Posessing tools/professing artistry:artworks by Wopko Jensma

Possessing tools/professing artistry is a tribute to the way in which South African Wopko Jensma explored the different forms - 'many entities in one shape' - in various and diverse mediums, in bright and unusual colours and colour combinations, not only in the familiar black and white with which many people associate his art. 

The exhibition runs from April 6 to May 4, at Art on Paper, 44 Stanley Avenue, Braamfontein, Johannesburg.

Gedigte in die Goudstad: Melville Poetry Festival by Rene Bohnen

Op Saterdag 15 Oktober was gedigte in die Goudstad gratis. Veel liefliker nog: hulle was ook vry. 
Die Melville Poetry Festival het afgeskop op die hoek van Sewende Straat en Vierde Laan. Op soek na parkering toe ek daar aankom, het luide gejuig en lewendige tromspel aangekondig dat die gees reeds hoog loop. Die strate is nie afgesper nie; motors en voetgangers het ewe gemoedelik en behendig die ruimte gedeel. Die sonnige weer het bygedra tot ’n atmosfeer van spontaneïteit en vrolikheid. Ek sien nie dikwels dat ’n gehoor handeklap en saamsing op hulle eie wysies om te harmonieer met gedigte nie. Maar in Mellies vandag gebeur dit: die digters word aangemoedig, toegejuig – daar is suiwer plesier in die lug...Read more here

The Melville Poetry Festival 2011

Just some events at the Melville Poetry Festival on Saturday October 15 include the launch of Gail Dendy's Closer Than That, a panel discussion on 'The Ghost of Wopko Jensma', and poetry by Gary Cummiskey, Arja Salafranca, Victor Khulile Nxumalo, Kobus Moolman, Rene Bohnen, Bernat Kruger and Alan Finlay. Deep South will also be launching new titles by Mxolisi Nyezwa and Rosamund Stamford.

Creating magic through poetry

Gary Cummiskey is one of the featured poets at the 12th Poetry Africa International Poetry Festival in Durban which runs from September 29 to October 4. Janet van Eeden asked him a few questions about writing and publishing.

Is your desire to write a need to change history, or make a mark on the world in some way?

The first thing I ever wrote was a short story about Mary, Queen of Scots, and after I had written it I felt I had achieved some major accomplishment. There is a definite sense of magic involved in the creative process. And yes, also probably a wish to leave a mark on the world. I have always been struck by some lines by the South African poet Wopko Jensma, from his poem spanner in the what?works, which read: i hope to leave some evidence/that i inhabited this world/that i sensed my situation/that i created something/out of my situation..

You have also become a publisher and have been remarkably resilient in the fickle world of South African literature. How did Dye Hard Press start?

I started up Dye Hard Press in 1994. Like a lot of poets, I was frustrated back then by the lack of publishing outlets. There were only New Coin, New Contrast, Slug News and Staffrider, which was on its last legs. I wanted to start up a literary journal but was initially put off by the financial outlay needed. Gus Ferguson’s maverick Slug News was a good example. It wasn’t printed but photocopied, and he laid it out himself in his lunch hour. So I realised I could produce one myself, cheaply. It was doomed from the start. I didn’t know the first thing about publishing and nobody knew me. So I figured a solution might be to publish a small collection of my work, and distribute it for free. I put together a collection: The Secret Hour. Roy Blumenthal suggested that I create an imprint name too and so I created Dye Hard Press. I then published Alan Finlay’s collection, Burning Aloes, and things continued from there. Sun Belly Press published a small pamphlet of my poems back in 1996, called City, and that same year Gus Ferguson published my collection When Apollinaire Died. Apart from that, all my other collections have been published through Dye Hard Press.

Do you see yourself as a poet or a publisher?

I see myself as a poet-writer first and a publisher second. Last year, at the Cape Town Book Fair, two people expressed surprise that I was a writer. I admit it was of some concern that my work as a publisher was apparently eclipsing my work as a poet. I might stop publishing at any moment, but I would never stop writing.

What sorts of work do you publish?

Dye Hard Press has to date published mainly poetry, and recently Kobus Moolman’s play Full Circle. Through my literary journal Green Dragon I also publish short fiction and creative non-fiction.

What is the future for poetry in South Africa? Is it relevant at all to the majority of people or is it only ever in the foreground at events such as Poetry Africa?

The future of poetry in South Africa is a challenge, to put it mildly. Throughout the world poetry is becoming a marginalised genre, but even more so in South Africa. Yet when I started up Dye Hard Press in the nineties there was an intense creative energy around and people were interested in the poetry we put out.

But that has changed. There is a fair amount of interest, particularly among the youth, in spoken word, hip-hop-type poetry. In one way this is a good thing. It’s certainly supporting the concept of spoken word poetry. At the same time, a lot of the poetry is becoming standardised, unoriginal and predictable.

But events such as Poetry Africa really help.

Schools should teach more contemporary local poetry and then people will not grow up thinking poetry is something that they cannot relate to. Book readers should make a point of reading contemporary South African poetry too or subscribe to a literary journal.

What are your personal ambitions as a poet, writer and publisher?

I want to explore more genres in my writing. I’ve started writing short fiction and there is also a novel floating around in my head. I also want to publish fiction through Dye Hard Press.

(First published in The Witness, September 26, 2008)

An encounter with Wopko Jensma

It was late 1991 when a friend drew my attention to an article in Penthouse about white tramps in South Africa. Among the list of outies was “a promising young poet”, whom I was astonished to discover was Wopko Jensma. According to the article, Jensma had walked out on society, become a tramp, and was living in the Salvation Army Men’s Home in Johannesburg.

That evening, I telephoned the Salvation Army and made an appointment to see Wopko the next Saturday morning. Visiting the Men’s Home was an experience in itself. Outside the gates, a red-faced outie stood clutching a radio: the expression on his face was one of dissolution and loss. Inside, another outie sat on the steps, his head in his hands.

I went in by the side-entrance, and found myself in the kitchen. I introduced myself to the kitchen supervisor who, after shaking hands, said: “Oh yes, we told Wopko to expect you.” He suggested I wait in the TV room. After about five minutes the supervisor returned with a tall, grey-haired man, in an orange shirt, with a blue jacket and trousers. Despite his height, the man seemed unassuming, an anonymous face in the crowd. The supervisor introduced us: “Here’s your visitor, Wopko!”

As we shook hands I noticed his hands were large but soft. His eyes also had a soft, moist expression. When I started telling Wopko that I admired his poetry, he looked frightened for a moment, and rubbed his hands nervously. He started talking about how he had just returned from Swaziland, where he had been working as a mechanic. At first I thought there had been a mix-up, and that this wasn’t Wopko. Before I could say anything, however, he had taken items out of a plastic bag: a Bosal Africa catalogue, an empty coffee tin, some old magazines. He pointed to the bar code on the coffee tin and said: “That’s a good poem.”

I decided to press for some biographical information. He was born in Middelburg, in the Cape, wasn’t he?

Yes, he had spent his childhood there.

And he studied at the University of Potchefstroom?

Only for a year, and then he decided to study Fine Arts at the Pretoria Technikon. The only thing he remembered about Potch was taking a trip to Durban and buying a large tin of pineapples, which he sent back to his parents. When his father opened the tin, the fruit was rotten.

Hadn’t he lived in Mozambique for a spell?

Yes, but only for a very short while, but that was long ago, back in the sixties.

And his work in Botswana?

Yes, he worked as an artist for the department of information.

And what sort of writing did he do in Botswana?

It was here that Wopko made another illogical statement. In answer, he spoke about a little boy who used to siphon petrol from cars and then sell it in order to get money to go to bioscope.

He had published only three collections of poetry, was that correct?

Yes, there were only three. His job kept him so busy that he was unable to produce much work.

I asked him which jazz musicians he liked.

“Don’t speak to me about poetry,” he replied. “Speak to Lionel Abrahams.”

Next Wopko took up the Bosal catalogue and started leafing through it. He pointed to a key diagram of some implement: this, he told me, was a wonderful poem.

Then he pointed to a photograph of a pulley: this was an instrument used to drop crates on people walking the street. Looking at another photograph, of a high-powered drill, Wopko said it was a torture machine designed by Hitler.

By this time I was beginning to feel uneasy, when Wopko himself broke the spell by saying that he had to go now, or else he would miss tea. As he started walking off, I said it had been a privilege to meet him, and asked if I could visit him again.

No, he said, he didn’t like visitors. Then he laughed, and walked back to his room.

i don’t want that suburban house
i don’t want a second car
a swimming pool a lawn a boring Sunday
no, none of that

i am tired, so very tired
tired of the hate stare
tired of broken telephones
tired of non-white entrances
tired of being a burden
i am tired, tired of hating

i don’t want the soothing colours
Of tv. the news and drink some more
to wash me clean
no, please none of that

(Wopko Jensma, from I Must Show You My Clippings, 1977, Raven Press)

Note: Wopko Jensma disappeared from the Men’s Home in 1994. Nobody has heard of him since.

Originally published in Imprint, Summer 1995