He Pleaded Ignorance by Kobus Moolman | Poems Rethabile Likes
"He Pleaded Ignorance"
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He did not know what the sky was made of. He did not know what fire tasted like. He did not know how far away from the earth the truth was. He did not know how long a man could survive without any covering over his body. Such as skin. He did not know the current market value of love. He did not know the lengths a man would go to in order to find deception. He did not know where it all came from. Then he came up out of the water. Then he found that he could still breathe. Even though it was air.
Kobus Moolman's "He Pleaded Ignorance" is a poem of radical unknowing — an inventory of things a man doesn’t know, followed by an emergence that changes everything.
The repetition of "He did not know" builds a catalogue of ignorance: about the sky, fire, truth, the body, love, deception, origins, things the average person on the street regularly knows. And then — "Then he came up out of the water." Something occurs. A baptism? A birth? A near-drowning reversed? Then he finds he can still breathe.
I was in the audience when Kobus read this poem, ten years ago in Durban, and I was struck by the unformed—not uniformed—nor uninformed, but the wearing of the form of the poet's poetry with its own structure… just not what some reader might expect. I think this makes his poetry come at us more directly, to catch us with our trousers down.
There's something almost comic, almost miraculous, in the poem's final turn. The man who knew nothing discovers that the most ordinary thing—air—is still available to him. He lives through the ordeal. And there's finally no explanation because none is required. Who would want one? There's neither need nor room for it. The reader comes away satiated.
— Rethabile
Kobus Moolman reading "He Pleaded Ignorance"
In this video, Kobus Moolman reads his poem "He Pleaded Ignorance." His voice is calm and steady as he recounts the litany of things a man does not know, followed by his emergence from the water and discovery that he can still breathe air.
Video source: YouTube. Duration approximately 2 minutes.
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