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Keorapetse Kgositsile Quotes

1938–2018 South Africa

Keorapetse William Kgositsile OIS (19 September 1938 – 3 January 2018), also known by his pen name Bra Willie, was a South African Tswana poet, journalist and political activist. An influential member of the African National Congress in the 1960s and 1970s, he was inaugurated as South Africa's National Poet Laureate in 2006.

South Africa
Activists
Journalists
Poets

Random Keorapetse Kgositsile quote

10 quotes

The production of poetry is, like everything else produced by a people, rooted in and informed by human action and interaction.

If you decide you want to become a poet then it’s your duty to be knowledgeable and to hone your skills.

Does being in a certain position give you wisdom? If you went there without wisdom you will remain there without it.

In a situation of oppression, there are no choices beyond didactic writing: either you are a tool of oppression or an instrument of liberation.

The task of transforming South Africa should not be the sole responsibility of the government but that of everyone who lives here.

The poet has been there to affirm life as a creative activity, to criticize, to entertain

The role of the poet has never changed ever since there was poetry

You can’t blame the classroom for your inadequacies because the classroom isn’t there to produce artists

I am intensely allergic to bullies.

I didn’t have to sound like an English poet… I could tame that English to speak my language

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Keorapetse Kgositsile (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.