Poetry

Within the cover page of a Victorian photo album recently acquired for the Hardijzer Photographic Research Collection (HPRC), a poem written in Dutch/Afrikaans was found. Given the era of the album, as well as the content of the poem, it is thought the poem was penned (typed) prior to 1910. I find the poem intriguing and simply have to share it. I retyped the poem with the original grammatical errors included as well as informally translated (click here to read).

The typewriter has been in use since around the mid-1880s. It is therefore assumed that the poem would have been typed by the author, Ompie (Uncle), himself.

The grammatical errors and some sentence structure in the original poem can be safely linked to Ompie’s lack of typing skills. The spelling of Ompie in itself is also incorrect. The correct spelling, Oompie, is a diminutive of Oom (Uncle).

The album sadly contained no provenance, so it is therefore not possible to determine who the album may have belonged to. It is assumed that Ompie is the uncle of the original owner of the Victorian Photo Album, a young female at the time. It is also assumed that her uncle wrote the poem because of his personal observation of changes taking place within the younger generation.

The poet applied a couplet style (where two successive lines rhyme), however, the translated version into English loses the intent of rhyme.

As much as things change, they remain the same. Analysing the poem reminds me of modern-day...

I appear as a man 
starting another story

I’m accelerating along the M2 West
heading for the Vaal
I’m gently swaying and clacking over 
the Fordsburg viaduct on the Trans Karroo
I’m on the R21 to OR Tambo 
for my Cape Town flight  

A migrant between the book ends of
my life; Johannesburg the library

Egoli, we grew up together, 
learned to love one another 
about you 
I waxed loquacious 
I was your scribe
delivered multiple tellings 

I was too young to be asked 
so here I was, faced with my 
unquestioning arrival  
my life and my futures
settled by migration
school, university, work, 
my life unfolding, lovers, 
love’s failures 
love’s acceptances
career successes and 
other episodes that make a life:
children, death of parents
from twelve dwellings we penetrated
your neighbourhods 

[no more half-price pizza at the 
Radium with Clive]

Goodbye Johannesburg
I’ve left my story with you
my story of you and of me
all my written words  and 
so many spoken 

[no more Lasagne at Francos 
with the Cohens]

my words about 
golden winter days
and torrential white waters
after summer thunderstorms
my memories of tram rides 
up and down the hills 
driving through the great 
exotic forest doubling 
as an aviary
mansions and shacks
crazy driver pissing competitions
the growth and demise of apartheid
about the men who found 
gold and the men who mined 
gold and the those who followed:
workers and traders, whores and wives 
and the six generations of
citizens who...