Wilma Stockenström – vertaal deur Tony Ullyatt
Wilma Stockenström has published six volumes of poetry, six novels, and a play. In 2008 a selection of her poems was published. After graduating from Stellenbosch University, she worked as a radio announcer in Pretoria. She made her début as an actress in Een bruid in de morgen (A bride in the morning) by Hugo Claus and appeared in several productions of South African television. In 1970 she published her first volume of poetry, Vir die bysiende leser (For the near-sighted reader). In 1977 she was awarded the prestigious Hertzog prize for her poetry; in 1992 she received the same prize for her prose. Her impressive novel Die kremetartekspedisie (Expedition to the Boabab) appeared in Dutch, German, French, Swedish, Italian and Hebrew translation.
I gift you my walled-in days
I gift you my walled-in days
because they are all I possess.
For you my days, the retrenched ones.
You will build up some system from them.
You will bestow meaning on what stands
stubby like hewn trees. I
offer you my doleful wizenedness.
Of all my bright yellow days
Of all my bright yellow days
I would write this one down;
that later I could know how swarms
of doves flutter from roofs
and that, if I wanted, I
could read of a bright yellow
day and of you here beside me.