Thebe Neruda Kgositsile - How you gon do anything but rule?

Last week, The New Yorker, ran an article on the Odd Future member, Earl Sweatshirt.  

Some of the more interesting things to come out of the article include that Earl's real name is Thebe Neruda Kgositsile ("Thebe is Setswana for "shield," and Neruda is a homage to Chilean poet Pablo Neruda) and that Thebe is the son of Keorapetse Kgositsile.  Keorapetse is one of South Africa's most celebrated poets.  And in 2006, he was named the country's poet laureate.  One of his most best known poems is "Towards a Walk in the sun," in which a poet images his own demise.  Kelefa Sanneh of The New Yorker writes of this poem saying "In the final stanza, the recrimination builds to a furious italicized expression of poetic abnegation:

when the moment hatches in time’s womb there will be no art talk.  the only poem you will hear will be the spearpoint pivoted in the punctured marrow of the villain.

There is something chilling to say the least about this last stanza as the poet awaits the end of poetry, an idea that resonated with the influential group, The Last Poets.

During the apartheid years, Kgositsile lived in exile and traveled widely.  While visiting Chicago his friend, Sterling Pumpp, introduced him to the woman that would later become his wife and the mother of Thebe.  The couple eventually moved to Los Angeles where Kgositsile worked in the English Department at U.C.L.A.  When Thebe was born, Keorapetse's friend, Sterling Plumpp, published a poem in the Fall 1995 issue of TriQuarterly entitled "Poet: for Thebe Neruda" to celebrate the birth of his friend's son.  I did some digging and found the poem that was anthologized in the 1996 edition of "The Best American Poetry."

Hit the jump for Plumpp's poem and The New Yorker interview with Thebe via computer.

Poet

for Thebe Neruda

1/Mmabatho

You

come in the myth

night hour There are pages of

dreams in your mother's eyes.

Your

father reads them

with blood-rinsed

memories: exiles and exiles

ended.

The

obituaries of gun

shots welcome you.

The

plow of a martyr's blood

designs furrows in a rising

sun.

This day

is a stool for

you to climb/a

Kente cloth in

side your brain.

2/Johannesburg Shell

There

are no crabs in

side/here. No softness

commingled/with leisured

strides. No squinting

eyes. No tentacles of

bone. This is a place of

steel. Here. Spears

crumble/fall like the home

lands

This

is the New Age. This

is the cross

roads instructed

properly. This

is the day/you named

after The poet's

tough tale scaling

history. To give

Chile Allende's

peopled vision. Words

are bullets here. Words

are periods here This is

the end/of a sentence

3/New Day

Hector Petersen's spirit

will use Modibo's pen

to sign the new constitution

Soweto's children wrote it

with MK ink They used

Sach's blown away

arm as quill. Then Hani's

spirit: ignites flames

for the ceremonial

rite. Registering/memory

for The Election Tambo's

soul votes Amandla]

From where Kotane, Nokwe,

Ruth First, Biko and

LaGuma, live in dreams

A nation carries inside

its heart/beats.

You

come in the myth

night hour. The day

you/touch Owns part of

dead roots of passion in

side your land. That revives

in your laughter, Thebe As

the poet in your veins

ascends a mountain To

trap the condor of your being.

As you soar.

You

were born with blues

With an ANC imprint

on them. How you gon

do anything but rule?

I will

counsel your parent

You

come in the myth

night hour.

Excerpt from the New Yorker

When asked whether he [Thebe] was involuntarily confined, his answer was vehement.  "No,no no no no no no no no no," he wrote.  "Please listen: I'm not being held against my will."

The couple of months leading up to my departure were a mess for me," he wrote, declining to elaborate, and he described his long separation from Los Angeles, and from his friends in the language of therapy, not punishment:

I've had to do a lot of growing up since I left, so naturally my perspective has changed.  A lot less effort is exerted toward proving that I care less than you about everything, so I'm a lot less frantic.  I guess the simplest way to put it is that I'm more comfortable with myself, which is something that I couldn't have told you like eleven months ago.

He said he knew that his friends had become celebrities in his absence:

I've been watching all of this unfold the entire time.  The "Free Earl" campaign and the ridiculously large amount of publicity OF’s getting.  It’s been pretty strange for me.  A lot of times I have trouble wrapping my head around things like OF being on the Coachella ticket or there being a more-than-substantial international  fan base because you can’t really experience things like that to the fullest extent vicariously, no matter how hard you try.

He hasn’t been composing many rhymes over the past year.  “I still write stuff from time to time when I get excited or feel moved to, but none of it’s really too groundbreaking or anything,” he explained.  “I’ve got other things on my mind.”  It turned out, too, that the ostensible object of the “Free Earl” movement found himself increasingly disturbed by it:

Initially I was really please that all these people claimed that they wanted me released because I thought that translated into “they care.”  So time progresses and the fan base get bigger and the “Free Earl” chants get louder but now with the “Free Earl” chants come a barely indirect “Fuck Earl’s Mom” and in the blink of an eye my worry changes from “will there still be this hype when I get back” to “Oh shit I just inspired a widespread movement of people who are dedicated to the downfall of my mom.”  I can say there have been few things in my life worse than the movement I was trying to figure out who stared all this “let’s get together and hate Earl’s mom” business and had now subjected her to potential physical harm and realized that in a way it was me.

Asked if he wants to send a message to his fans, he tried to be unequivocal:

The only thing I need as of right now is space.  I’ve still got work to do and don’t need the additional stress of fearing for my family’s physical wellbeing.  Space means no more “Free Ear.”  If you sincerely care than [sic] I appreciate the gesture, but since you know the hard facts from the source, you no longer need to worry.  This applies for anyone affiliated with OF, fans and members alike.

When will he come back?  He can’t—or won’t—say.  “Hopefully soon,” he wrote. “I miss home.  I don’t have any definite date though.  Even if I did I don’t know if I’d tell you.  You’ll hear from me without a doubt when I’m ready.”

Here is a post from Tyler's Twitter echoing Thebe's sentiment:

And Respect His, His Moms And Familys Privacy. This Goes For Writers Too. Miss You Nigga, FREE THE EARLY MAN. The World Will Be Ours! OF