On a Close-up of Louis Esterhuizen, on His Poem “Winnie”
So tell me Louis, you allege:
“I went to look at the remarks
found in his biographical sketch:
“I love the work of various poets
and my favourites are AG Visser, Eugene Marais,
Ingrid Jonker, D.J. Opperman, N.P. Van Wyk Louw,
William Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, John Keats,
Robert Frost, W.B. Yeats, Yahuda Amichai,
Hannah Szenes, Stevie Smith, Dorothy Parker
and even Homer.””
Further you say: “With the exception of a few names
under the English favourites, all the Afrikaans poets are experts
whom he probably encountered at school,
if a person looks at the verses on his page
you realise that Mr. X has never grown past the incidental
school-contact...In this he is alas not unique.”
Still you are the great master
where it comes to the works of Homer,
as you make a comparison
in your poem “Winnie” between Me. Winnie Mandela
and Homer’s character Penelope,
where there are in reality flagrant contrasts
and the masters canonise this poem
in the “Great Verse Book”
without even being aware of the contrasts?
Let me as just a unfolding poet
who “has never grown past
the incidental school-contact, ”
point out the contrasts clearly:
The story of Penelope comes
out of Homer’s Odyssey where the title
indicates a long historical journey or adventure
or some wanderings
that the main character Odysseus / Ulysses
undertakes before again arriving
at the island Ithaca
where he rules as the king.
For only a very short while
Odysseus / Ulysses is with the nymph Circe
on a island, but the greatest part of the book
is about his wanderings.
In flagrant contrast you write:
”And Penelope comes forward, impatient
and rude as Ulysses is only moving rocks
[...] Read more
poem by Gert Strydom
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