Penning pain into poetry

JORDAN MOSHE

“Most people around us are trying to figure life out for themselves,” he says. “Many of us go through the same things. Sometimes we think we’re alone, but we are actually connected through experience.”

Fouche, 27, is the author of the recently published poetry anthology, Wherever I Go, I Want to Leave, which was launched in Johannesburg last week. He is the son of local kosher-style food artist Dolores Fouche, and has been living in the United States since matriculating from King David Linksfield in 2010.

Fouche moved to New York just three weeks after completing matric, determined to nurture his passion for acting and writing.

He was head boy and captain of the school rugby team. “At school, I divided my time between rugby and drama,” he says. “I enjoyed rugby more, but I always wanted to be involved in theatre.

“I didn’t want to study drama at Wits [the University of the Witwatersrand]. I love South Africa way more than New York, but I chose to go there purely for my work. I had never been there before, and though it was super scary, I dived right in.

“It was just after the global recession,” he says. “Everyone was trying to make it, and they came from all over. Even today, everyone is trying to climb the ladder all the time.”

However, he found that the city gave him the opportunity to be free. “In New York, I was anonymous. I could do crazy monologues, write weird poems, and express what I felt and saw whenever I wanted to – on the subway, on a bus, or even at a bar at 03:00.”

When he wasn’t writing, Fouche attended classes at the city’s celebrated Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute, honing his acting skills alongside his flair for writing, and also starred in local productions.

After living in New York for four years, Fouche moved to Los Angeles in search of new opportunities. “LA is the Superbowl of the artistic industry,” he says. “If you walk up to any random person in LA and say, ‘I love your work’, they will say ‘thank you’. There’s a delusion that everyone is a star there.”

It was there that he set out to get his big break. “I was a small fish,” he says. “I went for plenty of auditions, faced a lot of rejection, and was broken down and analysed over and over. I took writing and acting classes, worked at a bar, and kept looking for opportunities. Bookstores, coffee shops, listening to people’s conversations – I used every experience to learn and look for a chance.”

Hollywood had minimal appeal for him, being little more than a dazzling mirage of scant substance and broken dreams. Says Fouche, “Hollywood is grimy and dirty, full of sad people. You see dozens of them sitting on the pavement in their sleeping bags clutching notebooks full of writing, waiting for someone to come past and give them their lucky break.”

His frustration at the reality he witnessed fuelled his poetry. Upset at the world and its inequality, Fouche penned poems regularly when he felt inspired by something he saw or heard, whether he was on a bus, tending a bar, or walking through the city.

“I found inspiration in the conversation between two drunk old men,” he says. “I listened to what people were saying or watched what they were doing.”

What began as a form of personal emotional expression quickly gained momentum and developed into a collection of poems drawn from reality.

“The language and structure of a poem don’t matter,” he says. “The content informs the heart of a poem. I listened to everyday conversations, and let life inform my writing, wanting it to be accessible and relatable to anyone from anywhere. It’s about the normal experiences we all have.”

Fouche dedicated himself to the project, penning about 120 poems over two years. He decided to get the collection published, approaching about 200 different publishers. Eight of these replied to his submission, and after meeting them, he selected one, and signed a contract for the publication of his work in May 2016.

“I was writing not only for myself but for others,” he says. “Loneliness and isolation are two of the themes which are expressed in my poems. We all have dark moments that come and go in our lives, and I wanted people to know that it’s normal.”

Fouche believes those who have responded negatively to his poetry, accusing him of being too dark or melancholic, are fearful of acknowledging their own loneliness.

He hopes to pen another book soon, but already has a big project slated for the end of the year, with a script he wrote set for production in November. He attributes his success to his family and Jewish identity, both of which provide him with a sense of stability and rootedness.

“My parents and brothers are my first and best readers,” he says. “Family provides me with a solid foundation that I can always rely on. My Jewish identity helps me know who I am, and no matter what happens, I am assured of some certainty in that. There are many people who aren’t so fortunate.”