gilbert gibson – vertaling in Engels
gilbert gibson - vertaal deur/translated by marcelle olivier
Gilbert Gibson
Gilbert Gibson was born in 1963 and grew up on a farm between Winburg and Marquard in the Free State. He completed his schooling at Marquard High School and studied Medicine at the University of the Orange Free State. He now practises as a physician in Bloemfontein, maintaining a keen interest in cardiovascular risk-factors and sleep-related illnesses. Gibson’s poetry first appeared in Standpunte and Tydskrif vir Letterkunde while still at school. His debut work, Boomplaats, was published in 2005 and was awarded the Protea Poetry Prize in 2006; this was followed in 2007 by Kaplyn. His most recent collection, oogensiklopedie, published in 2009 by Tafelberg, won the 2010 ATKV Poetry Prize.
toemaar die donker man *
ralefathla, whom i thought about
just the other day, comes to visit unexpectedly
it is the first time that i have seen him
in thirty years seen his body
boyish and dark-skinned and
thin with the dust in front of the
farmshop where we play soccer
me and lehata of daina and
mpailo the child of april who
crashed with the tractor and
motsie against sagarume who was agnes
tsehla’s son both him and his
mother died last year and
mohlabi ratikwane and tiele the
brother of mpailo. and ralefathla
agnes’ other child who asked that
i remove my shoes when we
start playing otherwise the white kid
will trample on his feet. he brings
greetings from dikopi madia his
deceased father’s brother who wants
to enquire about the hire of an open
plot of land and of cattle.
when he leaves he will go with a
taxi as far as welkom to
look for a job because the mine
where he worked closed
i want to put myself over the dark man’s shoulders,
but the arms hang unwilling and
lame at the inner as he
walks in front of those who live
and those who already died.
en route to the car
i am spurred and booted.
i kick at a small stone
(From: Kaplyn, Tafelberg Pubishers, 2007)
(Tr. by marcelle olivier)
* The title of a poem by Ingrid Jonker from Rook en oker, APB, 1964
on my wall
there is another photograph in which you are holding
a bunch of flowers in your hand. the flowers are lit from behind. as a result
in front of you finely burns a silver ring.
in the background is a building.
from the south it looks like pillars of light
supporting you from underneath.
you are wearing the dress many pearls sewed
your arms are bent / your neck bowed
the eyes look down / the hair tied back
the nose ends blind / the lips relaxed.
i see you on this photo
even if my seeing should close
and find you then in white-and-pitch
against interior windows.
(From: boomplaats, Tafelberg Publishers, 2009)
(Tr. by marcelle olivier)
the lost son
some children even before birth are lost. which is why
in the deep of dark nights, or in front of branches
chafing at the windowsill, or in gutters that gush with
dampening roofrain to the shimmer of paving stones,
there is the expectation of absence.
in the setting of the moon the unborn
longing becomes like a wound licked at licked at by a dog.
the safe sheep
lost bring him home
and this poem
has nothing more to report
on
(From: oogensiklopedie, Tafelberg Publishers, 2009)
(Tr. by marcelle olivier)
Wildeals ¹*
as a child i sometimes stole away from inside the airtense
house; towards the outhouse on the final pages
of the yard (of another time evidence),
and sat there for ages
and did nothing. just an old magazine
(like the landbouweekblad²),
and a blue square of light sifting in
though a hole in the corrugated iron roof hut.
and sparrows in the pepper trees
outside, and a fly that airs in past the
slit-left-open door, and dreams
of how I and mother and father
would live here always
(this in 1970, may)
•1. African wormwood
•2. Landbouweekblad = name of a magazine for farmers
(From: boomplaats, Tafelberg Publishers, 2005)
(Tr. by marcelle olivier)
Translator:
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marcelle olivier is a scholar and poet. She was born in Durban in 1978 and raised in Graaff-Reinet and Stellenbosch. She completed an undergraduate degree in Drama and an Honours degree in English Literature at the University of Stellenbosch, and subsequently attended Oxford University on a Commonwealth Scholarship. Her masters and doctoral research at Oxford focused on feminist and gender theories in Archaeology, and prehistoric African rock art; her teaching interests also include human evolution and cultural anthropology. She has published both in South Africa and the UK, and currently lives and works in Cambridge. |
