity of purpose in trying to show that there is no literary rule that
should remain unbroken is astounding. And he breaks all, if not even the
unwritten.
I believe
that Papa Ramps, with ostensible
authority can claim the label of "The Last Poet" of our fraudulent phantasmagoria
of plagiarist wordsmiths.
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