Within the past year Robert Berold has brought out two new books — the culmination of 10 years of work, from 1989 to 1999, as editor of the poetry journal New Coin. The first, It All Begins (Gecko) came out late last year; it is an anthology of poetry by more than 50 South African poets from the journal. The second, South African Poets on Poetry (also Gecko), is a collection of interviews with several of the poets featured in the anthology, including Tatamkhulu Afrika, Kelwyn Sole and Karen Press. “Poetry is the most raw, basic, powerful language there is,” Berold says. “It is a whole lot more than what is taught in English departments. People are scared of it, mostly because of its honesty, so they push it into the realm of academia. When I took on New Coin I wanted to go out there and find poems and educate myself,” he explains. “I found that poetry is happening everywhere, among educated and uneducated people, even if it isn’t being written down.” Says Joan Metelerkamp, fellow poet and Berold’s successor as editor of New Coin, “He opened up space for new poets — he was able to recognise new forms and hear new voices.” Interviewing poets became an integral aspect of Berold’s editing role. This is the foundation for South African
Poets on Poetry. “It was important for me to build a community because
poetry is a very isolated world,” Berold says. “You need to find peers.” Metelerkamp says of Berold: “His energy and commitment, his real love of poetry, and his depth of reading, meant that he made contact with the poets and was often a mentor and guide. You have to feel heard, even if only by an audience of one — and Robert was that real, educated, listening, responding audience.” Berold feels that in South Africa “there is very little intelligent and constructive criticism of contemporary poetry”. Metelerkamp says his criticism was essential to her sense of value as a poet. “The book is about taking poets seriously,” Berold says of South African Poets on Poetry. “I educated myself about contemporary poetry by reading essays that poets wrote about other poets.” The book, he believes, is also a “political record”
of South Africa during the time of apartheid and the struggle against it.”It is a sad fact, but oppressive regimes are good for poetry,” Berold says. “Poetry is very low-tech, so governments can’t stop or ban it.” It is therefore one of the few forms of expression available to people under such circumstances. Though apartheid is over, says Berold, there is a struggle that continues. “The struggle now is to tell the truth, to resist being turned from human beings into consumers. To speak in plain language and to say what people are thinking but aren’t saying. That is the huge role that poets have today.”Metelerkamp believes Berold’s greatest contribution has been “to be in tune with this country, to know its workings deeply, intimately, and at the same time to have a deep historical understanding of poetry”. He is “able to recognise value when he sees it”, and “running workshops, teaching creative writing courses, means that he has influenced poets in this country enormously”. South African Poets on Poetry will be launched at WordFest at this year’s National Arts Festival in Grahamstown and It All Begins will be promoted afresh. Berold has plans to start reading his poetry to schools “because schoolkids can still listen”, but for the moment he is happy to spend more time on his own poetry. “It is not every day that you get to be a full-time poet,” he says. Berold has written 12 new poems in the past year, and he is very pleased with them. They explore his natural surroundings: “I am really into my environment. I am becoming part of it more and more. I want to encounter it more thoroughly. I greet the trees around my house every morning.” He says he wants to explore more thoroughly the valley in which his farm is nestled. “I am lucky to be in one place and I am not going anywhere,” he adds. Doesn’t he feel isolated? “The more I can be open with the space in front of me, the more I can be open to the world.”