Seven South African Poets (1971)

Books like this are often found out front in the discount bin. Anthologies. Poetry anthologies.

Anthologies, book publishers will tell you, are a hard sell. Add poetry to that. Then "South Africa" -- a country that was, until the early 1990s, boycotted by countries both capitalist and communist for its Apartheid policies.

Seven South African Poets (London: Heinemann, 1971) is subtitled (on the inside) "Poems of Exile Collected and Selected." It is edited by playwright and critic Cosmo Pieterse and features one of the most refreshingly existential introductions I have read in some time. Here are its final lines:

"... this volume, while not claiming to represent the poets, does represent them as individuals. Their work may have qualities in common, as some aspects of their lives have; but they do not form a 'school', nor does their work show any trend. These are, simply, seven poets from South Africa."

I purchased the book on the basis of the first poem by Dollar Brand (who now goes by the name of Abdullah Ibrahim). The poem is called "Africa, Music and Show Business: an analytical survey in twelve tones plus finale," and it scratches at everything -- from "geography" to "TIME." Here is "V": " rhythm afrique// joey had the biggest feet/ so he played tenor."

But for me the surprise came at the end of the book -- the poems of Arthur Nortje (1942-1970). In particular his long poem "Immigrant", where the poet's passage stretches from Johannesburg through the UK to Vancouver. "The flat sea washes/ at Vancouver Bay. As we taxi in/ I find I can read the road signs." How strange to learn that in 1967 Nortje taught high school in Hope, B.C.