LANDSCAPES OF POEMS

AN ANTHOLOGY OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN AND OTHER POETRY

For Second Additional Language

Grade 12

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The Poets

I have often taken down old volumes

From long shelves crowded with conversations

That have ceased, the interlocutors now

Standing stiffly, side by side, in silence.

But these others, they quarrelled with themselves

About terrible things like love and death;

And you can hear their passionate murmur

Inside these covers, like bees in a hive

Elias Pater

INTRODUCTION

Poetry is the oldest form of literature. With its roots in song in all the cultures of the world, it has taken on many forms in different societies over time. Today, it lives on in writing and music as one of the most basic and durable forms of human expression.

It is said that falling into poetry is like falling in love. You don’t tiptoe around it, recommending the venture. You crash into it; it crashes into you – the full catastrophe. That crash is the beginning of what the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri referred to as the Vita Nuova – the ‘new life’ to be found in poetry. T.S. Eliot believed that genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. For understanding to be quick to follow, a grasp on the craft of poetry is helpful. Once that is achieved, both imagination and evocation come into play, the one being what the poet puts in, the other what you, the reader, take out and apply to your life.

Landscapes of Poems is a step in that direction. It is a selection from the finest poems in English, conceived to impart forms of knowledge and skills required for successful literary study and communication. By integrating the reading, discussion, analysis and evaluation of poetry with the world in which readers are situated, it brings poetry closer to everyday life. At the same time, the anthology enables students to explore other worlds directly and indirectly related to their own. This is achieved by combining English poetry from Southern Africa with poetry from many other parts of the world.

Making sense of human experiences

Written at different times and in different localities, the poems in this anthology represent some of the finest poetic examples of the various ways in which human beings living in different societies and at different times made literary art from their experiences. This making of literary art is, of course, also a process of making sense and of giving meaning to human experiences.

The question is: How do human beings make sense of their specific personal and local experiences? There are many practical ways of making sense of everyday life. At the most elementary level it includes the ability to understand the implications of changes in the weather and what shelter has to be taken from the sun, rain, wind and cold – alternatively, to know what opportunities are presented by changes in the weather. At the core is the ability to grasp the significance of events and situations correctly and to communicate what is perceived, understood or thought as accurately as possible. The ability to perform such interpretative acts effectively is the key to the survival and success of individuals and societies.

How does poetry fill this role? Phrased differently, of what value is poetry to the process of grasping meanings connected to practical life?

This anthology, I think, provides some answers to the question. How this is achieved can be gleaned from its title, Landscapes of Poems. ‘Landscape’ here means the natural and social space of life. In other words, the world in which we live is accentuated. This is related to the way we live in the world. The world we live in and the way we live in it involve the ways through which we make meaning of the world and of our lives.

Experiencing nature and society

Given the diverse spaces, both natural and social, in which human life is lived, the landscape is always a plurality of landscapes. These diverse spaces of nature and society are what this anthology brings to the fore. It provides readers with opportunities to engage with poetry written from their own diverse landscapes and the equally diverse landscapes of poetry beyond their immediate environment. How is this done? Here, a glance at the content list provides some clues.

The poems in the first section of the anthology are drawn from the vast tradition of English writing outside of Southern Africa. It is organised to highlight the forms of language human beings invented and applied to make sense of their experiences and the world since time immemorial. This section marks the extent to which poetry is part of that process.

The main means for making sense of the past and the present in every language and culture all over the world is storytelling, or the narrative. Should you doubt this, all you need to do is to ask yourself who you are, where you come from and how you fit into the world. Your response will take on the form of a story or a narrative in which you connect your sense of who you are now with your past, your history. Our lives then, like a story, have a beginning, a middle and an end. To explain it to others we narrate it.

Experiencing the art of narration

The art of narration involves the capacity to give an account of past or recent events in a coherent manner in language, music, dance or images. In literature, the art of narration is all-important. At the same time narrative and its role in making meaning is so obvious that overlooking it is quite easy. With its focus on narrative poetry, this anthology seeks to give learners diverse opportunities to discover the role of narrative in poetry. Different forms of narrative poetry such as the ballad, the epic, the dramatic monologue and anecdotal poem are thus presented for study. Concise definitions of all these forms of narrative poetry are provided.

If the capacity to narrate is a vital human capacity, so is description. Description involves the act of giving an accurate account in language of the characteristics of objects, observations, thoughts, feelings, moods, sensations, ideas and states of mind. In poetry such an act of description does not merely involve writing down certain attributes in a bland and factual manner. It involves the vivid evocation of things through creative description and mimicking. To achieve this, various forms of poetry ranging from the lyric and the sonnet to the ode and the elegy have been invented. All these forms and modalities can be studied in this anthology along with their definitions.

While narrative and description present distinct modes of writing, this does not mean that a narrative poem can wholly do without description. In all narrative poems some parts of the story will require description. The same logic applies to descriptive poetry: its dominant mode may be descriptive, but it may also contain some narrative elements. This combination can be seen in the two sections dealing with descriptive-narrative poetry. The first group of poems deals with themes from nature and the second with the realities of the modern world.

Experiencing our place in the universe

Two other modalities are added to the above: the philosophical mode and the modalities of humour. In the philosophical poem, another human capacity is brought into play. This is the ability to reflect on the meaning of life and the place of human beings in the universe. The purpose here is not to describe or to narrate but to reflect and provide some explanations, make comments or ponder on questions concerning life and society. Here the communication of thoughts and ideas is uppermost.

Experiencing the amusement and gravity of humour

The first part of the anthology ends with a selection of humorous poems. It is divided into two genres or sub-modalities. The first is called Light Verse and deals with poetry that is playful and even frivolous. Such poetry seeks to entertain and amuse. The second form of humour deals with satire. These are poems in which humour is used to mock, criticise and even protest against human follies and abuses in society. This is laughter with an acerbic edge.

Experiencing South Africa, past and present

Poetry has gained huge popularity in South Africa thanks to initiatives such as the annual Poetry Africa festival, where poets from numerous countries collaborate to celebrate poetry on South African soil. The annual Tradewinds Poetry Caravan has been likened to a travelling marketplace, substituting poetry for perfume and spices, and succeeds in creating a festive atmosphere around a core literary programme, while other festivals like Urban Voices go a long way towards providing an explosive mix of the spoken word with music. Combined with Verse Indabas, smaller monthly poetry readings, poetry competitions, the commendable efforts of local radio stations such as Metro FM and YFM with their weekly poetry slots, as well as the SABC television programme ‘Latitude’, which promotes poetry, poetry is now enjoyed collectively as well as individually in all parts of the country.

The competitive art of performance poetry – poetry slams, as they are called – has growing popular appeal as well as educational value as it is usually organised by poets themselves who aim at cultivating poetry in their own communities. This reaps rewards because there is huge potential for entertainment in choosing topics of universal interest and pitting two teams against each other. Having members of the audience who have the freedom to express themselves act as judge assures audience participation, while the inclusion of an energetic ‘referee’ gives a poetry slam the air of sport. The best thing about this activity is the range of poetry it introduces to the audience, from the romantic to the humorous to sharp social commentary, kindling an interest in the genre which may have gone untapped, whether in creating one’s own poetry or experiencing pleasure in discovering a special poem in a published book.

To that end, the section on local poetry focuses on some of the finest writing from Southern Africa. While most of the poems were originally written in English, some are translated from Afrikaans, Zulu and other indigenous languages of Southern Africa, emphasising the multilingual context of English writing in Southern Africa.

These poems provide readers with opportunities to explore aspects of Southern Africa present and past, as well as a range of other perspectives. A diverse landscape emerges in which the relations between poetry and African traditions, music and identities can be investigated. The land and its people, living in rural and urban settings, are illuminated by a variety of poems. The relationship between human beings and the natural environment in a time of industrial development driven by technology is explored in several clusters of poems. In addition, intimate human landscapes as well as social and political matters are examined. This makes for a comprehensive selection in which poetry is connected to a range of themes directly related to the life-worlds of the readers.

A voyage of discovery

To facilitate discussion and interpretation of the poems, the anthology is equipped with detailed questions, tasks and activities specific to each poem. A dictionary of literary terms and one of keywords and phrases used in questions, each with definitions and examples, are provided along with biographical information on the poets. There is also a glossary of mythological allusions, and words and phrases used in poems. This makes Landscapes of Poems a reader-friendly anthology, tailored to the various needs of those who will use it, and providing us with genuine insight into our own landscape, and better understanding of others.

Andries Walter Oliphant

GETTING TO GRIPS WITH POETRY

Poetry is the journal of the sea-animals living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.

Carl Sandburg

The word ‘poem’ is derived from the Greek poiēma, meaning ‘something made, created’. In other words, it is a work of art, a literary composition. As you read and listen to the poems in this anthology, you will realise that poems come in many shapes and sizes; they may rhyme or not; may vary in their rhythms and in punctuation. They may be about every