Letter to South Africa. Poets calling
the state to order. Umuzi,
2011. ISBN 978 1 4152 0125 1.
Reviewer: Joan Hambidge
The idea of this
book originated at the 2010 poetry festival, Versindaba. Marlene van Niekerk
chaired a colloquium at the University of Stellenbosch and various poets were
invited to take part. The idea was to write variations or parodies of Allen
Ginsberg famous poem “America”. Please google the poet on youtube and listen to
his unique critique of America during the Vietnam war.
Allen Ginsberg
is an outstanding poet. A Beat poet who wrote verse with references to Blake
and oral poetry.
We all know the
Ginsberg myths, for instance, reading poetry in Central Park high as a kite to
an audience of groupies. I am an unashamed Ginsberg-fan and Johann de Lange’s
translation of “Howl” in Afrikaans is potent and enduring.
Which brings me
to this volume. Firstly, I was invited but declined due to my respect for
Ginsberg as an outstanding poet. Secondly, I attended a conference in Seoul
last year and heard a daunting lecture on the structures in his poetry which
very few of the contributors in the anthology Letter to South Africa seem to grasp. All the pitfalls of the
pastiche can be found in these rather fleshed out and over the top poems. Please
don’t yell, I am not deaf.
Ginsberg does
not yell. He accuses. And he applies poetic techniques to his “long letter” to
America, for instance, the refrain, repetition, irregular meter, the long
dancing lines in a harrowing poem.
Afrikaans poems
are translated into English. Marlene van Niekerk, the originator of this letter
home, writes a provocative poem “Suid-Afrika”, albeit too long. Tertius Kapp
applies strong metaphors and Loftus Marais equals with camp references. We have
original English poems and English poems in translation. We have black voices,
for instance Natalia Molebatsi (in “Trying…”).
Unfortunately
“geleentheidsbundels word verleentheidsbundels”.
What does a poet
mean with the following:
Like the
prostitute who is actually a sex slave?
Or
it’s not because
I don’t give a fuck
that this
salutation dies behind my teeth,
my attempt to
let you fall is
hampered by a
speck on the horizon
The problem with
this volume is probably that the brief was misunderstood. To write or copy
Ginsberg is a daunting task. If you’re a Ginsberg-reader the volume will be a
volume of poets calling the state to order. If not, you might admire the strong
and direct attact:”spike with Molotov cocktails the crystal goblets out of
which gatekeepers drink let the message be hurled across streets in a burning
arch”.
Poets calling
the state to order? Rather, poets should call a tradition to order.
Read Ginsberg.
Or Milosz.
Or listen and
watch Ginsberg on youtube.
That’s poetry.
[This review has previously been published in The Cape Argus.]