On stage he is known for his spirited and energetic delivery and controversial style that comes out as a blend of street style yet literary poetry that involves socio political issues and historic events that tend to take any audience aback. One of his short stories and a few of his analytical poems have been published in an annual literary Journal called "Ntinga", and as well as in the publication called "Expressions within" both of these publications were/are initiatives of arts and culture and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University’s department of language and literature. During the operation of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations, when some of the matches where held in Port Elizabeth, he was one of the performers that kept the crowd intrigued with his revolutionary and unconventional poetry at the Port Elizabeth Opera House theatre.
He has performed in He has also co-founded NMMU’s foremost spoken word and poetry society called the Resonance Poetry Movement, along with Sisonke Papu and Azola Dayile – which they have successfully managed to launch.
He has done much already. After viewing his profile and listening to the podcast of his poem titled “Black Paint” on Badilisha Poetry page, I decided to engage him on an email interview.
It went like this:
Why do you promote your work under the nom de plume "Dark Blood - The Bard"? Why did you choose that name particularly?
The pen name came into existence through an overwhelmingly obvious influence by the custom (in the Hip-hop culture) of rappers and emcees having certain names that embodies what a rapper or an emcee represents upon the microphone. One is bound to come across rappers who look out for traits, heroic events, actions and they get inspired by the lives of those people that came before them, then by doing so they later take the position of calling themselves after those people, in attempts to also mirror what the persons represented but maybe in a different light or field. But in this case of my own pen name, it is not like that really. It’s actually a compound: Dark plus Blood - which when I interpret it, to me would literally mean, a person who is to stand for or represent everything black through his literature.
One cannot live or exist without blood. To me it is a figurative word that alludes to all person of dark skin that are on earth, Dark-blood, would translate to, Black Person.
It is known that in Africa, particularly in the Nguni ways of life, we do not just randomly name a person, we always do the naming right after an incident or a circumstance, so the naming is of importance, but sometimes we do name a person, not after an incident or an event, but we name them with our eyes fixed to the future hoping the child would follow the path set before him/her, or at least bare the characteristics, or follow the path that the name he/she got leads him/her to go.
So the bard, what is a bard? I have been asked umpteen times about what this word means. A lot of people know William Shakespeare as the Bard of Avon, then automatically presume that that's where I took the name from. But this is not really the situation. In ancient British culture a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate their ancestors and to praise their own daily or occasional, events, gatherings, activities. This is not something completely new to the Bantu tribes in Africa, in the amaXhosa way of life, we do have what we call "Imbongi Yomthomnyama," in my light, this person is not necessarily, literally employed, but he is always there at tribal events and gatherings, he is not told when to stand up and praise, but rather responds to a certain feeling that comes upon and enforces him to stand up and praise or throw stones at that specific thing that he thinks brings happiness or misery to his being, at that specific space and time. Now that's the bard. Even though I'm a bit different from that, because I write, I consider myself a 'conscience' bard that writes because a feeling leads me to.
I promote my work through that pen name because it fully embodies what my work is about. I chose it and formed the first part of it so to perfectly define with clarity what I'm about even before a person hears me, when they hear the name they are automatically forced to 'think' or assume that for sure this person is about Black life.
What triggered your interest in literature?
I would rather say it is the urge, the curiosity and the inquisitiveness to know. The desire to explore peoples minds', their beliefs, the ways of life, their world view, their commentary on the current status quo, their reflection on the past, how deep their imagination could get, and also the personal love and passion I have for reading and writing.
What does POETRY mean to you?
Poetry to me is simply ontological. To me it would mean more than just a collection of the most intricate words to pronounce gathered on the page and later stored in the mind only to be belched on stage. It has to have something to teach, it has to have something to say about your surroundings, the space you live in, your daily experiences, your beliefs, your lifestyles, and other things, there should be a message involved be it personal, political, secular or religious. It means challenging whatever one doubts. It means breaking the conventions, twisting the rules, mocking the orthodoxy of what we have been taught poetry really means. It simply means that one have to be an avant gardist, be free to write, recite whatever that you feel is right to you, as long as you can buttress that. Over all it means widening ones horizon of imagination, expansion of imagination, documenting experiences and sharing them only to prove that what we go through daily, especially on a personal level is kind of a universal thing. You could be convinced to believe that you are experiencing the worst ordeal ever, until you read a poem that gets you disillusioned. Only to find out that there were people before you, or living right now that are experiencing the very same thing. Sharing the same view and other things.
All in all to me poetry, in simple terms means to undress oneself only to expose ones naked soul to the public without any shame, regret, apology or remorse. That's poetry.
Do you have any plans of releasing a poetry book or DVD?
I never had a plan to do a DVD. But I think since you've mentioned it now, I should consider that one for the near future. But I'm currently working towards publishing a collection of poetry. And I've decided a while ago that the title is to be: “IT'S NOT POETRY, SAID THE PURIST”.
I think it’s obvious that the title is destined to create controversy. That's what I would like to happen, I mean since I am a performance poet, leaning towards spoken word, not to mean that I do not write analytical or page poetry as they call it. But I'm largely focused on spoken word. So the book I'm working on is meant to challenge the standard or criterion that has been established by the whole instructional- literary system, the very same system that constantly fails to accept and recognize spoken word as part of literary material.
What is your message to ghetto youth?
Simple. Nas said it to me and I'm going to say it to the ones coming after me: “Read more, learn more, change the community.”
Let us find other ways that bring pleasure, leave those that are detrimental to our beings.
Written by
Amalahle Ashushu
Ndiyabulela
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