‘Text’ and ‘voice’ in recent South African poetry

C Woeber

doi:10.4102/lit.v17i2.610

Abstract

This article explores in some depth two volumes of poetry which are indicative of a tension between the poem as ‘text’ and the poem as ‘voice’, or the self-conscious (metaphoric) ‘reading' or ‘rewriting ’ of the world versus the outward (prophetic) ‘speaking' to the world. While neither book is hermetically sealed and, like all rich poetry, delights in transgressing categories, each is distinctive enough to lend itself to exploration in terms of ‘text’ and ‘voice’. The article argues that John Mateer, the self-avowed iconoclast yet to find an individual voice, is postmodern in his reading and rewriting of the fragmented world, while Joan Metelerkamp is closer to the modernists in her speaking to the hallowed world as poet-prophet, eschewing textual pyrotechnics while situating herself within poetic tradition.

Highlights

John M ateerSomewhat out o f synch with contemporary South Africa, Burning Swans is the debut volume of this 23-year-old who packed for Perth when he was seventeen
This article explores in some cleplh two volumes o f poetry which are indicative o f a tension between the poem as ‘te x t’ and the poem as ‘v o ic e ’, or the self-conscious ‘rea d in g ' or ‘rewriting ’ o f the world versus the outward ‘sp ea kin g ' to the world
Joan M etelerkam p’s volume, Slone No M ore (1995), shares ju st this with W atson’s, both dem onstrating how human beings have ‘presence’ in the imagination and memory o f those who know them, allowing their poetry to be rooted in a specifics o f time and place, and to possess a certain timelessness and universality

Summary

John M ateer

Somewhat out o f synch with contemporary South Africa, Burning Swans is the debut volume of this 23-year-old who packed for Perth when he was seventeen. May take umbrage at the portrayal o f women in these poems Since they are usually depicted as integral to M ateer’s finding identity, they seldom speak and are frequently on the receiving end o f violent thoughts, as in “The Same Thing” (‘Can I say I’ll leave / you bruised, breathing, thumped with hot / sem en?’), to say nothing o f the violent action present in “M eat” : ‘And I will / use her name, call her names with her name, / enjoy hooking into all those shaming positions’. If there is any criticism o f the scope o f M ateer’s first volume, it must be that his empathy for the marginalised is not readily apparent (perhaps not of concern to him), rendering the tone of this volume, for all its self-assurance, penile hard and inflexible

Textual play and symbols

Simplicity versus opacity o f expression

Joan M etelerkam p

Hallowing the quotidian and ordinary

Poetic allusions and antecedents

Conclusion