Sole poet: longtime SA writer and thinker on the art of risk

Kelwyn Sole reflects on his major influences and the call to always stay ahead of the game

- By Mick Raubenheimer

The InArt interviews explore culture by asking creatives about their life in the arts, and which artists in other media stimulate them. We spoke to academic and evergreen poet Kelwyn Sole about hidden histories and the art of taking risks.

When did you first identify as an artist?

I discovered an enthusiasm for poetry in my mid-teens, after I started to find poems that went beyond boring school lessons. This faded after a few years as I became more politically involved and spent time working in contexts beyond my suburban upbringing. I got back to writing poetry in my early 30s, a few years before my first published collection.

Outside your medium, which branch of art most stimulates you?

I'm open to other forms - painting, for instance - but music is the most stimulating. My knowledge base is jazz, modern classical music and old acoustic blues. I've written a lot of poems about jazz.

Which artists in this discipline have inspired you, and why?

I came of age in a period of worldwide artistic creativity that inspired me more than any one figure or art form. There were exciting new directions emerging in literature, dance, music, the plastic and fine arts. There was an emphasis on collaboration doing the rounds, plus a thinking beyond generic boundaries.

I responded to the belief that art should aim to liberate as well as remain dissident to authoritarian regimes. Despite repression (apartheid in South Africa being the closest and most pressing), I remember it as a period of some optimism, given the anticolonial movements and student uprisings of the time.