Pretoria – Jerome Coetzee is a writer, poet, and Artistic Director for the Centre of Excellence Bishop Lavis.
He focuses on Afrofuturism in contemporary Afrikaans Literature.
Coetzee has previously been published in LitNet, The Wee Sparrow poetry press (2022), is a National Poetry Prize winner (2021), and was on the longlist for the Sol Plaatje European Union Award (2022).
However, Jerome believed he had come to a culturally dry place, Pretoria.
This was until he discovered the poetry night held at Magic Tree Books.
This is how I also discovered this fascinating, friendly fellow.
In a recent interview, Jerome revealed that he only discovered his poetic inclinations during the Covid-19 lockdown.
He credits his aunt for bringing about the inspiration for his lockdown poem, Koesisters.
It came about because his aunt lamented the fact that during lockdown, they couldn’t go out on a Sunday to search for Koesisters, fried dough balls, not to be confused with koeksisters.
The poem Koeksisters opened up the poetry community for Jerome.
The poetry community in Cape Town is vibrant and includes published poetry to live poetry.
Jerome also emphasises how his work needs to live in different genres and forms.
He gives the example of the work he’s done in the past with the Food Agency Cape Town, or FACT as they call themselves.
FACT is an organisation involved with community food kitchens and food gardens.
Saneliswe Nyaba, affectionately known as “Mimi” from FACT, approached Jerome to work on a research project.
Mimi is what Jerome refers to as a “cultural curator”, someone linking people creatively.
These efforts resulted in a poetry collection called “Fresh Offerings”, from this collection a short film came forth as well as a theatre production called “A pot of pap at the end of the Rainbow Nation”.
The project then branched out into a YouTube documentary called “Cooking up Feminism”.
Jerome stresses how vital it is for his work to flow into other media and creative projects.
Jerome said he is completely vested in observing the world and its inhabitants; human interaction is a central theme in his work.
Jerome moved from Cape Town to Pretoria to fill a post at UNISA as a lecturer and to do his PHD here.
In his honours paper, Jerome said he grappled with the issue of how people of colour form their identity, what their identity is formed by, and what are the songs and poems are particular to these people.
He talks about the magic, which is separate from religion, the indigenous magic power.
The way the Khoi and the San use and believe in nature’s cues, their relationship to the moon, and ritualistic dance.
Inspiration, experience, and experiment are what make Jerome tick as he ventures into writing poetry to talk to the community.
During the interview, I asked him to read some of his poetry out loud.
Obliging by request, he candidly said, “Do you mind if I stand?
“I will also imagine an audience… sometimes I just imagine Parliament because that’s where I want my poetry to go.
“Parliament needs more poets!”
The poem Jerome read was Blue Karros.
This poem is about a traveller observing people surrounding him; the reference to Blue Karros is about a blue plastic covering serving as a coat in the Company Gardens in Cape Town.
Jerome stood up and performed his poem titled “Blue Karros.”
“For Shange, rats, squirrels, and travellers
Traveller with a blue karros, hanging to his knees.
A blue karros keeps the Traveller upright,
and welcomes him to the new worlds.
Traveller with a crown made of steel dreads.
Never stumbles over his smile made of corpses.
His fortune is sailing across an empty sky.
Traveller accompanied by generations,
whose fears hang on their cheeks like rats
leaving behind scratches on a polished wooden floor.
Travellers in large shimmering gowns,
large enough to comfort the moon
until the next eclipse.
Travellers be careful of asteroids threatening to take
stitches apart, these wounds cannot be covered
with large shimmering gowns.
Travellers greet everyone with a fist
made of clouds, a reminder that your body
is not only meant for fighting and war.
Always listen to the foot tapping,
to the smiles who find comfort
under your blue karros.
*2026, Memories in our throats, Karavan Press
