The Poet is Dead
A memorial for Robinson Jeffers
In the evening the dusk
Stipples with light. The long shore
Gathers darkness in on itself
And goes cold. From the lap of silence
All the tide-crest’s pivotal immensity
Lifts into the land.
*
Breyten Breytenbach, Die Beginsel van Stof, Human & Rousseau, 2011
(originally published in Die Burger, 4 March 2011, translated by Willem de Vries. Afrikaans version online at Boekeblok.)
I was 14 in 1980 when my Afrikaans teacher lent me two banned books wrapped in brown paper: Brink’s Kennis van die Aand and Breytenbach’s Om te Vlieg. We were out on national school boycotts, becoming politicised and teachers who cared did what they could.
Of course the explicit sex in Brink was any teenage boy’s fantasy, and the book’s politics also took away the breath. But the Breytenbach book is the one that stayed with me, just as any fantastical dream stays with one. After the giggling at swear words, what remained of that book still remains: the complete otherness of the book. Om te Vlieg showed what was possible in a book, and what was possible in that book, what Breytenbach did in that book, has remained a hallmark of especially his Afrikaans work, specifically his poetry.
Leon de Kock, Bodyhood, Umuzi, 2010
(Afrikaans original at Boekeblok)
With its eye-catching cover designed by Michiel Botha, Bodyhood is Leon de Kock’s third collection of poetry. As the back cover describes, the themes of the poetry revolve, among other things, around the body and being, love and its loss, and desire. There are also poems about eating and poems about raging jealousy.
In the mute roar of autumn, in the shrill
treble of the aspens, the basso of the holm-oaks,
in the silvery wandering aria of the Schuylkill,
the poplars choiring with a quillion strokes,
find love for what is not your land, a blazing country
in eastern Pennsylvania with the DVD going
in the rented burgundy Jeep, in the inexhaustible bounty
of fall with the image of Eakins’ gentleman rowing
in his slim skiff whenever the trees divide
to reveal a river’s serene surprise, flowing
through the snow-flecked birches where Indian hunters glide.
The country has caught fire from the single spark
of a prophesying preacher, its embers glowing,
its clouds are smoke in the onrushing dark
a holocaust crackles in this golden oven
in which tribes were consumed, a debt still owing,
while a white country spire insists on heaven.
(from White Egrets, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010)
You were silly like us: your gift survived it all;
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself; mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its saying where executives
Would never want to tamper; it flows south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.
(from, The English Auden: Poems, Essays and Dramatic Writings, 1927-1939, ed. Edward Mendelson, Faber & Faber, 1977, 1978, 1986)
I’m preparing some folders for Dropbox and came across this 1st draft Afrikaans translation of ‘Kingdom of Rain’ from This Carting Life (Kwela/Snailpress, 2005; English version here). I can’t remember translating it; perhaps someone else translated it? (Please drop me a note.)
Koninkryk van reën
from these I am growing no nearer
to what secret eluded the children
– Derek Walcott, ‘Sainte Lucie’
Iewers in ‘n donker dekade
staan my pa sonder werk,
en onbekend aan my broer en ek,
beneweld in ‘n Boland winter en ‘n skool vakansie.
Soos die kwik daal, maak hy, my pa
‘n fles koffie, koop pastei en ons tjoef
Du Toit’s Kloof pas op in sy ou ‘57 Ford’
en daar wil hy die berge – onder koue wolk,
bruin en blou rotswande nat in die reën –
hy wil dit alles oop, om sy kinders binne te laat
al maak hy verskoning – my streng en grimmige
vreeswekkende pa – al vra hy verskoning vir sy bestaan
sy houplek op die daad verklaar
aan die boswagter of opsigter in staatsgewaad,
altyd net daar om die volgende draai
of aan slaap in ‘n jeep by ‘n aftrek-plek:
‘Nee meneer, ons ry maar net. Ja meneer, dis my kar.’
By die hoogste punt van die pas
stop ons om te eet, en hy, my pa,
my streng en grimmige, vreeswekkende pa,
my pa vir wie ek lief is en sy donker vel,
hy dryf hierdie heelal oop wat hy vreemd genoeg
ons eie maak, wat nie meer myne is nie:
‘n slim ou grys bobbejaan, weggesteek
teen sout-en-peper klip, wat ons dophou;
‘n onuitstaanbare edel roofvoël
selde te sien, en wat nou nes toe vlieg soos die weer draai.
En daar, dink ek, daar is ons nader
aan my pa se God, die wind huilend
en wolke wat oor ons druis, en ons
verruk en klein in die groot kar wat in die wind rond wieg.
Stilte. ‘n Skielike stil punt
as die heelal huiwer, asem skep
en genade binnehaal. En dan
die sneeu wat soos donsveer val
as die wêreld ons
ons vlugtige, blink koninkryk gee,
onkenbaar deur die boswagter. En vir minute
staan daar ‘n kar met drie stom insittendes
staan ons daar op ‘n bergspits, buite
die vinnige verduistering van ons grootword;
te kortstondig om die duister jare te verlig
toe ek sou leer:
hoe die skerp, skoon boerplek van krap en forel
waar ons in die somer swem
nou, in winter, ‘n donker, bruin rotsgedruis;
hoe berg en denneboom en fynbos
of die muis-gedrewe valke van my veld;
die laaste, mosterd-droeë duiwelsnuif
wat my pa deur die lug gooi
om soos ‘n rook-bom teen die grond te plof;
en een keer, ook êrens een somer,
‘n praterige piet-my-vrou;
of die mirakele rondomtalie van waterhondjies
oor ‘n tee-kleurige water-poel
wiegend tussen bruin klip en varing-groen varings;
my eerste en enigste uil,
groot en geheimsinnig
diep binne ‘n dennebos,
groot uil onkenbaar aan ons
totdat jy wegvlieg, ontroer deur ons stemme;
hoe ek ook ontroer sou word, en sou leer
dat hierdie boom en hierdie voël, hierdie wêreld
die aarde en hierdie kind se tuiste
alreeds buite sy besitting val.
En hoe, êrens noord deur die droeë
Boesmanland met sy swart klippe,
oor ‘n bult in die pad, die skielike groen
soos die vreemde en bekende sisklanke
in Keimoes en Kakamas.
En die keelklank was die gorrelende water
oor rotse by Augrabies.
Die Garieb oor rotse by Augrabies,
by Augrabies waar die hek toeslaan
en die hekwag styf-lip soos ‘n sinode:
‘Die nie-blanke kant is vol’
terwyl hy ‘n kar vol
bruingebrande wit jeug deurwink
wat na ons lag, na my pa, my vader
my stille pa wat êrens ver-langs verstaar
en die kind wat hierdie heim-sweer ver verby metafoor aanleer.
En hoe, soos ‘n bobbejaan, die reg en staat
sy fok-jou-stert aan ons sou wys
en weg drentel.