Eduard Burle
ENCOURAGEMENT
Ever since songs and spells were first committed to memory, poetry has allowed us to chart the most difficult emotional terrain. It has also offered us encouragement and advised us to persevere in the face of adversity.
Eduard Burle is a Cape Town-based poet and champion of other poets’ work, especially through his involvement in The Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Collective. His own lyrical, finely observed poems have appeared in various magazines as well as in annual anthologies published by the Ecca Poets.
This month, Burle shared a beautiful poem of encouragement in the face of risk and uncertainty, which was recently published in Botsotso Magazine. Read the poem he shared and be inspired to use it as a template for poems of your own.
Folklore
The net, once broken, loses its shape.
If, someday, it is mended,
the knot which is made
to replace the hole that was left
by the tear in the net,
is never forgotten.
It is felt at that place
where the fabric once severed,
gave way; at that place
which could no longer carry
the weight of what was being held.
The net, though whole again,
has become another net,
the knot carrying within it
a reminder of what, once, came apart,
could come apart again.
But without the knot, the net
could not hold anything,
and none would venture out to sea –
to make another catch.
The first thing one notices about this poem is the clarity and simplicity of its language. It makes no reference to abstract ideas or emotions. It simply describes what happens when nets are torn and have to be mended.
The next aspect that emerges is the shape of the poem’s sentences. The one that starts at the beginning of the second line stretches on and on, as if to remind us of the slow work of hands that are mending what is broken.
There is a pause, represented by a semicolon, at the point when the poem describes the net’s fabric severing and giving way. We are left in no doubt that there is risk involved here: mended nets could always come apart again. And although the poem does not say this explicitly, we know that there are emotional and relational safety nets in our lives of which this is equally true.
Then, in the final four lines, something extraordinary happens. First, the poem draws our attention to the similarity in sound between the words “knot” and “net.” This is no coincidence: we are being reminded how close the relationship can be between things that are whole and things that are broken. In this case, a single vowel sound is all that separates them.
In the two final lines, it becomes clear that this process of mending and trusting in nets is deeply embedded in all human lives. Even if we are not fishermen, our survival depends on acts of courage and trust such as the one described here. Like a net that has been torn, we too have been internally stitched and mended and could come apart again under the strain of living. But the poem encourages us not to hang back in our own lives but to keep setting out on new adventures so that we can make a catch and feed the ones we love.
In the next few days, write a poem of encouragement for anyone you think might need it, including yourself. Use the clearest, simplest, most direct words you can find as you urge your audience to persevere and mend what is broken wherever they find it.
The AVBOB Poetry Competition is open for submissions until 30 November 2025. Visit www.avbobpoetry.co.za today and find out how to enter.