Poetic Sensei; a messiah sent to save poetry

Koketso Kgoboge | Tuesday June 27, 2017 15:47

In short Kagiso is a messiah sent to save poetry. In the entertainment circles the young man from Serowe is known as Poetic Sensei. Poetic Sensei is derived from his involvement in poetry and martial arts, where he is a black belt in Oikado. 

He has been steadfast in the revival of poetry and developing poets in the northern city after Barclays Bank of Botswana transferred him from Serowe in 2011. Immediately, his calling ignited and before he could settle he was already engaged with other poets who traded for fun and no more than a dime.

In the same year Poetic Sensei started a poetry group called Poetic Omnibus with six members, who are now all household names. They include Lucky Nkhurutshe of Tsiki Tsiki fame and Onkgolotse Manuel. Today Poetic Omnibus has 12 poets and a group of understudies, which he said compelled him to resign from Barclays. 

“I had a number of talented poets behind me who need empowerment schemes and that need called for a keen captain. The backlog of talent overtook my time at Barclays and that need to see the arts develop basically forced me to resign,” he said. 

“It has not been a smooth ride though but people continue to appreciate our efforts and the growth has switched a notch up.  We have been stagnant and now we are able to identify where we were lagging and we are developing a little more quickly.”

He said they have realised Batswana do not attend poetry sessions as much as they would have wished and as thus they have devised other strategies.

He said four of the group’s poets will be releasing books before the end of the year and three will be releasing poetry packed DVD’s. Poetic Sensei said his course is not so distant from others before him.  He said the contrast is the abundant mode of platforms available now that can be exploited to sustain the arts and create a sustainable industry.

He said his vision in the long term is to digitalise and shift a bit from stage performing because the low turnouts at the shows has a potential to discourage and destroy talent. “People should view poetry as an art of goodwill and a prophetic art. 

We appeal to the public to support poetry and attend to the poetry sessions across the country.”  “Our scope of dream is to create a revolving poetry television programme that will unearth and support new poets,” he said.

Poetic Sensei’s love for poetry can be traced as far back as his primary school days at Central Primary School in Serowe, his birthplace. He said he developed a penchant for poetry after admiring his brother who was a writer and a shy poet and a staunch Mzwakhe Mbuli fan.

“My brother made more sense to me than Mzwakhe Mbuli because his poems were easy and young as I was I got into a silent competition with him.” His calling in the poetry circles came to the fore in 1993 when he was elected to recite a poem on behalf of his primary school at the Serowe main Kgotla.

His delivery caught the eyes of delegates that were representing Debswana and was invited to perform in South Africa during that country’s independence a year later. “That remains the highlight of my poetry career. I was performing Steve Biko and that was upon the release of Mandela.

I did it before hordes of people from all walks of life.”  “I recited a three minutes speech that I delivered in a more poetic approach and catching the attention of all those people was sensational.”  From then on poetry became part of him. At standard seven he was well known in the village and the Bamangwato Kgotla was his common stage.

At junior school he attracted invites from different ceremonies particularly government seminars and dinner events. He said until he started senior school at Swaneng Hill School he was only happy to be on stage and thought less about benefiting from his talent.

“My teachers at Swaneng, Goodwill Tlokwe and Ray Phoza felt I was exploited and mentored me into commercial poetry. I started benefiting from my talent,” he said. In his career he has performed in different places in Africa and in as far-flung places as the United Kingdom.