Dennis Brutus: The South African Years 9781928246374

Table of contents :
About the author
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART 1: IN THE BEGINNING
Chapter 1: 1924–1943
Chapter 2: 1944–1950s
PART 2: WRITING AND FIGHTING
Chapter 3: 1950s–1962
Chapter 4: 1962–1964
PART 3: PRISON, POETRY AND PRAYER
Chapter 5: 1964–1965
PART 4: NO PLACE LIKE HOME
Chapter 6: 1965–1966
Photo Gallery
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

DB

THE SOUTH

DENNIS BRUTUS

Af RICAN YE ARS

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 1

2020-01-17 03:50:39 PM

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 2

2020-01-17 03:50:39 PM

DENNIS BRUTUS

D E N N I S

BRUTUS

SOUTH Af RICAN

THE

YE ARS

TYRONE AUGUST

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 3

2020-01-17 03:50:39 PM

Published  by  BestRed,  an  imprint  of  HSRC  Press   Private  Bag  X9182,  Cape  Town,  8000,  South  Africa   www.bestred.co.za   First  published  2020   ISBN  (soft  cover)  978-­‐‑1-­‐‑928246-­‐‑34-­‐‑3    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

©  2020  Human  Sciences  Research  Council   The  views  expressed  in  this  publication  are  those  of  the  author.  They  do  not  necessarily   reflect  the  views  or  policies  of  the  Human  Sciences  Research  Council  (the  Council)  or   indicate  that  the  Council  endorses  the  views  of  the  author.  In  quoting  from  this  publication,   readers  are  advised  to  attribute  the  source  of  the  information  to  the  individual  author   concerned  and  not  to  the  Council.   The  publishers  have  no  responsibility  for  the  continued  existence  or  accuracy  of  URLs  for   external  or  third-­‐‑party  Internet  websites  referred  to  in  this  book  and  do  not  guarantee  that   any  content  on  such  websites  is,  or  will  remain,  accurate  or  appropriate.   This  book  is  number  16  in  the  African  Lives  Series,  an  independent  writing  and  publishing   initiative  that  aims  to  contribute  to  a  post-­‐‑colonial  intellectual  history  of  South  Africa.  The   series  editor  is  André  Odendaal,  Honorary  Professor  in  History  and  Heritage  Studies  at  the   University  of  the  Western  Cape.  Contact  details:  [email protected]   Copy-­‐‑edited  by  Moira  Richards   Typeset  by  Melinda  Stark   Cover  design  by  Riaan  Wilmans   Cover  photo  by  Eli  Weinberg,  UWC-­‐‑Robben  Island  Museum  Mayibuye  Archives   Distributed  in  Africa  by  Blue  Weaver   Tel:  +27   (021)  701  4477;  Fax  Local:  (021)  701  7302;  Fax  International:  0927865242139   www.blueweaver.co.za   Distributed  in  Europe  and  the  United  Kingdom  by  Eurospan  Distribution  Services  (EDS)   Tel:  +44     (0)  17  6760  4972;  Fax:  +44   (0)  17  6760  1640   www.eurospanbookstore.com   Distributed  in  North  America  by  Lynne  Rienner  Publishers,  Inc.   Tel:  303-­‐‑444-­‐‑6684;  Fax:  303-­‐‑444-­‐‑0824;  Email:  [email protected]   www.rienner.com   No  part  of  this  publication  may  be  reproduced,  stored  in  a  retrieval  system,  or  transmitted   by  any  form  or  by  any  means,  electronic,  mechanical,  photocopying,  recording  or  otherwise,   without  prior  permission  from  the  copyright  owner.   To  copy  any  part  of  this  publication,  you  may  contact  DALRO  for  information  and  copyright   clearance.   Tel:  086  12  DALRO  (or  086  12  3256  from  within  South  Africa);  +27   (0)11  712-­‐‑8000   Fax:  +27   (0)11  403-­‐‑9094   Postal  Address:    P  O  Box  31627,  Braamfontein,  2017,  South  Africa   www.dalro.co.za   Any  unauthorised  copying  could  lead  to  civil  liability  and/or    criminal  sanctions.   Every  effort  has  been  made  to  trace  copyright  holders  and  to  obtain  their  permission  for   the  use  of  copyright  material.  We  would  be  pleased  to  rectify  any  omissions  in  subsequent   editions  should  they  be  drawn  to  our  attention.   Suggested citation: August  T  (2020)  Dennis Brutus: The South African years.  Cape  Town:  Best  Red  

To Dennis Brutus, his wife May & their children, who sacrificed so much; to my parents, John & Rhona; to my wife, Maud; and to Noah Wicks, the future.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 5

2020-01-17 03:50:39 PM

About the author Tyrone August completed his doctorate on the poetry of Dennis Brutus in the English department at the University of the Western Cape in 2014. He developed and completed most of this biography of Brutus as a postdoctoral fellow in the English department at Stellenbosch University from 2016 to 2018, and is currently a research fellow in the department. He had previously worked as a journalist on various newspapers and magazines for almost three decades, including as editor of the Cape Times newspaper and Leadership magazine. He is a founding member of the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) and a member of the Academic and Non-Fiction Authors’ Association of South Africa (ANFASA).

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 6

2020-01-17 03:50:39 PM

Contents Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1

PART 1: IN THE BEGINNING Chapter 1: 1924–1943

25

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

56

PART 2: WRITING AND FIGHTING Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

91

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

125

PART 3: PRISON, POETRY AND PRAYER Chapter 5: 1964–1965

163

PART 4: NO PLACE LIKE HOME Chapter 6: 1965–1966

209

Photo Gallery 241 Epilogue 249 Notes 258 Bibliography 335

Index 352

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 7

2020-01-17 03:50:39 PM

Acknowledgements This biography is the culmination of a long and, at times, challenging process: sometimes the difficulties were self-imposed (such as the usual demons of selfdoubt); sometimes they were beyond my control (for example, the frustratingly limited access to some archival material). Nevertheless, with the assistance of various individuals and institutions over roughly four years, it was possible to construct a reasonably coherent narrative of Brutus’s early life and writing in South Africa. The Academic and Non-Fiction Authors’ Association of South Africa provided the initial funding for my research through its Grant Scheme for Authors in December 2015. The English Department of Stellenbosch University subsequently granted me a Mellon Foundation-funded postdoctoral fellowship from 2016 to 2018, which gave me the much-needed time and space to continue this project. In particular, I am indebted to Professor Shaun Viljoen for his support during this period. His calm demeanour and reassuring advice often helped to sustain me when the project threatened to become too burdened with obstacles. During my initial research I revisited some of the material on which I based my doctorate on Brutus’s poetry under the supervision of Doctor Roger Field from the University of the Western Cape’s English Department. I then turned to various archives to obtain Brutus’s own accounts of his life. I am truly grateful to Antony Brutus and his siblings – Jacinta, Marc, Justina, Cornelia, Gregory and Paula – for so kindly granting me permission to quote from their father’s material. Their generosity enriched this project beyond measure. The most important archive was the Amazwi South African Museum of Literature (formerly the National English Literary Museum) in Makhanda. Cecilia Blight and Mariss Stevens (both now retired), along with the ever-helpful Andrew Martin, deserve to be singled out for their unfailing responsiveness to my requests for information. The Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York in the United Kingdom also provided invaluable material on Brutus and his various activities, especially in sport and politics. The audio recordings of interviews with Brutus at the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas in the United States, to which Professor Bernth Lindfors kindly drew my attention, also enabled me to fill in some important gaps. For historical and literary material, staff at the Special Collections archive at the J.W. Jagger Library of the University of Cape Town (in particular, Clive Kirkwood) and the Centre for African Literary Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg (most notably, Colleen Vietzen) were very helpful in providing access to their treasure troves.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 8

2020-01-17 03:50:39 PM

A special word of thanks also goes to Babalwa Solwandle of the UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives at the University of the Western Cape and to Doctor Cornelius Thomas of Rhodes University’s Cory Library for readily granting me permission to use material from their collections. Zahira Adams-Ngoepe of the National Archives of South Africa (NARSA) in Pretoria assisted me in accessing material from police files. However, despite an application through the Promotion of Access to Information Act, several enquiries to the South African Police Service about files that NARSA sent to them for declassification were not responded to at all. The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, on the other hand, responded positively to a request under the same Act, and made available the records of Brutus’s trial in the Johannesburg Regional Court. Cedric Bendeman of the St Augustine’s Catholic Cathedral in Port Elizabeth and Helena Glanville of the Archives of the Catholic Diocese of Port Elizabeth graciously tracked down records of Brutus’s baptism and marriage, while Ashabai Chinyemba of Wits University traced details of his registration there as a law student. Staff at the National Library of South Africa in Cape Town and the Bessie Head Library in Pietermaritzburg, especially Eshara Singh, helped me to gain access to their indispensable collections of newspapers published in South Africa during the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to consulting various archives, I contacted several individuals who knew Brutus or interacted with him in some way. Among those who responded favourably were his daughter Jacinta (now Robertson), his nephew Vaughn Fayle (the son of his sister Catherine), and his nephews Gregory and Paul Yon (the sons of his sister Helen). Others who generously provided information and added much substance to this biography were several of Brutus’s former pupils at Paterson High School: Fred Simon, Lionel Adriaan, Peter Carelse, Mervyn Rousseau, Urvin Coetzee, Gerald Jeftha and Neville Murison. Former South End High School pupil Doctor Elroy Schroeder was also very obliging. Theresa Laing, a former North End neighbour who taught some of Brutus’s children at St Monica’s Primary School, and Doctor Lionel Smith, whose father Gordon was a South End High teacher and used to play cricket with Brutus, helped to make Brutus’s life story come alive. Former Wits University student Sybil Marcus and political activists Blanche la Guma and M.P. Giyose were extremely helpful, too, while ex-Robben Islanders Ahmed Kathrada, Eddie Daniels and Lionel Davis offered much new information and insight into Brutus’s time in prison. I am grateful as well to Ludumo Magwaca and Phillip Kgaphola, newspaper librarians at Arena Holdings (formerly Tiso Blackstar Group) in Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg respectively, for the rare images of Brutus and his family from

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 9

2020-01-17 03:50:39 PM

the early 1960s. I am also indebted to Carol Victor of the Africana Library of the Nelson Mandela Bay Library Service for her assistance with photographs of midtwentieth-century Port Elizabeth. Others who were supportive in various ways include former University of Texas academic Professor Hal Wylie, former journalist and writer Ronnie Govender, Nelson Mandela University’s Robert Pearce, Allan Zinn and Michael Barry, and ex-school principal Hamilton Petersen and Doctor Basil Brown of the New Unity Movement. However, this project would have come to nought without Jeremy Wightman, the publishing director of the HSRC Press and its imprint Best Red. His enthusiastic support of this work was humbling. HSRC Press editorial project manager Samantha Hoaeane and publisher Mthunzi Nxawe ably saw the manuscript through the production process. They were, at all times, the epitome of professionalism. So, too, were Moira Richards, who sensitively edited the manuscript, and HSRC Press permissions researcher Kathy Brookes, who displayed exceptional diligence. Professor André Odendaal, publisher of the African Lives Series, will no doubt enable this book to reach a wider readership. It is gratifying to have the support of such a groundbreaking project. On a more personal note, I am grateful to Doctor Maylene Shung King, a friend from my high school days, who put me in touch with Fred Simon, the first person I interviewed for this biography. He and his son, Michael Simon, pointed me in the direction of several potential sources of information, and made a lasting impression on me with various acts of kindness. In addition, I owe a great debt to my wife and confidante, Maud, for tolerating my obsession with the life and poetry of Brutus for nearly a decade. No doubt it was not always easy, but not once did she attempt to dissuade me. For that, she has my eternal gratitude. A special word of thanks to my late parents, John and Rhona, for unwittingly setting me off on this journey all those many years ago. A home filled with books (Charles Dickens alongside James Hadley Chase), newspapers and magazines was a gift that has lasted me a lifetime. My teacher Denzil la Pere (Bosmont First Primary School, Johannesburg) was the first to build on this foundation. Rebecca Sharp (now McPherson), Marthinus Rittles and John Doyle (Maria Louw High School, Queenstown) also played an inspirational part in nurturing my love for language and literature. Much later came the expertise of Professor Elizabeth Gunner, then at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. I am also grateful to my siblings – Eugene, Colin, Rossana, Vanessa and Fiona – for their keen interest in my various endeavours over the years. I treasure their love and support, as well as that of their families. Thank you all.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 10

2020-01-17 03:50:39 PM

DB

THE SOUTH

DENNIS BRUTUS

Af RICAN YE ARS Introduction

Tracing the contours of another person’s life is a fanciful ambition. Not only does it involve constructing a chronology of certain events, it also encompasses an enquiry into that person’s interior world. The notion that it is possible to fully accomplish both tasks is, in some ways, rather preposterous. An adult life usually extends over several decades; this time span includes an infinite number and variety of experiences. How, then, does the would-be biographer identify the formative moments in the life of an individual? And, in the absence of any divine power, how does the invariably self-appointed scribe gain access to the innermost thoughts and emotions of that individual? Without the direct involvement of the subject of enquiry, whether as a result of death or circumstance, a biography becomes an even more daunting enterprise. This absence deprives the biographer of the single most important source of information. And, if some participants or witnesses in that person’s life are unable or unwilling to share their memories or knowledge, this leaves even bigger gaps. Such information, over which only they preside, remains lost forever – unknowable and irretrievable. The biographer then, perforce, comes to rely extensively on information in archives – a distinctly unsatisfactory dialogue with the past. Why, then, embark on a project that may be encumbered by such profound difficulties? More often than not, the intention is to acknowledge, and even honour, a life well lived, marked by some

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 1

2020-01-17 03:50:39 PM

2

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

distinction (with, of course, many dishonourable exceptions for perhaps equally justifiable reasons). In this instance, the subject of attention is Dennis Brutus, who lived in Port Elizabeth in the eastern Cape during the first half of the twentieth century – a tumultuous period that saw the emergence of apartheid, a legally codified system of racial segregation and discrimination, followed by the development of a ruthless state apparatus designed to systematically eliminate any resistance. It was within these grim circumstances that Brutus, who was classified as coloured under the Population Registration Act of 1950, distinguished himself as a student, teacher, poet, journalist, sports administrator and anti-apartheid activist.1 Yet, despite this range of achievements, there is not a single biography on Brutus, nor did he publish any extended autobiographical work in a single volume. In a letter to the South African writer and academic Es’kia Mphahlele in November 1970, he confirms his ambivalence about “get[ting] that mess of autobiographical material out of my system.”2 He expresses a similar sentiment in a tape recording in October 1974, and attributes his reluctance to embark on a full-scale autobiography to his belief that there is no coherent or unifying narrative in his life. “I fail to see in my life any kind of cohesion or pattern or unifying thread which would justify an autobiography,” he submits. “It seems to me that autobiographies need organization of one’s knowledge of one’s life in such a way that a pattern emerges, some kind of intelligibility is made of the mass.”3 He adds emphatically: But I see no such pattern, and until I can impose some such order on what happened to me, it doesn’t seem to me that I’m entitled to write about it. The mere events, though they might in some instances be exciting or intriguing or dramatic and possibly flattering to me, do not in themselves justify writing a book. Despite his aversion to writing an autobiography, Brutus concedes in the same tape recording that he is beginning to find the prospect “less repellant” than before. He goes on to entertain the possibility of at least writing what he describes as fragments of an autobiography

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 2

2020-01-17 03:50:39 PM

3

Introduction

in the form of essays. So, by the time Hal Wylie approached him in 1988 about working towards an autobiography, he was more amenable to the idea. Wylie, a United States (US) academic then based at the University of Texas in Austin, offered to assist with “spade-work and organizing, etc.” He tried to persuade Brutus that an autobiography would be preferable to an academic work on his life as it would be enriched by certain poetic and literary qualities: It could focus on existential details, memories, personal aspects that would not be appropriate for an official biography, but would be more striking, interesting, with greater human interest. In an admittedly subjective work one would have more element of choice and editorial focus. It would be more direct and forceful.4 In addition, Wylie submits that Brutus’s life is closely interlinked with the rise of apartheid and, at the same time, offers “a new way of looking at the anti-apartheid struggle.” He draws particular attention to Port Elizabeth and the eastern Cape as major sites of this struggle. In response, Brutus writes encouragingly: “I like the project.” Nevertheless, he expresses concern about the amount of work required by an autobiography. Instead, he advises, he would still prefer a biography written by Wylie or, alternatively, a biography “as told to Hal Wylie” (along the lines of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, US writer Alex Haley’s collaboration with the African-American human rights leader, on which Wylie comments favourably in his letter). Despite his reservations about writing a fully fledged autobiography, Brutus nonetheless started working with Wylie on producing a rough draft. This effort was provisionally titled – in a handwritten addition – The Autobiography of the South African Troubadour (or, alternatively, The Story of a Troubadour/Griot).6 Wylie recalls in personal correspondence how this draft was created: “It was based on tapes that Dennis recorded, which I then transcribed and typed up. It was then supplemented with additions he wrote in by hand and responses he gave me in response to my questions.”7 However, this collaboration eventually collapsed. “When

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 3

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

4

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

we got to late adolescence and adulthood he clammed up and wouldn’t respond to further questions, so it was abandoned at that point,” Wylie states.8  He then passed the project to a biographer, whose name since escapes him, but it did not get any further. This is not surprising. Although initially Brutus felt sufficiently comfortable about working with Wylie on an autobiography, he continued to harbour deep suspicions about the intrusive nature of biographical writing. Presumably he was also uncomfortable with the prospect that this genre offered little room for any editorial intervention. His discomfort with the possibility of potential biographers invading his private life is clearly reflected in an untitled poem published in 1973 in his collection, A Simple Lust: Finding this rubbish, this debris, of mine after I am dead, when they come to pry mouse-rustling in my papers, ghoulishly-hopeful in my things, what rubbish they will find! Will I shrivel, inanimate, in my shame? Will the dead flesh curl up in protest being assessed by curious strangers’ hands? Oh I am filled with horror now: then I will lie with misleading calm – as now I persist with misleading calm.9 *** But, in the long run, renewed interest from potential biographers was probably inevitable. Brutus’s life is woven far too deeply into the fabric of the recent history of South Africa. This is true especially of the first

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 4

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

Introduction

5

four decades of his life which, as the most important period in his personal, literary and political development, is the particular focus of this biography. His childhood in the mid-1920s and 1930s is also the story of Dowerville, one of the first municipal housing schemes in Port Elizabeth, and of nearby North End. During that period, he was a pupil at various educational institutions now of historical significance in the city such as the Henry Kaiser Memorial School, St Theresa’s Catholic Mission School and Paterson High School. The story of his life also intersects with that of the South African Native College (SANC), now renamed the University of Fort Hare, in Alice in the mid-1940s. After he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1947, Brutus returned to Port Elizabeth as a teacher – first at St Thomas Aquinas High School in South End (later partially destroyed under the Group Areas Act), and then at Paterson High (eventually relocated from the city centre to Schauderville after a suspicious fire). He then became involved in some of the most influential organisations of that time, including the Teachers’ League of South Africa (TLSA) and the Anti-CAD (Coloured Affairs Department) movement, both aligned to the left-wing Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM). He was one of the key figures, too, behind the groundbreaking though short-lived Coloured National Convention (CNC),10 and took part in various activities of the African National Congress (ANC) as well. In addition, he was a leading figure behind the formation of the Co-ordinating Committee for International Recognition in Sport (CCIRS), the South African Sports Association (SASA) and its successor, the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC). As a result of his role in some of these organisations, Brutus was banned by the National Party (NP) government in 1961 under the Suppression of Communism Act, which prevented him from attending any gatherings for five years. Soon afterwards, he was suspended – and subsequently dismissed – from his teaching post. As a result, he relocated to Johannesburg at the beginning of 1962 to teach at a private school and to study law as a part-time student at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University). At the same time he continued to participate clandestinely in various political activities. This did not go unnoticed by the government’s security agencies; his banning order was

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 5

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

6

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

duly amended, and he was prohibited from publishing any writing as well. Even these additional restrictions did not deter Brutus. He remained active in SANROC and, in addition, continued to engage in a wide range of other anti-apartheid campaigns. The consequence of this defiant display of courage and tenacity was inevitable. In 1963, he was arrested when he tried to attend a meeting between SANROC and the official South African Olympic and National Games Association (SAONGA). When he was released on bail, Brutus reluctantly left South Africa at the instigation of fellow activists – his first attempt to go into exile. However, he was arrested in Mozambique and handed over to the South African security police by their counterparts in the then Portuguese colony. When he tried to escape from custody in Johannesburg, he was shot in the back. After a brief trial, he was convicted on various charges in January 1964 and imprisoned for 18 months – a relatively short but pivotal period in his life. *** Before his incarceration, Brutus also made time alongside his various political commitments to write for a number of anti-apartheid national publications such as New Age, Fighting Talk, Contact and The New African; regional titles such as the Durban-based weekly The Leader; and more mainstream newspapers such as the Port Elizabeth daily Eastern Province Herald. He also published poems in various literary journals during this period, including locally in adelphi literary review and in The Purple Renoster, as well as elsewhere on the continent in Penpoint and Transition in Uganda and in Black Orpheus in Nigeria. Further afield, he published poetry in Breathru in the United Kingdom (UK) and in Présence Africaine in France. In 1962, he won a prize in a poetry contest in Nigeria organised by the University of Ibadan in conjunction with the Mbari Writers’ and Artists’ Club (he subsequently turned it down because the contest was open to black writers only).11 It was against this background that Mbari’s publishing initiative, Mbari Publications, approached him for more

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 6

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

Introduction

7

poems with a view to producing a collection of his work. Denis Williams, a Guyanese author and painter who then lived in Nigeria, made the final choice and designed the cover of the book. Brutus’s debut collection, Sirens Knuckles Boots, was eventually published while he was in prison in 1963 – the first volume of poetry by a black South African in English in more than two decades.12 Brutus’s poetry immediately received attention from literary critics and reviewers on the continent. Ulli Beier, a German extramural lecturer at the University of Ibadan, was the first to critique Brutus’s work in a paper written for an international conference on African literature in English – the first of its kind – at Makerere University College in Kampala, Uganda, in June 1962. As one of the founders of Mbari, which was then preparing to bring out Sirens Knuckles Boots, Beier enjoyed preferential access to Brutus’s early poetry. His paper was subsequently published in 1963 in Black Orpheus, which was adopted by Mbari as its official publication. Paul Theroux, a writer from the US who was teaching in Uganda at the time, included Brutus’s work in a review of six African poets later that year in Black Orpheus. The US journalist Anthony M. Astrachan published an article on his debut collection in Nigeria Magazine in 1963, which was followed by reviews from the Nigerian literary critics Daniel Abasiekong and J.P. Clark in Transition in 1965.13 In 1968, Brutus published a second collection of poems, Letters to Martha and Other Poems from a South African Prison (selected by the exiled South African poet Cosmo Pieterse).14 As the title indicates, it is largely made up of poems about his experiences on Robben Island. Soon after he was released in June 1964, his elder brother Wilfred, then also a teacher, was sent to Robben Island to serve a 15-month sentence under the Suppression of Communism Act. Through poems disguised as letters, Brutus tried to convey to Wilfred’s wife, Martha, “what the experience was like, believing it was better for her to know than to have to imagine.”15 Brutus’s first two collections include some of the most evocative and skilfully crafted poetry in South African literature. In particular, his early work reflects a strong attachment to lyric poetry, which he developed as a result of his exposure at a young age to the writing of the Romantic period.16 William Wordsworth, especially, played a seminal role in

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 7

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

8

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Brutus’s affinity for this mode of writing, both through his poetry and through his analytical writing. He placed the feelings of the poet at the centre of any critical appraisal of poetry. In Wordsworth’s preface to the 1805 edition of the collection The Lyrical Ballads, for instance, he describes the poet as “chiefly distinguished from other men by a greater promptness to think and feel…and a greater power in expressing such thoughts and feelings.”17 Brutus held remarkably similar views. In undated notes on his poetry, he states: “The simplest definition of the poet still seems to me to be a man more sensitive to the world around him and more sensitive to the use of words in which to convey his experiences.”18 Brutus held similar views to Wordsworth on the process of writing poetry, too. In an interview, he recalls the first poem that he wrote at the age of 14 or 15. He describes writing the poem about a full moon rising over a lake – near his childhood home in Dowerville – as “an entirely spontaneous impulse.”19 It is no doubt more than a coincidence that this description is strikingly close to another observation that Wordsworth makes in the preface to The Lyrical Ballads in which he famously declares that “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”20 The Romantic poet repeats this point later and adds that poetry “takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.”21 In similar vein, Brutus describes a poem as “the attempt to capture the moment, or the insight of the moment.”22 The poetry and critical writing of Wordsworth clearly made a deep impression on him, and helped him to develop an appreciation for sounds and language.23 However, Brutus was dismissive of much of the English lyric poetry published in South Africa during the early 1960s. In a radio interview with Pieterse in 1966, he describes it as “merely third rate or worse.”24 He mentions the literary journals Contrast (established in 1960) and New Coin (launched in 1965) as examples, and comments that much of their content was “a trashy kind of lyrical poetry.”25 The reason for his harsh verdict is twofold: firstly, he contends that the poems in these journals are short and lack any epic or narrative qualities; secondly, he argues that they ignore the political realities of life in South Africa. “Their failure basically is there because of a failure to confront life,” he asserts. “It is because they don’t want to react to the broader situation, either in terms of South Africa or

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 8

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

Introduction

9

much wider, and this failure, this inhibition, this failure to respond, I think, is what eviscerates the poems and makes them gutless.” These statements are sweeping generalisations about the lyric poetry published in South Africa during the early 1960s. Even though their work may be far too muted for Brutus’s political sensibilities, not all the work of South African poets at the time can be dismissed out of hand as “simply trashy.” In fact, he holds the poet Sydney Clouts – whose work first appeared in the late 1940s and early 1950s in publications such as Trek and Standpunte – in especially high regard.26 Yet the Capetonian’s poetry, too, focuses exclusively on private, individual concerns.27 Brutus even sent some of his poems to Clouts in London for comment when he was under a banning order in Johannesburg.28 He refers appreciatively in a tape recording to the poet’s feedback to his poem with the footnote “Flying into Kimberley” and notes that “his comment gave me encouragement to go on working at poetry.”29 Years later, he elaborates in an interview: “I was very pleased…I respected Clouts and recognised that he was a poet of considerable talent himself, a word of encouragement like that meant a tremendous amount to someone who was literally living in the desert. There was no one I could discuss my work with, so Clouts’ note to me was very important.”30 The antipathy that Brutus expresses towards South African poetry in general – “there is no attempt at an epic or a narrative treatment, and they are descriptive of persons or places, emotions or ideas”31 – is therefore difficult to comprehend. The lyric poem was, after all, his own preferred mode of writing throughout most of his career. His hostile comment to Pieterse is therefore no doubt specifically directed at a certain kind of lyric poetry – that which was silent on the political divisions and conflict in South Africa at the time. The absence of such issues from the South African lyric poetry of that period cannot be attributed to the form being ill-suited or unable to deal with social concerns. Despite essentially being a form of self-expression, lyric poetry has always engaged with broader issues in society. As the US poet Mark Strand points out in an anthology of poetic forms, the roots of the lyric have always assumed “a connection between privacy and universality.”32

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 9

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

10

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Despite his scathing views on the limitations of South African lyric poetry, Brutus did not regard himself as a political poet per se. To him, politics was like any other area of human activity, and therefore a valid and natural subject for the poet. He believed that those who exclude politics from their writing restrict, and in this way impoverish, their poetry. In apartheid South Africa, he felt, it was even more short-sighted to exclude politics from a writer’s subject matter. “I never saw poetry as a deliberate, strictly political instrument,” he told the US journalist Lee Sustar decades later. “It was political because my landscape was political…There was racism around me.”33 *** A study of Brutus’s life, and the time and place in which he lived, will therefore enable a more informed understanding, and consequently an enhanced appreciation, of Brutus’s poetry. The US-Swedish literary scholar Bernth Lindfors, one of the earliest and most consistent critics of his work, comes out strongly in favour of the importance of considering a writer’s work within a biographical context. He rightly argues that “although verbal constructs may be fascinating to contemplate solely for their own sake, they remain human products, and as such, cannot be comprehended fully until they have been traced back to a specific human source in a particular human environment.”34 Lindfors even goes as far as to argue that the text “is so completely conditioned by its shaping context that it cannot be adequately grasped and appreciated without some knowledge of its creator and the circumstances that prompted its creation.”35 While this is an overly deterministic view of the influence of the writer’s environment on his or her writing, it does correctly refocus attention on the importance of at least some knowledge of the writer’s background in order to achieve a more complete understanding of the work in question. Lindfors is therefore justified in suggesting that such information may enable the reader to “enter the world of the author more completely and make better sense of what he finds there.”

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 10

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

Introduction

11

In Brutus’s case, this argument is particularly compelling. The content of his poetry often corresponds closely to certain events in his life. The Nigerian literary critic Tanure Ojaide notices this and observes that “there is a close correlation between the poetic personality and the man in Brutus’s poetry.”36 In response to a question, Brutus even tells the US academic Simon Lewis that autobiographies and memoirs “cover much the same ground” as he does in his poetry.37 The Guyanese literary scholar O.R. Dathorne draws a similar conclusion, and claims that “Brutus the man and Brutus the poet are one and the same.”38 While this is an oversimplification, some background knowledge of Brutus’s life does indeed make possible a more nuanced understanding of his poetry. To ignore the relationship between Brutus and his writing may even lead to a distorted or incomplete understanding of a poem. An example is his poem “Bury the Great Duke,” a description of a painful encounter between a father and his young child. It is, in fact, based on a recollection of how Brutus’s father used to recite the Victorian poet Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington” while studying part-time for a degree.39 In Brutus’s poem, the youngster earnestly tries to win the approval of his father by attempting to recite the poem. Prior knowledge of the strained relationship between Brutus and his father greatly facilitates access to this poem, and enables the reader to more fully understand how deeply he was hurt by his father’s harsh response to his inability to recite Tennyson’s ode fluently. There are numerous other examples where knowledge of Brutus’s life increases access to his poetry and makes possible a more complete and coherent understanding of the text. *** Based on such evidence, this biography places Brutus’s own voice at the centre of its depiction of his life and interior world. His life story is told primarily in, and through, his own words – newspaper and journal articles, tape recordings, interviews, speeches, court records and correspondence. My primary role is to place these personal accounts into a chronological narrative and to provide a context for

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 11

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

12

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

this narrative. As the South African historian and sociologist Jonathan Hyslop notes: “To place events in a chronological narrative is not necessarily to compile a list of one-damn-thing-after-another. Sequence can have important explanatory value.”40 The earliest first-hand account of Brutus’s childhood and early adulthood is a paper he delivered at the African Scandinavian Writers’ Conference in Sweden in February 1967.41 Later that year he provided details of his incarceration on Robben Island in an article in Christian Action, a quarterly journal of the London-based organisation of the same name that strove to involve the church in social issues.42 He filled in some more gaps in an autobiographical essay published in 1993;43 an extended version of this article was published two years later in an anthology of poetry compiled by the US poet Don Burness.44 The first comprehensive interview with Brutus about himself and his work was conducted in October 1966 by Pieterse.45 Lindfors was subsequently involved in two interviews with Brutus that made important material available: first in a discussion he co-edited in February 1970,46 and then in an interview he conducted in August 1970.47 Interviews published by Maude Wahlman in 1974,48 E. Ethelbert Miller in 1975,49 Renato Berger in 1980,50 and William E. Thompson in 1983 provide further biographical details.51 During the early 1990s, interviews published by Kevin Goddard,52 Stephen Gray,53 and Geoffrey V. Davis and Holger G. Ehling shed further light on Brutus’s early life as well as on his literary and political views.54 However, it was only in 1995 that the first detailed outline of Brutus’s life appeared: the literary scholar Craig W. McLuckie’s biographical introduction to a collection of articles on Brutus’s work provides the most informative account up to that point of his personal, political and literary life.55 Lewis’s interview with Brutus between March and May 2000,56 and Johan van Wyk’s in December 2000,57 contributed much new information as well. Brutus later elaborated at some length on his life and poetry in three interviews conducted by Sustar between April 2004 and September 2005.58 In 2011 Lindfors, once again, adds to the body of knowledge about Brutus by publishing The Dennis Brutus Tapes, an edited selection of tape recordings made by the poet. Times with Dennis Brutus: Conversations,

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 12

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

Introduction

13

Quotations and Snapshots 2005–2009 by Cornelius Thomas, published in 2012, mainly offers information on Brutus as a political activist.59 These are the core texts that helped to provide a foundation for my research on Brutus. Brutus’s poetry, too, is a reliable source of information on his interior world. In his own words, “There is only one poet and one person at the centre of all of this and I have consistently said that all my life is of a piece.”60 Consistently and verifiably, there is a direct correlation between his poetry and his life. In fact, he often chooses to reveal and illuminate his experiences, feelings and thoughts in his poetry rather than through other modes of expression. Poetry, to him, was not an activity separate from his life; it was, in some ways, the very essence of his life. Through his poetry, he conversed with himself, and with the rest of society; it was through his poems that he explored his innermost being, and it was through his poems that he tried to raise awareness about injustice and oppression, and to galvanise opposition to it. *** Despite what appears to be an abundance of source material, constructing an outline of Brutus’s life turned out to be fraught with difficulties. Even his name, the most basic starting point of any biographical project, could not be taken for granted. The full names on his birth certificate are recorded as Dennis Vincent Frederic Brutus (note the absence of the usual “k” in his third name, presumably the result of a typing error).61 On his baptism certificate, though, the order is given as Vincent Dennis Frederick.62 And, two decades later, his university degree is issued in the name of Dennis Anthony Brutus.63 According to Amazwi South African Museum of Literature bibliographer Andrew Martin, Brutus – then a devout member of the Catholic Church – was so enamoured with St Anthony, a Catholic priest and friar of the Franciscan Order, that he simply went ahead and adopted his name at some point in his early life.64 No legal niceties or procedural technicalities were observed in doing so; it was an arbitrary, and unilateral, name change based solely on a personal desire to indicate his admiration for one of the Catholic Church’s most popular saints, who

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 13

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

14

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

was devoted to the poor and the sick. As a result of this impulse, some of Brutus’s early poems bear the name “D.A. Brutus” or the acronym “DAB”. Not that these differences in his names unduly complicate matters for a biographer; a government-issued birth certificate is, after all, the official record of an individual’s name. What do complicate telling the story of Brutus’s life are the many silences and lacunae in that story. Sometimes these are merely the inevitable result of the vagaries of memory. For example, at one point he says his father died in Wellington, but later refers in the very same account to the location as Worcester.65 Brutus also sometimes misremembers dates; he once mistakenly recalls the date of his first banning order as around December 1962,66 whereas elsewhere he correctly refers to the date as October 1961.67 He acknowledges quite candidly: “I’m never good at dates.”68 This is understandable. The US biographer Paula R. Backscheider often encountered the fragile nature of memory in her work. “The power of an experience and especially of memory’s work upon it can rearrange the order of events,” she contends. “Something the subject knows or is experiencing in another domain of life can utterly transform the experience and the order in which even individual bits of information are told.”69 This is certainly plausible in Brutus’s case; some of the experiences he misremembers are extremely intense or traumatic. More recently, the US biographer Ben Yagoda cites various experiments which confirm that memory is unreliable – “contaminated not merely by gaps, but by distortions and fabrications that inevitably and blamelessly creep on it.”70 Based on these studies, he offers the following explanation of how memory contrives to produce erroneous recollections: “It is itself a creative writer, cobbling together ‘actual’ memories, beliefs about the world, cues from a variety of sources, and memories of previous memories to plausibly imagine what might have been, and then, in a master stroke, packaging this scenario to the mind as the real one.”71 This reconstruction, adds Yagoda, is subject to a wide range of influences, “taking a heavier toll with the passage of time.” Other discrepancies in Brutus’s recollections, however, cannot be attributed solely to the fragility of memory. Sometimes there appears to be

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 14

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

Introduction

15

a deliberate, self-serving reconstruction of a particular event or experience in his recollections of his past. An example is the prize that he won in the Mbari poetry contest: he often gives the impression that he was the overall winner when he was, in fact, awarded second prize.72 He is also surprisingly vague about how long he was held in solitary confinement on Robben Island; his estimates vary anywhere from between two to five months. He is equally unclear about his suicide attempt in prison; in one newspaper interview, he claims he used a razor blade, in another, he says he used sharp stones. What is at work here, it appears, is an attempt to construct – or, more accurately, to reconstruct – a certain sense of self. Brutus accentuates, and sometimes even exaggerates, particular events in order to enhance his personal and political standing. Brutus was not unaware of this inclination. In an undated note, presumably written during the early 1960s, he reflects on “the egotistic enhancement” of his sense of self.73 He adds disparagingly: “There are too many fictions in my life: and too much me.” Brutus’s wife May, too, drew attention to his tendency to embellish at times. In an unpublished interview in later years, she states disapprovingly: “I heard a few inaccuracies in some of his speeches, and I said, well that didn’t quite happen that way.”74 It was therefore a particular challenge to identify those instances when self-invention deviated from the facts. Sometimes, such attempts ended inconclusively. Did Brutus really teach himself to read? And did he, in fact, teach himself Afrikaans by reading poetry? Was he truly so distracted during a Dutch exam at university that he wrote poems instead of responding to the exam question? Did his father really study Latin, French, Greek and German, and was he able to converse in Italian as well? The answers to some of these questions are, by and large, inconsequential. But that Brutus’s accounts of some events in his life are shrouded in uncertainty is nonetheless disconcerting. It suggests a need on the part of Brutus to engage in a process of self-affirmation: at the very least, it indicates a sense of insecurity; at worst, it points to self-aggrandisement. As a result, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the man from the mask, the truth from artifice. Such a challenge is, of course, by no means unique to Brutus. As the British biographer Richard Holmes

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 15

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

16

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

notes: “Biographers base their work on sources which are inherently unreliable.”75 In support of this statement, he submits: “Memory itself is fallible; memoirs are inevitably biased; letters are always slanted towards their recipients; even private diaries and intimate journals have to be recognized as literary forms of self-invention rather than the ‘ultimate’ truth of private fact or feeling.” *** Despite such constraints, and notwithstanding Brutus’s own reservations about the merits of a biography on him, constructing an account of his early life remains a singularly worthwhile endeavour. He made a significant contribution to South African literature and, more generally, to South African society during the first half of his life. However, little is known inside his homeland about him during that period. In this sense, the apartheid government’s concerted efforts to immobilise him during the 1960s, and to obliterate any trace of his writing, were largely successful. Not one collection of his poetry was ever published in South Africa. And yet, even during the NP government’s reign of terror in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre in March 1960, Brutus was never completely silenced. Despite his increasingly stringent banning orders, arrests, imprisonment and house arrests, he continued to publish work in various newspapers and journals during the 1960s – sometimes anonymously, sometimes under pseudonyms or acronyms; sometimes they were articles, sometimes they were poems; sometimes these were published inside the country, sometimes outside. A biography of Brutus is part of an attempt to recover this work and, in a sense, to reintroduce Brutus to South Africa. *** Eventually, the relentless campaign of harassment and persecution became unbearable. The resounding victory of the NP in the general election in March 1966 was a clear signal to Brutus that his plight was

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 16

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

Introduction

17

unlikely to improve in the foreseeable future. Even temporary respite was out of the question; his application for a passport was turned down in May 1966. Faced with a barrage of restrictions inside the country, and now refused permission to travel outside South Africa, he felt he was left with only one option – to leave the country permanently. He duly applied for an exit permit. As in other cases, the government was quick to seize this opportunity to expel an opponent of its policies, and approved his application within a matter of weeks. In July 1966, Brutus left for the UK on a one-way permit (the rest of his family joined him two months later).76 Although he had secured a position as a high school teacher, he eagerly accepted a position in London as a campaign director at the International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF), which provided legal aid for political prisoners in southern Africa. His time at IDAF was briefly interrupted at the beginning of 1970. When Mphahlele secured a position at the University of Zambia, he approached Brutus to fill his post at the University of Denver while it looked for a replacement. Brutus agreed, and spent three months in Denver as a visiting professor in the Department of English. He returned to the UK in March 1970 and resumed working for IDAF. In September 1971, Brutus left again for the US – this time permanently. There, he joined the Department of English at Northwestern University in Evanston as a visiting professor. He subsequently became a tenured professor. In addition to African literature, which he describes as “my main specialty,” he taught various courses in US and British literature.77 In 1986, he joined the University of Pittsburgh as an adjunct professor in the Department of Black Community Education and Research, and later became chairperson of the department and professor of African Literature. During this period, he received wide recognition as an educationist and was often invited to teach at other US universities. Brutus left behind an important legacy in literature in other ways as well. While a visiting professor of English and Ethnic Studies at the University of Texas in Austin, he co-founded the African Literature Association (ALA), an academic organisation launched with the aim of promoting the teaching, research and publication of information on African literature. Brutus became its first chairperson in 1975, and regards

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 17

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

18

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

the ALA as one of his proudest achievements: “I still think it was one of the most useful things I’ve ever done because it’s now become the leading organisation in its field, huge membership, big budget, tremendous influence, helps people to be published, people to get jobs, people to be promoted.”78 After he left South Africa, Brutus also somehow found time to write a substantial body of poetry. Besides Denver Poems, which he circulated privately at the University of Denver in 1970, he published 11 volumes of poetry: Poems from Algiers (1970), Thoughts Abroad (1970), A Simple Lust: Collected Poems of South African Jail and Exile (1973), China Poems (1975), Strains (1975), Stubborn Hope: New Poems and Selected Poems from China Poems and Strains (1978), Salutes and Censures (1982), Airs and Tributes (1989), Still the Sirens (1993), Remembering: Soweto (2004) and Leafdrift (2005). In 2004, Worcester State College (now Worcester State University) marked his 80th birthday with the publication of Poems by Dennis Brutus (the title was later extended to Poetry and Human Rights: Poems by Dennis Brutus), a selection from work which he donated to its archives. On the political front, Brutus initially confined his involvement to issues affecting South Africa. When he was still based in London, he told Lindfors in August 1970: “The people I must fight for are the people I know. It’s fine to fight for blacks in Britain, and I do what I can, but the blacks I know best and the situation I know best are the blacks of South Africa and the situation in South Africa.”79 From the early 1970s, however, his political involvement increasingly extended way beyond apartheid and he took part in various international campaigns against oppression and injustice – from Puerto Rico to Chile to Greece. By 1974, he could rightly claim that “the notion that my struggle is an international struggle is not something I have to theorize about; it’s a living thing, my life is an involvement in challenging injustice wherever it might be.”80 So, by February 1990, when then South African president F.W. de Klerk announced the repeal of legal restrictions on various political organisations, and indemnity was subsequently granted to returning exiled South Africans, apartheid was no longer the primary focus of Brutus’s political activism. Just weeks earlier, in a speech to the National Conference of Christians and Jews in Pittsburgh, he identified a bigger,

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 18

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

Introduction

19

even more dangerous, enemy – what he describes as “a globalization of oppression, a globalization of capitalism in the post-Cold War world.”81 Later he refers, more specifically, to “Western corporate globalization” and characterises such economic globalisation as a “heedless, destructive rush of the corporations for profits and the fierce destructive competition of the capitalist system.”82 As a result, he was sceptical almost from the beginning about how far-reaching the political changes in South Africa would eventually turn out to be. “Just at the time when we had discarded apartheid,” he observed, “unfortunately we moved into a new era dominated by the IMF [International Monetary Fund] and the World Bank.”83 In line with this view, Brutus became increasingly involved in the World Social Forum (WSF), an international movement launched in January 2001 which campaigns for global justice. He was also active in allied organisations such as South Africa’s Social Movements Indaba, the Southern African Social Forum and the African Social Forum. Although Brutus returned to South Africa permanently in 2005, as Honorary Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Civil Society in Durban, the new South Africa turned out to be a profound disappointment to him. He regarded the post-1990 political dispensation as an abandonment of the ideals of the anti-apartheid struggle. Even though there was a transfer of political power, he believed, the economic system that existed under apartheid remained intact, and economic power remained, by and large, in the same hands. As a result, to him, South Africa failed to live up to the ideals he fought for during most of his adult life. Even in death, South Africa failed him. Despite his courageous and selfless participation in the anti-apartheid struggle, and despite the quality and volume of his literary output, Brutus did not receive any official recognition of his contributions to South Africa after he died from prostate cancer in December 2009. He did not receive a state funeral, an honour usually granted to those regarded to be of national significance, and intended as an opportunity to involve the public in a national day of mourning for one of their own. ***

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 19

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

20

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

This biography is an attempt to acknowledge Brutus’s literary and political work and, in a sense, to reintroduce Brutus to South Africa. Other formerly exiled South African writers recognise the importance of such an act of reclamation. The poet Mongane Wally Serote, a former ANC official in exile, describes Brutus as follows: “He was an astute academic; he was a genuine and committed activist; and he believed in being creative through poetry. All of those things combined [were] a major contribution…not only to South Africa, but to the human experience.”84 The writer Mandla Langa, also once a leading ANC activist in exile, similarly holds Brutus in high regard, especially for his pioneering role in South African poetry. “Dennis is someone that we regarded as an institution, as a national treasure,” he observes. “He opened a lot of doors for people and he really put South Africa, as it were, on the poetic map.”85 The South African writer and literary critic Njabulo Ndebele, also, draws attention to the significance of Brutus’s early poetry. He first encountered his writing as an undergraduate English student at the University of Botswana-Lesotho-Swaziland in Maseru and wrote an extended essay on Letters to Martha. “He just stood out on his own in a particular style and…theme,” recalls Ndebele. “He was an expressive artist at a particular point in time, giving us access to what was not easily available – the inner life of an oppressed people.”86 But it is not only for the content of his poetry that Ndebele holds him in high esteem; in fact he singles out the original way in which Brutus employed the lyric form as his most important contribution to poetry: “In a sense, some of his poetry is as artistically tight as J.M. Coetzee’s sparse writing: each word counts; each rhythm counts; each image counts. His best work stood on its own as art more than politics.” Brutus consistently and imaginatively attempted to reconcile poetry and politics – the two enduring passions of his life. He infused his poetry with politics, and he enriched politics with his poetry. These two realms of human activity – as he often showed so eloquently and powerfully – need not be mutually exclusive. From the early 1950s, he became increasingly engaged in various anti-apartheid activities while, at the same time, continuing to write poetry. He refused to accept fellow South African

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 20

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

Introduction

21

poet Arthur Nortje’s injunction that “some of us must storm the castles / some define the happening.”87 He does concede, though, that if he has one regret “it is that I did not devote more time to the craft of poetry; to the use of language, of images, and of cadences; my excuse is that I was busy doing so much else that seemed to be worthwhile.”88 Even so, at his best, Brutus wrote poetry of the most exquisite lyrical beauty and intense power. And through his various political activities, perhaps most notably in SANROC, he played a uniquely significant role in mobilising and intensifying opposition to injustice and oppression – initially in South Africa, but later throughout the rest of the world as well.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 21

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 22

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 23

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 24

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

THE SOUTH

DENNIS BRUTUS

Af RICAN YE ARS Chapter 1: 1924-1943

No human life begins in a single moment at birth. That seemingly isolated event is, in fact, the culmination of a long process that goes back to all those in a particular lineage who came before. In many ways, the biological characteristics that an individual inherits predetermine the outline of a life. And then, there are the almost equally indelible imprints of history that leave their mark, and are extended by the environment into which someone is born. It is this combination of genetics and society that ultimately shapes the person who develops when a new being enters the world. The life of an individual, therefore, is the outcome of a vast and complex array of biological and social factors. Where, then, to begin telling the life story of a human being? In the case of Dennis Vincent Frederick Brutus, like that of many other black people in South Africa, the answer is relatively, and brutally, simple. Traces of the lives of his earliest predecessors are either invisible or extremely faint. As a result of a deliberate policy of government neglect, both under successive colonial regimes and during apartheid, high levels of illiteracy and migration among black people were commonplace for centuries. Fixed and reliable sources of information about the family backgrounds of many South Africans are therefore limited. Brutus himself refers to just two generations before him in his own accounts of his genealogy. And, even then, nowhere does he provide the names of his grandparents (except for a hesitant recollection of the first name of his paternal grandmother).1

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 25

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

26

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

What further deepens the many silences in Brutus’s life story is the reticence and introverted nature of his father, Francis Henry Brutus. “My father was an uncommunicative person,” he recounts in a tape recording, “and I cannot recall him ever having discussed his parents.”2 The fragments that Brutus does remember about his paternal grandparents are largely accounts related to him by his mother, Magdalene Winifred Brutus (née Bloemetjie), and his elder brother, Wilfred Cecil Joseph Brutus. Yet, tentative and vague as this information on his family background may be, that is all there is to go on; so history and circumstance compel us to start there. According to Brutus, his unnamed paternal grandfather was a sailor who worked on a whaling ship. Further details of where he was originally from, and when and where he travelled, are unavailable but he eventually ended up in Saldanha Bay, a whaling station on the west coast of South Africa. Although Brutus’s grandfather was apparently illiterate, and despite the fact that whaling was tough and hazardous, he was able to make a prosperous living.3 “[He] was quite wealthy,” Brutus relates. “We had an heirloom, a ring with a Masonic crest on it which apparently my grandfather had given to my father.”4 Even less is known about his paternal grandmother; all he vaguely recalls is being told that her name was Helen, and that she was of German descent. Hardly any information is available on Brutus’s maternal grandparents either. Once again, his mother is the source of the little that he does know. All he remembers being told about his unnamed maternal grandfather is that he was a postman, most likely in Uitenhage in the eastern Cape. “This is a rather romantic image of the days when the post was a wagon rather like the pony express, and the man who delivered the mail from town to town would blow a horn, the traditional British post horn,” Brutus recalls. “I remember her evoking the image of them hearing the sound of the horn when the wagon approached the outskirts of the little village.”5 He speculates that his maternal grandmother, also unnamed, was a slave or a descendant of slaves: “My mother talked of the days of slavery, of how her mother had in fact known slavery, may have been a slave herself.”6 He remembers, too, that from time to time she recited the

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 26

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

Chapter 1: 1924–1943

27

nineteenth-century US poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Slave’s Dream” to the children. He describes it as expressing a keen desire for freedom: “She had memorized it and I certainly had memorized most of it at one time.”7 In particular, Brutus remembers the following evocative lines: “The forests, with their myriad tongues, / Shouted of liberty.”8 He reflects: “It may be that line which stayed with me through all the years of my impressionable boyhood and into my adulthood.”9 Brutus refers to his mother’s maiden surname, Bloemetjie, and speculates that it may have been given to her as the slave descendant of a family originally from the Netherlands because the word means “little flower” in Dutch.10 In an untitled poem, he considers the possibility that he is the descendant of a slave, and declares in the first stanza: I must conjure from my past the dim and unavowed specter of a slave, of a bound woman, whose bound figure pleads silently, and whose blood I must acknowledge in my own.11 Brutus subsequently elaborates in a 1974 tape recording on his mother’s accounts of her family’s background: [She] used to tell us when we were very young of the reminiscences she had heard, possibly from her mother or certainly from her grandmother, of the cruel conditions under which the slaves had lived – beatings, cruelties – and she recalled particularly vividly…the traditional punishment of tying a slave, stripped, to the large wheel of the ox wagon and then inflicting lashes on the slave until he or she collapsed in a bleeding, quivering heap after being untied from the wheel.12 He recalls this memory in the following extract from another untitled poem: my mother talked to me about her mother and slavery

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 27

2020-01-17 03:50:40 PM

28

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

evoking images of persons bound to wagon wheels and whipped.13 *** By comparison, far more is known about the background of his own parents – though even here some details cannot be corroborated. Brutus claims, for instance, that his father was born in Jamestown on St Helena Island, a British colony in the South Atlantic.14 Brutus’s birth certificate indeed refers to his father as a “Native of St Helena” and to his father’s birthplace as St Helena. However, according to Tracy Buckley, Assistant Custodian of Records at the archives of the St Helena government, no record can be found of his father’s birth on the island.15 The earliest public details of his date of birth can be traced to the admission register of Zonnebloem College in Cape Town, which records it as 8 March 1882, but does not provide any information on where he was born.16 It is known, though, that Brutus’s father grew up in Saldanha Bay – the largest natural bay in South Africa – where Brutus’s grandfather worked as a whaler. After a visit to his father’s boyhood home much later in life, Brutus reminisces in a prose poem, entitled (somewhat misleadingly) “Visiting my father’s birthplace”: The sea stretches out, pale blue to silver at the horizon and the bay curves gently, with fishing boats in the foreground, and a bulky factory on the headland of the entrance. The town will, of course, have changed greatly, but the sea is the same sea, and this is pretty much the scene he would have looked out on.17 No date of birth can be confirmed for Brutus’s mother, though it can be inferred from a newspaper report that she was born around 1888.18 There is even contradictory information about her first name: it is given as Magdalene on his birth certificate (and is presumably misspelt as Magdelene on his baptism record), and as Magdalena on his sister Helen’s birth certificate, yet Brutus always refers to her as Margaret.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 28

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

Chapter 1: 1924–1943

29

Her maiden name is also variously given as Webb19 and Webber,20 which he attributes to the English branch of her family: “The all-white branch…was apparently quite a distinguished one in the community of Uitenhage and a pillar of local society.”21 He states that his mother was “of African descent, but of mixed heritage.”22 He later elaborates: “My mother’s ancestry was apparently African on one side, or perhaps even Hottentot [Khoi] or Malay. Certainly on the maternal side she was descended from slaves.”23 Both his parents were teachers: his father spent a year at Zonnebloem College, a once prestigious educational institution in Cape Town established by the Anglican Church in 1901;24 his mother, who grew up in Uitenhage, attended the Hankey Institute, a teacher training college run by English missionaries. But their paths were not to cross for many years. After his year at college, Brutus’s father accepted a teaching position at an Anglican Church mission school in Ceres in 1902.26 The coloured congregation there was reportedly “a large and growing one,” and the Church occasionally visited the surrounding areas as well because many congregants lived more than 30 kilometres away.27 “Ceres, like all other towns in South Africa, has to provide for the spiritual needs of a large area,” notes the Zonnebloem College Magazine. “Many of the hamlets and the outlying farms have poor coloured people living in them, who are unable to reach Ceres for the services of the Church.”28 Despite the widespread poverty in the area, Ceres was nonetheless an attractive option to Brutus’s father, then just 20 years old. Located in a fertile area in the south-western Cape, it was named optimistically after the Roman goddess of agriculture.29 “No one can be at Ceres without being delighted with the beauty of the village; its avenues of oaks and its well-watered gardens,” observes the Zonnebloem College Magazine.30 No doubt another appealing factor for Brutus’s father was that he was allocated his own house near the mission school, which was located behind the Anglican Church in the town’s main street. He was head teacher of the school, with the official title of Catechist. While this may sound impressive, it conceals a more bleak reality: “As there is only one assistant the hands of the teachers are quite full.”31 The Catechist was responsible for a class on Sunday afternoons too, “reading a sermon in Dutch, usually translated from the works of some

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 29

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

30

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

good Church preacher.”32 Brutus’s father was well received in Ceres. As the Zonnebloem College Magazine notes somewhat patronisingly: “One of the pleasant and most hopeful signs of work at Ceres, is the readiness of all to support their own teacher.” On the third Saturday of each month, it was customary for all church members to make a contribution towards the salary of the Catechist. The year after Brutus’s father moved to Ceres, he married Rosaline de Villiers in the local St Andrew’s Anglican Church on 1 July 1903.33 Very little is known about her. According to Brutus, she was “a person of striking beauty.”34 Three children were born of the marriage, but two of them died young: Blanche was sickly and Victor drowned; only Ethel survived into adulthood (Brutus recalls that she married and settled in Cape Town, but he eventually lost track of her whereabouts). Brutus’s father was presumably still in Ceres when the Cape colonial parliament passed the School Board Act in 1905. This provided for school boards to control public schools. However, while it introduced a comprehensive programme to provide compulsory public education for white children between the ages of 7 and 14 years, coloured children were excluded from this provision.35 And even though the Act outlined procedures for coloured people to establish public schools, it was feared that obstructions built into the legislation would, in practice, ensure that coloured schoolchildren had very limited access to public education – at least for the foreseeable future. According to the South African historian Mohamed Adhikari, the School Board Act “therefore greatly exacerbated the racial inequalities of the Cape education system.”36 The resulting protests presumably galvanised Brutus’s father to establish an association for coloured teachers. He circulated a memorandum in which he motivated for the formation of such an organisation. However, it failed to take off, which he blamed on logistical and financial difficulties. *** At some point, Brutus’s father left Ceres – presumably with his young family – for the nearby town of Wellington. In 1909, he is documented as being a member of the local branch of the African

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 30

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

Chapter 1: 1924–1943

31

Political Organisation (APO), then led by the pioneering political leader Abdullah Abdurahman, a medical doctor based in Cape Town. Despite its inclusive name, the APO was a predominantly coloured organisation, and in Wellington the coloured people were largely middle class and led reasonably comfortable lives.37 Many qualified for the franchise in the Cape Colony, which meant they were literate and earned either £50 a year or occupied a house and land worth £75.38 As a result of self-interest, perhaps, members of this community were generally politically conservative – even those who were part of the APO. According to the South African historian Francois J. Cleophas, “some emphasised that coloured people were closely associated with white history and distanced themselves from indigenous culture.”39 In fact, Brutus’s father reportedly once declared dismissively that the “history of the education of children from European descent dated from 1652 whilst that of the coloured race only goes as far back as the dawn of the 19th century.” The emergence of the TLSA in 1913 – an initiative of the APO under the leadership of Abdurahman – may subsequently have brought about a turning point in the political inclinations of Brutus’s father. In fact, according to Brutus, he later learned that his father was a key figure in the formation of the teachers’ organisation: “When Bennie Kies was working on a history of the League in the late forties and fifties, I remember him approaching me and inquiring whether I had any information on my father’s work in the establishment of the Teachers’ League, and I had to confess that I knew nothing.”40 It is a matter of public record, though, that Brutus’s father worked closely with prominent TLSA members such as Harold Cressy, Abe Desmore and Fred Hendricks – who were all active in the APO as well – to inculcate “a sense of national pride and of duty to their people.”41 *** It is not clear when Brutus’s father left Wellington and relocated to the rapidly growing east coast town of Port Elizabeth. But, it seems, he was always in search of new challenges and opportunities. By the

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 31

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

32

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

end of the nineteenth century, Port Elizabeth already boasted a number of industries, ranging from tanneries to wool-washeries to footwear factories. The self-reliance imposed by the First World War (1914–1918) further compelled the Union of South Africa – newly established in 1910 – to meet its own industrial needs. Port Elizabeth, an important port and well situated geographically, was at the centre of the resulting industrial growth. It was during this period, for instance, that the foundations of the fledgling footwear industry in the region were consolidated and developed into the largest footwear-manufacturing industry in South Africa.42 The town’s expanding economy, naturally, attracted more people: the urban population of the metropolitan region numbered 38 716 in 1911; this grew to 54 384 by 1921 – an increase of more than 40 per cent over just 10 years.43 After Brutus’s father moved to Port Elizabeth, he joined the teaching staff of St Peter’s, a mission school established by the Anglican Church. It was probably during this period that he helped to establish the Eastern Province Coloured Teachers’ Association.44 Presumably, this was an attempt to address the poor conditions at coloured schools and to improve the salaries of teachers. “The most pressing problem afflicting coloured education was the utter inadequacy of mission schools and the material shortages with which it had to cope,” notes Adhikari. “The government had virtually abdicated responsibility for coloured education, having shunted it upon the churches who did not have the resources to provide an adequate service.”45 As a result, mission school buildings were often dilapidated and classrooms were generally overcrowded, poorly furnished and either underequipped or even completely without any equipment: “It was quite common to have several classes sharing the same room, pupils sitting on the floor or in pews and many unable to afford bare necessities such as books, slates and pencils.”46 Some schools did not even have toilets on the premises, never mind playgrounds – conditions totally unsuited to a healthy and productive learning environment. From 1918, the Cape Education Department increasingly financed the cost of education and, by the early twentieth century, most mission schools were dependent on state subsidies, including for teachers’

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 32

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

Chapter 1: 1924–1943

33

salaries. There nevertheless remained a stark disparity between the remuneration of coloured teachers at mission schools and white teachers: the former earned an average of £45–57 a year, compared with an average of £150–200 a year for the latter.47 And, unlike their white counterparts, coloured teachers did not receive regular increments, nor were they entitled to leave or sick benefits. To add insult to injury, there was no recourse open to them if they were dismissed.48 At the time, Brutus’s father and his family lived in the long-established residential area of South End, near the harbour and close to the centre of Port Elizabeth. According to former residents who were born in the area, it was home to a “variety of communities and nationalities such as Indians, Malays, English, Afrikaners, Chinese, Greeks, Portuguese, St Helenians, Khoikhoin, Xhosa and Fingoes,” some with roots going as far back as 1859.49 Various places of worship sprang up in the area to cater for this diverse community, including an Anglican Church, a Congregational Church, a Presbyterian Church, a Methodist Church, three Baptist churches, the mosque Masjied ul Aziz and the Mariamman Temple. These were joined in later years by, among others, a Catholic Church and a Dutch Reformed Church.50 Brutus’s father and his first family lived in Miller Street where, according to Brutus, “a kind of gorge fell away, through which the Baakens River flowed, with attractive shrubbed and wooded slopes.”51 However, life within the family home did not match the charm of the scenery outside: the marriage of Brutus’s father and Rosaline was far from happy. “I think she died of tuberculosis, or so I was told, but apparently in some unhappiness and perhaps some neglect from my father,” Brutus recounts.52 It is difficult to reconcile such conduct with the belief system of a seemingly devout man – as suggested by his long association with the Anglican Church and its mission schools – but, in the absence of any further information, any attempt to provide an explanation would be to engage in mere conjecture. ***

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 33

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

34

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

It was in Port Elizabeth, then, where Brutus’s father and mother, Francis and Magdalene, met. How, and where, the two mission school teachers first encountered each other is unclear. He was an introverted widower; she, on the other hand, was very sociable and outgoing. Brutus even suggests that his mother was a local – possibly even provincial – tennis champion.53 Perhaps they met at some school event; or maybe they met at a concert when Magdalene performed with a church choir. What is known for certain, though, is that they were married in October 1919.54 Just a few months later, at the beginning of January 1920, the newly wed couple left Port Elizabeth to teach at a mission school in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe), then still a British colony – no doubt once again at the suggestion of Brutus’s aspirational father. According to Brutus, his father was principal of a mission school in Pioneer Road.55 The couple’s first child, Wilfred, was born in Salisbury later that year (on 14 October), followed by Helen Frances Joan in 1922 (30 October), who was probably named after Brutus’s paternal grandmother. It was in Salisbury, too, that Brutus was born on 28 November 1924. It is to his story that we now, finally, turn. Even then, it is a faltering start. Brutus does not remember much about his first few years in Southern Rhodesia: “I have vague images, but they may be more the result of suggestion than real memory.”56 Wilfred told him, for instance, about the red roofs and green trees of Salisbury. What he does know for sure about his time in Southern Rhodesia is that he was baptised there as a baby in an Anglican Church. And that his father once organised a tour for a football team, which went to play in Gwelo and Umtali. But that is about all he is certain of. He later writes ruefully in the following lines of the poem “Zimbabwe”: So to my neglected birthplace, often disowned, sometimes by me – not scorn but skipping details: here I first breathed African air, my heart shaped by country’s contours my infant sensibilities stirred58

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 34

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

Chapter 1: 1924–1943

35

In 1926, Brutus’s parents relocated to South Africa with their three children. They returned to the eastern Cape, but this time to Hankey, where a brother of his mother’s lived.59 His father stayed just long enough for the birth of their fourth and last child, Catherine, on 26 February.60 He then returned to Southern Rhodesia to resume his teaching career. This either suggests that he found his work in Salisbury extremely satisfying, and that it probably enabled him to provide a reasonable standard of living for his new family, or it indicates that he was then already beginning to grow apart from his second wife. Brutus speculates that the answer was far more straightforward: he contends that his father stayed on in Salisbury to complete his notice period.61 If so, it was an unusually long notice period as Brutus’s father only rejoined his wife and children permanently in 1929.62 By then, his family was back in Port Elizabeth. During the 1920s, the city was a hive of agricultural and industrial activity, throbbing with restless energy and relentless ambition. It was long established as a major producer and exporter of wool,63 and, with international car manufacturers like Ford and General Motors now based there, it was excitedly proclaimed to be another Detroit in the making. Its port facilities and location made it well placed to distribute the vehicles assembled and manufactured there to the rest of the subcontinent. In turn, the presence of these motor plants led to the emergence of allied industries, most notably tyre companies such as Firestone and Goodyear.64 The return of Brutus’s father to South Africa marked a significant change in the life of the family. While in Salisbury, he converted to the Catholic Church. So, being the traditional head of the family in those days, it was just a matter of time before his wife and children followed him to his new place of worship. As Brutus remembers: “He came back to South Africa and told my mother, from now on we’re all Catholics and the children will have to be re-baptized.”65 On 12 April 1931, the young Brutus was duly baptised again, along with the other children – this time in the St Augustine’s Catholic Cathedral on Prospect Hill, an imposing building that still stands today. Many years later, he fondly recalled the small prayer books that he and his siblings were given afterwards as gifts.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 35

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

36

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

His mother, a member of the Congregational Church, was initially reluctant to change her church affiliation. Not only would this mean severing her association with her church, but also with its school and her beloved choir, as well as with its church ministers – “many of whom [Brutus’s] father apparently disliked and may even have been suspicious of.”66 Later, though, she received religious instruction at a convent and converted to the Catholic Church. “Once she became a Catholic, she committed herself wholly,” Brutus acknowledges. “She became a very devout and indeed a holy person, a tireless servant of the church.” She eagerly participated in its fundraising campaigns, arranged church meetings and helped to establish a women’s guild. “My father didn’t join her in any of these,” he notes pointedly. “He still remained solitary.” *** It is of Dowerville, where the family now lived, that Brutus recalls his earliest memories.67 Named after the Rev. William Dower, a Scottish missionary sent to South Africa in 1865 by the interdenominational London Missionary Society, and who later ministered to the coloured congregation at the Union Church in Port Elizabeth,68 the municipal housing scheme was located less than five kilometres from the city centre.69 It was built in 1923, making it one of Port Elizabeth’s oldest municipal townships, and consisted of 100 houses and a play area: 50 of the houses offered two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room and a shower; the other 50 boasted a third bedroom as well.70 Brutus’s parents and their four children were among those fortunate to live in a three-bedroom house.71 According to Brutus, they acquired the house quite fortuitously. When his mother returned to Port Elizabeth from Hankey, she initially rented a single room in the house of a family in Dowerville. Her husband eventually joined her and the children there when he came back from Salisbury; the other family then moved out of the house.72 Brutus recalls this early period of his life at 15 Brock Road, on the western outskirts of Port Elizabeth, with much fondness: “In the Dowerville of my childhood I remember many people who had been extremely house-proud; in fact

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 36

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

Chapter 1: 1924–1943

37

they were inclined to be ‘stuck up’ and to regard themselves as superior to those who did not live in housing schemes.”73 Growing up in Dowerville was, in many ways, a time of adventure and fun for Brutus. Due to frequent nose bleeds – which he later mischievously induced when it suited him – he did not attend school regularly in his early years. His prolonged absence from school was indulgently encouraged by his mother after his class teacher died and was replaced by someone with a reputation for being strict and even cruel.74 His mother’s unusual leniency gave him the freedom to roam the neighbourhood during the day. An open patch of ground at the lower end of Dowerville, near the bus route, became a favourite space to loiter: “It was full of holes and mounds and littered with builders’ rubble and refuse.”75 Brutus recollects these images from his childhood playground in an untitled poem: It was a sherded world I entered: of broken bottles, rusty tins and split roof tiles: the littered earth was full of menace with jagged edges waiting the naked feet: holes, trenches, ditches were scattered traps and the broken land in waste plots our playing field: this was the world through which I learnt the world and this the image for my vision of the world.76 But the ugly, and potentially dangerous, debris did not deter the youngster from gallivanting there. A row of trees and a high fence – which separated Dowerville from the neighbouring white residential area of Kensington – added to the mystery and gritty appeal of the area.77 He also found unexpected beauty in the forlorn, neglected landscape. “Among the rubble and the litter there, wild tendrils of purple convolvulus curled in and out, showing up brilliantly against the white builders’ sand in morning sunlight,” he recounts. “Even now, when I think of my childhood as a whole and try to recapture its atmosphere and mood, the image that first leaps into my mind is one of those tendrils of purple convolvulus, bright and wild, curled around the rubble and the debris in the bright morning air.”78

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 37

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

38

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

It was also in this playground, however, that Brutus encountered what was presumably the first instance of attitudinal racism directed at him, personally. He and a white boy on the other side of the fence – overgrown with creepers and vines – became friendly during this time (somewhere between 1929 and 1934). The youngster from Kensington used to casually address Brutus as “Darky.” In his childhood innocence, he did not realise that this appellation was in fact a racial slur – until his brother Wilfred pointed this out. Afterwards, Brutus no longer sought out his former playmate, even though he continued to visit the vacant space in search of idle pleasure.79 Brutus also remembers, with much affection, an open area cordoned off by wire known as the Kampie (small camp). Sometimes he took a shortcut through this area on his way back from the closest shop, which was a few kilometres outside Dowerville.80 The Kampie was “thoroughly wild country,” he remembers, with bushes and wild grass everywhere.81 Firs and pine trees were also a common sight. In addition, there were blue gum and willow trees. When the pods of the Port Jackson willows split, the birds eagerly fed on the seeds that spilt out. The Dowerville children who prowled there also found berries on which to feast. Here, though, was a dangerous competitor: “There were snakes, and one sometimes put your hand into a thornbush to pick berries and suddenly there was a green and brown snake, coiled, hardly distinguishable from the green of the grass and ground.” However, such frightening encounters merely added to the appeal of the Kampie. The children, too, sometimes enjoyed assuming the role of predators. When a snake did not make its getaway fast enough, they gleefully pounced on it and killed it. Once they found an owl and, out of sheer naivety, also proceeded to kill it. They meted out the same reckless treatment to a large bullfrog. “The Kampie was a rather mysterious place, and entering it always seemed like an act of bravado,” recalls Brutus nostalgically.82 Even the sound of the breeze making its way through the trees would scare them, never mind the sight of paper and leaves swept into the air by a twirling wind. Another favourite playground was a hillside behind Dowerville, dubbed the Koppie (little hill) by Brutus’s father. Like the Kampie, it

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 38

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

Chapter 1: 1924–1943

39

was also fenced off and boasted willow trees, blue gums and pine trees. Brutus’s memories of the pine trees were especially vivid: “From the pines, gum would seep; these trees were sort of gnarled and twisted in the winds which blew up from the sea, which wasn’t very far away.”83 The Koppie, perhaps a cemetery at one stage, was a popular hideout for amorous couples in search of privacy.84 As a result, Brutus and his friends derived much pleasure from spying on them occasionally, and sometimes even dared to shout salacious remarks at them. Yet these playgrounds were not Brutus’s only form of escape from the usual routines of daily life during his childhood. He derived enjoyment from reading as well. “I do not remember quite when I learnt to read, or how,” he observes. “Certainly, I do not remember being taught the letters of the alphabet or being taught to put them together to make words; much of it must have come through a sort of intuitive process – of recognising words which were read to me and then going back to read them myself.”85 His eagerness to read was inspired, in part, by sibling rivalry with Wilfred. Although his brother was four years older, he often tried to emulate him – not out of jealousy, but merely to be on a par with him. So the precocious youngster read anything and everything – from British boys’ magazines like The Champion to newspapers and even advertising leaflets. British children’s comic magazines such as The Beano and The Rainbow were later obtained from the sons of a neighbour who did household chores for a white family. “I learnt about the English world of schoolboys and japes and dirt-track riders and the RAF [Royal Air Force] and detectives, like Colwyn Dane and Sexton Blake, and Pentonville and haunted manor houses,” he remembers.86 *** But, of course, Brutus could not remain ensconced forever in the makebelieve worlds offered by exotic playgrounds and imported comics. The demands of real life, with all its mundane obligations, constantly threatened to intrude. And, of course, he could not avoid attending school forever. He first went to school around 1931 at the Henry Kaiser

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 39

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

40

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Memorial School in Dowerville, where his mother taught from time to time. The Congregational Church mission school was little more than a church building with a few classrooms attached to it.87 Because of his regular nose bleeds, and his antipathy towards school, his formal education was initially quite erratic. It was only in 1935 – when he was 11 years old – that his schooling began in earnest. He was enrolled in Sub B (Grade 2) as a pupil at St Theresa’s Catholic mission school in North End, and was taught by Irish nuns. The coloured children inherited the school at 24 North Road – “with its discarded desks and blackboards” – from the white community when it was given another school.88 Like his previous school, St Theresa’s was attached to a church, and was later extended to include the church hall. Although he struggled to cope at first, he persevered and eventually distinguished himself as an above-average pupil: The tendency is if you’re catching up you tend to overcompensate. So in fact I then passed most of the people in those classes and went through a series of promotions which of course had its own disadvantage because I was being promoted upwards but into classes again where the students were way ahead of me. Again I think I compensated for it by catching up fairly rapidly and I think that it was actually an advantage to be disadvantaged. What it meant was that by the time I reached the last year of junior school, Standard 6, as we called it then, I was coming first in class without even trying.89 No doubt, his exceptional performance at school was aided by his informal education at home. He remembers reading his father’s school reader, from the British series Blackie’s Model Readers published in London by Blackie and Son, even before he first attended school.90 In particular, he recounts a story, “The Bell of Atri,” which he retells as being about a city-state in Italy ruled by a cruel despot at a time when there was widespread poverty.91 According to his recollection, the turning point of the story is when an extremely thin horse inadvertently rings a bell intended for use in times of distress: “This bony horse

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 40

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

Chapter 1: 1924–1943

41

ringing this bell roused the conscience of this man, the oppressor, or perhaps the people and brought about a dramatic change.”92 He vividly recalls the drawings of the malnourished and neglected horse trying to nibble at the vine attached to the bell: “It may have been a formative experience.” He also remembers another series published by Blackie and Son, called Britain and Her Neighbours. In particular, the young Brutus was fascinated by the period when Britain was under Roman occupation, and remembers seeing a photograph of a magnificent statue of Julius Caesar. He also affectionately recalls illustrations in the series of the Angles, Saxons, Huns and Picts. Life in early Britain made such a strong impression on him that he enjoyed regaling his friends and siblings with accounts about it – to the mild irritation of Wilfred. “He saw me as being much too pretentious and maybe even pompous,” recalls Brutus.93 His informal education at home included his mother’s recitation of poems to the children at night; she even read poetry to the children on Sunday afternoons.94 Wordsworth’s “Daffodils” and Thomas Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard” were particular favourites: “I learnt these from her, and heard her recite them and read them to us, rather earlier than the average schoolboy – white or black – and certainly earlier than the mass of the black schoolchildren around the country.”95 These were Brutus’s first encounters with the writing of poets from the traditional English literary canon. As a result, he recalls, he grew up “with an ear for sounds, for language, and words.”96 His mother also told or read stories to Brutus and his siblings, often merely to pass the time until her husband came home, usually late at night. In addition, Brutus speculates, these poetry-reciting and storytelling sessions were informed by a desire to improve her children’s education. It was during one of these story sessions that Brutus first came to hear about the world of the knights. His mother loved the Arthurian legends and often read the children stories about Sir Galahad and Sir Lancelot. As a result, he became enchanted by these tales of mounted warriors who carried out heroic exploits. He also specifically recalls Tennyson’s poems on the legends of King Arthur’s Round Table. In particular, he remembers “Sir Galahad,” a poem about one of the king’s knights.97 Many years

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 41

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

42

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

later, Brutus recounts a poignant memory from his childhood: “Another image came to me; my mother, in the afternoon sunlight, reading of Sir Galahad’s search for light and beauty, with the sunlight falling on the page, and on the glowing colours of a picture of a knight entering a dark forest.”98 That image of his mother – and its association with a solitary knight on a noble mission – clearly made a lasting impression on him. And, even though his relationship with his father was fraught with underlying tension, Brutus readily acknowledges that he played a key role in his early education as well. His father studied for a Bachelor of Arts degree by correspondence while teaching at St Patrick’s Mission School in Salisbury Park, and the young Brutus often overheard him at home as he recited the work of various English poets from the Romantic and Victorian periods.99 He, too, tried to cultivate an interest in poetry in the children, and encouraged them to memorise and recite poetry. “When we would recite them, he would then show us better how to recite them,” relates Brutus, “and he read with great articulateness and care, with a sense of rhythm and meter, but at the same time [with] very clear emphasis on the meaningful words.”100 Another abiding childhood memory is that his father was always surrounded by books and papers.101 Although this added to his image of his father as a stern and intimidating figure, Brutus later adds gratefully: He had a great belief in books and encouraged us as a special treat occasionally, perhaps once a month, to go through his pictorial encyclopedia and look at the pictures. Just to look at them was a great treat. I remember the images of the Mona Lisa and the sculptures in the Vatican, the Apollo Belvedere, Julius Caesar, all the great sculpture and art of the Western world, and the books he brought with the early history of Britain and the Roman conquest and Julius Caesar.102 While at high school, Brutus made extensive use of his father’s copy of William Shakespeare’s play, Henry IV, which was a prescribed work. It contained various annotations and special symbols to draw attention to passages that his father regarded as important. “I think

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 42

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

Chapter 1: 1924–1943

43

I was much helped by his pointers,” he states. Brutus even explored his father’s university books, which were not part of his school syllabus, for example, W. Macneile Dixon and H.J.C. Grierson’s The English Parnassus: An Anthology Chiefly of Longer Poems.103 He recalls, too, reading work by the late Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats in Francis Turner Palgrave’s long-standing anthology, The Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language, compiled with the advice and assistance of Tennyson. He became familiar as well with George Saintsbury’s A Short History of English Literature at high school, which his father later gave to him. That memory is tinged with both happiness and pain: “I always felt that to compensate for the hostility, lack of love between us, at least through that book he was communicating his knowledge to me.”104 *** Even though Brutus’s parents shared a keen interest in the education of their children, they still drifted apart over the years. The youngster noticed the “tension, hostility, unfriendliness” between his parents.105 Supper time became an uncomfortable, even fearful, ordeal. As a result of the acrimonious relationship between Brutus’s parents, his father eventually started to eat supper alone and the couple began to sleep in separate bedrooms. His mother became even more devout during this period, and kept a table arranged like an altar in the small bedroom that she now used: two candles burned on either side of a picture of the Sacred Heart (a representation of the heart of Jesus Christ, which is regarded as an aid to devotion in the Catholic Church). Brutus thinks this was initially his father’s idea, but concedes: “With the kinds of tensions in the home, the devotion became very much hers.” He later wrote the following poem for her to commemorate St Jude’s Day on 28 October, one of the most precious days in her religious calendar: No time was her faith more ardent than this patron saint’s day, Day of St Jude, Patron Saint of Hopeless Cases,

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 43

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

44

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

she of course of the little flower Therese of Lisieux almost eponymous with bloemetjie little flower of May, of course, Madonna Soeur of Lourdes and that other penitent Mary Magdalene so, if prayers can function in that other perhaps excellent supernatural world – if there is any help, any greeting, any pledge of affection, of regret for multiple failings let her send it on this day, what may pass for prayers.106 Among the reasons for the breakdown in his parents’ relationship were disputes about money, and how best to spend it. The major difficulty was not so much that the family was poverty-stricken. In fact, Brutus’s parents – as trained teachers – were part of just 1.25 per cent of the city’s coloured population who fell into the professional occupation category in 1936. Most were employed either as labourers and craftsmen (49.48 per cent) or as service and recreational workers (33.94 per cent).107 Brutus recognises that they “were in many ways better off than many other families who were really doing much worse and were much poorer.”108 Some children went to school barefoot all year long, while others walked long distances to and from school every day. The main problem facing Brutus’s parents was of a very different kind; they were striving to achieve “a richer, more worthwhile existence.”109 But they were not very successful in this endeavour. “We really managed very badly,” says Brutus. “We ate badly. He [his father] cut our hair generally to save money and cut it badly so that we would be figures of fun to be laughed at in the township afterwards.”110 His mother, on the other hand, wanted the children to dress well and live in a comfortable home – hence the presence of an organ. Yet, despite the financial strain under which they constantly lived, Brutus’s father was reluctant to let his wife teach,111 and instead took on much of the burden himself to bring in extra money: he did book-keeping for local fruiterers and gave French and book-keeping lessons as well.112 Whether these decisions were motivated by personal pride or a misguided sense of masculinity is unclear, but either way they inflicted

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 44

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

Chapter 1: 1924–1943

45

severe damage on the relationship of Brutus’s parents. His father even refused to allow his wife to take in washing to supplement the family’s income (according to Brutus, she could not iron very well, and happily passed this task on to a neighbour or a friend). Occasionally she gave secret music lessons to raise extra money, but always in fear that her husband would find out. The students she taught at home would either leave before he came home, or would be rushed out the back door when he returned. “Ironically,” Brutus observes,” it was probably the strain of trying to build a decent family that eventually broke the family apart.”113 However, Brutus recognises that more fundamental issues were at play as well. He identifies these as underlying differences in their character and temperament. “For my mother,” he believes, “her marriage and her family was the happy, joyous, sociable bond, and she wanted to retain all her links with her old friends and our relatives who were scattered all over the place.”114 She was warm and outgoing, and highly regarded in the community. His father, by contrast, was a reserved figure whose interests were largely confined to intellectual pursuits: “His own intellectual interest in the novels, poetry, Shakespeare, Latin, Greek, and French that he was studying, must have set him apart so that he found little in common or that was congenial with my mother’s circle of friends.”115 He believes they should never have married in the first place: “They were an unhappy combination.”116 *** In 1936, Brutus’s mother left with her two daughters for Grahamstown (now Makhanda), about 130 km north-east of Port Elizabeth (according to Brutus, it was then 108 miles – more than 170 km – away by rail). Her decision to relocate was presumably an attempt to escape from what appeared to be a stultifying marriage governed by various edicts handed down by her husband, which she found hard either to understand or accept. Brutus’s mother secured a teaching post at St Mary’s Catholic primary school in Raglan Road (now the Ntaba Maria primary school) with the assistance of nuns at St Theresa’s, and stayed there for a year. “It was not a good time,” Brutus declares sombrely.117

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 45

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

46

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

His mother returned to Port Elizabeth after a year, but not for long. She fetched her sons from their father and went back to Grahamstown in 1937, where they boarded with a widow and her three children in Beaufort Street. The children attended school at St Mary’s, on the outskirts of town, and Brutus appeared to settle in reasonably well, even becoming an altar server. In 1937 or 1938, Brutus’s mother returned to Port Elizabeth with her children, perhaps in an effort to give her floundering marriage another chance. But her husband refused to reconcile with her, and instituted divorce proceedings instead.118 Brutus’s mother, now unable to return to the family’s house in Dowerville, was forced to find accommodation elsewhere for herself and the children. They eventually ended up with a family at 43 Charlotte Street in North End, an eclectic mix of residential and industrial property located close to – and essentially part of – the city centre. Brutus harbours unpleasant memories about this period in his life: “I slept on floors there, washed the dishes, did the errands.”119 And, of course, there was still school to attend as well. He returned to St Theresa’s and, fortunately, settled down relatively easily and once again quickly excelled. However, his mother found this period – and the divorce proceedings that accompanied it – very traumatic. She went back and forth to lawyers in an attempt to secure child maintenance, and spent large sums in the process, which she could probably ill afford. On top of that, her husband’s responding arguments during the ensuing legal battle shocked her and placed her under severe emotional pressure. Brutus recalls that he helped her to write letters to secure maintenance from his father and tried to console her in other ways as best he could.120 Despite these difficult circumstances, Brutus was not unduly perturbed nor particularly distressed by the separation of his parents, and even appeared to accept it with some equanimity. “One kind of drifted into these things, and accepted them numbly,” he offers in explanation. Also, because he was aware of the personality differences between his parents, he probably regarded the breakdown of their marriage as inevitable. Another, perhaps even more compelling reason, is that he was not especially close to his father; he believes that, of the four children, his father cared for him the least.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 46

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

Chapter 1: 1924–1943

47

He recalls that his father used to mock him as intellectually inferior and hard of hearing, and often derided his mother’s relationship with him as overly protective: “When he spoke to me, it was because he had to scold me or to inquire with amused contempt what I had been up to lately.”121 His father was also seldom at home; either he left home early or came back late (probably mostly because of his teaching commitments and part-time work, but presumably also because he deliberately chose to spend his leisure time outside the home). Brutus’s father socialised with the fruiterers for whom he worked, for instance. He occasionally came home with wine or cigars he received from them as gifts, and sometimes even accompanied them to the horse-racing track.122 Brutus recollects matter of factly: “As I remember him at home, it is chiefly as a distant person, but also as a person who could sometimes be enraged and could terrify us. I think I was truly terrified as a small boy.”123 Later, Brutus even wrote a poem about his father pointedly called “My father, that distant man.” It was first published in the literary journal The Gar in 1988 and then as part of a sequence in the poem “Endurance” in his collection Still the Sirens in 1993. In an earlier poem, “‘Bury the Great Duke,’” Brutus describes how his father used to recite Tennyson’s long poem, “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington,” at home. In response, one morning the son tries to win the attention – and thereby, hopefully, the affection – of his father by eagerly reciting the poem to him: “Bury the great duke” I piped from the floor among my cotton reels: “Yes?” he turned in surprise and “Go on” he prompted gently towelling the lather from a half-shaved cheek: “Bury the Great Duke with a noise of lamentation.” But I faltered while he waited and until he turned away.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 47

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

48

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

And what other failures over ages kept him turning half-away?124 This is an understated but devastating description of a severely damaged relationship between a father and son. Yet, despite his father’s aloofness and almost casual cruelty, Brutus recalls happier times with his father, too. Besides their reading and recitation exercises, there were also other moments of shared pleasure. On weekends, for instance, Brutus’s father would bring home fruit and ask the children to guess what different packages contained, then instruct them to cut up the fruit and share it. Much joy was also derived from family singing sessions, with Brutus perched on one of his father’s knees and his mother accompanying them on the organ. The youngster clearly remembers his father’s moustache – his father never wore a beard – and his conspicuously dark, tanned skin (although his neck remained a creamy white) from these singalongs.125 Even though his father was not a very accomplished singer or musician, Brutus thoroughly enjoyed these occasions: My father loved music and must have had a great familiarity with the Western tradition. He sang badly, I think. My mother certainly thought so. I don’t think he did, and he too would sing “Men of Harlech” and “All Through the Night” and various ballads and try to teach them to us and encourage us to sing along. He also loved singing hymns, not only Catholic ones.126 As a result of such experiences, Brutus looks back at his father with a surprising degree of empathy and generosity. “I remember him with affection, mainly because I think I understand better what kind of person he was,” he explains. In fact, he even identifies certain similarities in their character traits: “I think temperamentally I have some sympathy for his cast of mind. Even now my mother’s kind of sociability does not come easily to me.”127 Yet he does not underplay the suffering that his father caused’for his mother; he remains painfully aware of how hurt and abandoned she felt after the collapse of their marriage. In the

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 48

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

49

Chapter 1: 1924–1943

poem “M.W.B.” (his mother’s initials), Brutus recalls listening to her sing when he was still a boy, and tenderly bears witness in the first four stanzas to her suffering and loss: “Weep no more, my lady O weep no more today”128 she sang, sharing the song, but the words were also for herself: for her inward eye a panorama unfurled she saw herself bereft, all tenderness frozen by a bleak wall of brutal indifference, ambition, aspiration, desire all scorned contemned in a welter of foreign values: little remained, children exacting care, the sheltering of submissive faith and wisps of melody that annealed the present and conjured bright glimpses of remembered happy days: so, in a soft voice she sang the sweet refrain: “Weep no more, my lady O weep no more today.”129 *** In the midst of the disintegration of his parents’ marriage, Brutus’s mother and the children forged ahead as best they could. No doubt, the Catholic Church provided some solace to Brutus and, once again, he became an altar server.130 He continued to make excellent progress at school, too, and wrote his first poem at the age of 14 or 15 (around 1938 or 1939). The four-line effort, about a full moon rising over the nearby lake one August night, was entirely spontaneous. The teenager felt so enchanted by that image of the moon that he instinctively tried to capture it in language and years later recalls modestly, though with

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 49

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

50

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

a clear sense of pride: “It really wasn’t bad, even looking back at it now. It had a rhythm and an image and a good vocabulary.”131 In 1939, he wrote another poem – this time in Afrikaans. He probably remembers the year far more precisely because – like his earliest desire to learn to read – this intellectual endeavour was again prompted by sibling rivalry.132 When 19-year-old Wilfred attended St Augustine’s Catholic Teacher Training College that year in Parow, Cape Town, he excelled in Afrikaans and published a poem (or poems) in that language in a college publication. In response, the 15-year-old Brutus wrote an Afrikaans lyric poem about his infatuation with a schoolgirl. Decades later, he could still effortlessly recite the following stanza from this poem: Die omhelsing gevolg deur ’n kreun O die wre’e krag wat opstorm en die bloed wat my hoof deurdreun Met die nad’ring van jou slanke vorm.133 Brutus entered Paterson High, then located on Mount Road near the city centre, in 1939 and continued writing poetry.134 Several poems were featured in The Patersonian Spectator, a school publication started at the suggestion of a science teacher (whom he describes as an anarchist) primarily to provide a forum for pupils to voice their opposition to the school staff. After Brutus became editor, he found that there were often insufficient contributions to fill the publication. No doubt, this caused him considerable stress and frustration. Yet, perhaps, it was a blessing in disguise for the budding young writer: it routinely forced him to write many articles and poems.135 Presumably, the same teacher encouraged his interest in the Victorian poet Robert Browning. “I had been told that Browning was the most difficult poet going and, very fortunately, having said this to a science master, he said it wasn’t true, people just put you off,” he recalls. “Once you believed it, you were in trouble, but if you didn’t believe it, you were okay.”136 Brutus took the advice of the teacher – who, in fact, taught physics – and persevered with Browning’s work. As a result, he became very knowledgeable about the Victorian poet’s work while still at high school. “I’d been recognized as an expert on Browning to the flattering

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 50

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

Chapter 1: 1924–1943

51

extent that a teacher would sometimes ask me to take on a difficult Browning dramatic monologue,” he remembers. Mathematics teacher Ray Matts – whom he vividly remembers as driving a blue Chevrolet Coupe, with the Vredendal number plate, CV3440 – was also a crucial, if fleeting, influence on his literary development.137 She generously lent him her library card one school holiday, and he gratefully remembers that he had “a marvellous summer, bookwise, perhaps the best I ever had.”138 He recalls that he took out and read 42 books – one on each day of those blissful six weeks. His choice of reading material was, understandably, quite varied, and ranged from Leo Tolstoy to Charles Darwin. “I was being very ambitious,” he admits, “overambitious, I fear.” He points out in mitigation: “It was my first exposure to the largesse of the library, those grey metal stacks, those miles of books in their sumptuous, handsome bindings of red leather, or green.” Paterson High teachers were influential in other ways in the life of the young Brutus: they exposed him to a fairly sophisticated political education. Many of the teachers, especially those he most respected, embraced various brands of left-wing politics. “[They] were…Marxist or at the very least leftist and some of them were Trotskyist,” he recalls.139 He attributes this largely to the political influence of the TLSA, but also acknowledges the role of British immigrants who came to South Africa during the 1920s and established the first trade unions in the country: When I was growing up, South Africa already had a pretty strong Trotskyist movement, which coexisted with a pretty strong Stalinist movement. This was the heyday of the Labor Party in Britain, with Ramsay McDonald as prime minister. It was also the era of Bernard Shaw, and the Fabian socialists, Beatrice and Sidney Webb. Plus, you had Marxists coming to South Africa, who had fled from Eastern Europe and the pogroms. This led to an exciting injection of two kinds of Lefts – a Trotskyist Left and a Stalinist Left.140 According to Brutus, the pro-Trotsky Spartacus Club based in Cape Town was a major political influence within the TLSA. This was an

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 51

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

52

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

initiative of the Workers’ Party of South Africa (WPSA), a Trotskyist formation launched in Cape Town in 1935, which established the club six months later as its cultural and debating wing.141 Like other radical debating societies and discussion groups in Cape Town during the 1930s and 1940s, the Spartacus Club conducted study classes.142 “If they were to define themselves, they would have said that they belong to the intelligentsia, out of whom a vanguard party would come,” comments Brutus. “But it is quite true that the TLSA and the Anti-CAD and the Unity Movement tended to draw their support from educated coloureds and professionals, the teachers.”143 While Brutus was at high school, a major debate developed over whether or not to participate in government institutions, presumably precipitated by the planned appointment of a Coloured Advisory Council (CAC) to assist government with matters deemed to affect coloured people specifically: “The debate was whether you collaborated with the apartheid government and you got all the perks and the promotions, and there were those who said we don’t collaborate.”144 Not only did this issue divide teachers; it divided pupils as well. Brutus supported those he regarded as being on the radical side – in other words, those teachers who opposed all forms of collaboration with the government of the Union of South Africa. The TLSA, which supported a policy of non-collaboration, later affiliated to the Anti-CAD movement after it was formed in May 1943 and it, in turn, aligned itself with the Fourth International movement founded by the Russian theorist and revolutionary Leon Trotsky.145 *** Brutus’s political education also took more direct forms because of the intrusion of racial segregation into every aspect of life in South Africa. He recalls, for instance, being denied access to certain public facilities in Port Elizabeth. For example, he was barred from swimming pools restricted for use by white residents only. He adds wryly: “I remember the shock when I first learned, perhaps around the age of nine or ten, that I was not part of the public.”146 Another childhood memory that stayed with him was an incident that occurred while kicking

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 52

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

Chapter 1: 1924–1943

53

around a ball with friends one weekend in a schoolyard in a white residential area as there were no playgrounds in their neighbourhood. When the ball bounced into the garden of a nearby house, where a family was sitting on the veranda listening to radio commentary on a rugby match between South Africa and New Zealand, Brutus went to retrieve it: And the man says to his wife “Ah, future Springboks” – meaning future members of the South African rugby team. But he’s saying it cynically because no non-white ever gets onto the team!...So I’m maybe twelve or thirteen, listening to this. And it strikes me, this guy’s saying that coloreds – blacks – won’t ever get onto the team. I think it stuck with me, until years later, when I began to challenge the whole barrier – questioning why blacks can’t be on the team.147 Brutus was also exposed to the economic consequences of racial discrimination at an early age: he noticed widespread poverty in parts of Port Elizabeth. Some people were evicted from their homes because they could not pay their rent; others lost their furniture when they were unable to keep up with their hire purchase instalments.148 In an effort to scrape together a living, some women resorted to menial work: they cleaned homes, washed clothes or looked after babies; the more desperate even turned to sex work. Other residents managed to find work at the General Motors and Ford factories, while the shoe industry was another major source of employment. “Port Elizabeth was…the capital of the shoe industry on the continent,” Brutus points out. “It was called the Northampton of Africa, because Northampton in Britain was the largest shoe producer in the empire at that time.”149 So if you were poor, he observes, you often ended up either working in a car or shoe factory. Brutus managed to avoid a similar fate. After he completed Standard 8 (Grade 10), he was sent to his brother’s alma mater, St Augustine’s Catholic Teacher Training College, most likely with the financial assistance of the church. Presumably, he enrolled to study for the Coloured Teachers’

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 53

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

54

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Lower Certificate, which involved a two-year training course.150 While in Cape Town, however, he was awarded a municipal scholarship to complete the last two years of high school, and promptly returned to Port Elizabeth to take it up.151 “My mother would not have been able to afford to keep me at school – it was the days of school fees,” he explains.152 The scholarship enabled him to complete matric. Yet, even though he grew up in straitened circumstances, Brutus believes he was largely insulated from the worst excesses of racism. Ironically, this buffer was provided by the government practice of accommodating people in separate residential areas on the basis of racial categorisation (even before the Population Registration Act and the Group Areas Act were passed in 1950).153 “The one advantage of growing up in a segregated community was that you were protected from the kind of racism that you might have encountered in a multiracial community,” Brutus notes sardonically. “Within the community one was not conscious of racism, because one was not exposed to it. But it was always on the periphery, and you would meet it periodically.”154 This would happen, for instance, when settling bills with white officials and staff or during encounters with white municipal officials responsible for the supervision of coloured residential areas. “But within the community,” he stresses, “there was a marvellous extended family approach.”155 Neighbours casually borrowed from each other, whether it was the small luxury of sugar or more desperately needed medicine for a baby: “There was all this kind of wonderful communal assistance.” But life in Dowerville was not idyllic. Sometimes Brutus witnessed drunkenness (especially around Christmas and New Year) and even brutal violence. He recalls, for example, peering through a window at a fight between two men. That they were brothers did not in the least affect the viciousness of the brawl. “I saw the one strike the other a heavy, swinging blow which knocked him flat,” Brutus remembers. “Then I saw – and this was my first experience of true cruelty – appalled and in horror, as one brother lay flat on his back, possibly unconscious, the other one bent over him and in cold blood inflicted a heavy blow to his face, to his eye, ‘marking’ him.”156

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 54

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

Chapter 1: 1924–1943

55

Still, even though under very trying financial and emotional circumstances, Brutus managed to complete his matric at Paterson High in 1943. According to him, just 14 black children wrote the exam that year in Port Elizabeth; only 4 passed, and just 2 of those with marks sufficiently high to gain admission to university – “if they had the money.”157 On the basis of his exceptional marks, Brutus was awarded a three-year municipal scholarship, although he claims he did not over-exert himself in his preparation for the matric examination.158 The £120-a-year award enabled him to enter SANC the following year.159 It is to that period in Brutus’s life that we now turn.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 55

2020-01-17 03:50:41 PM

THE SOUTH

DENNIS BRUTUS

Af RICAN YE ARS Chapter 2: 1944-1950s

When the Union of South Africa was established in 1910, the Britishruled Cape Colony became part of the new integrated political and geographical entity. Yet SANC, located in the Tyhume River valley near the town of Alice in the eastern Cape,1 remained a colonial appendage in many ways long after it was established in 1916. For one, the idea of a “Native University” was first proposed by a British missionary, Rev. James Stewart, when he was principal of the Lovedale Missionary Institution.2 Secondly, the university was built on the mission lands of the United Free Church of Scotland, right inside a fort built by the Cape Colony in 1846 as a bulwark against the indigenous people.3 And thirdly, and most importantly, it was conceptualised and constructed almost entirely on the foundation of a British worldview. When Brutus registered at SANC for a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1944, he found this to be still very much the case. He describes the university he encountered as “a product of the British legacy and worked very hard at imitating a British university.”4 According to him, most of his lecturers were retired British professors who saw themselves as performing some kind of philanthropic duty by teaching in Africa. “This did not mean that they were bad teachers,” Brutus admits, “but it certainly gave them a certain arrogance – the kind of things that the metropolitans would always have about the colonial types.” He was, no doubt, referring to the position that his lecturers routinely assumed at the apex of any hierarchy of knowledge.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 56

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

57

In line with this stance, the university exercised strict controls over the curriculum. “We were working within a very British kind of framework in terms of the syllabus and even in terms of what they thought education was about,” Brutus contends.5 In the English literature syllabus, for instance, there was an almost exclusive focus on certain writers. “We were taught the old-fashioned English syllabus, where if you knew the Elizabethans and the Victorians, you were okay,” Brutus recalls. “That’s where literature ended; nothing much happened after that.”6 And, even within these periods, there were notable gaps in the curriculum. While he was thrilled about renewing his engagement with Browning, and was once again eagerly sought out by fellow students for assistance, the poetry of another Victorian, the Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins, was conspicuously absent. The Metaphysical poet and preacher John Donne did not feature very prominently either even though Brutus recalls that he was part of the curriculum: “Our teacher didn’t know him, so one wasn’t really taught him.”7 More recent poets such as William Butler Yeats and T.S. Eliot were excluded altogether: “We started wrongly – I think with people like Chaucer – so you’re at the wrong end of literature.8 You ended up with Browning and Tennyson in your last year so that was so-called ‘Modern’ and you didn’t get near to say a Yeats or T.S. Eliot or anybody like that. After Browning and Tennyson there was nothing.” As a result, the poems he wrote while at university were largely in the tradition of a narrowly defined English literary canon. “These were very much in a hybrid Victorian or Elizabethan mode, because that’s what I was being exposed to, rather than South African ones,” he recalls.9 His first published poem featured in a student publication, The SANC, under the pseudonym “Le Dab,” in 1945.10 The 14-line “Rendezvous” is written in language that clearly mimics the style that then prevailed in the English literary canon. It is a fairly conventional love poem and yet, at the same time, alludes to the threatening environment in which the enamoured couple find themselves – an early indication of Brutus’s enduring concerns with both the personal and the public in his poetry: Where grey trees wail not, nor the winter screams Thro’ chilly walls that act as palisades

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 57

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

58

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

To hide the hostile gleam of jagged blades Of sullen distrust and frustrating schemes To rip apart for all time, all our dreams; Where, in our hearts, the daylight never fades, But keeps unchangingly its lambent shades, There, only there, is happiness, it seems There then I shall meet you with a glad And fearless leap thro’ fires that beckoning say, “Shrink not from Love, but from the mortal’s mad Frustration and restraint of it – Delight That holds you and shall hold you with a might Supreme.” There then, we’ll meet, meantime, I pray.11 Despite the skewed focus of the formal curriculum on certain English writers and periods, Brutus acknowledges the formative role of SANC in his literary education. He gratefully refers to the prescribed texts of Bernard Groom and E.A. Greening Lamborn as useful in his search to learn more about the history and craft of poetry (he is presumably citing Groom’s A History of English Literature, but it is unclear to which of Lamborn’s many works, among them The Rudiments of Criticism, he is referring).12 Some lecturers took a more personal and direct interest in Brutus as well. He singles out David Darlow, who was also a published poet, for special mention: “He seemed to have a reasonably high regard for me for I didn’t feel that I was being put down.”13 When Brutus was in his final year, Darlow even gave him an autographed copy of his collection, Shadows of the Amatola, which was published in 1932. Brutus mentions the lecturer Donald Stuart too, who once paid him a compliment by asking him to give a class on Browning when he was in his final year.14 Brutus also ventured on his own way beyond the university’s English curriculum. He fondly remembers devouring the London-based literary and art journal Horizon, which he came across in the campus library: “Quite the best stuff being produced in Britain during the [Second World] War came out there.”15 Within its treasured pages, he came across the writing of the likes of US poet Ezra Pound and Irish author Elizabeth

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 58

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

59

Bowen.16 The journal, which produced 120 issues between 1940 and 1949, also featured the work of luminaries such as Eliot, Louis MacNeice, Stephen Spender, Graham Greene, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Dylan Thomas. For some reason, according to Brutus, it was not regarded highly by the university’s academic and library staff: “These were thrown out of the university library, and I collected an armful and read through them on my own – and what I found there excited me and presumably influenced my thinking and whatever I wrote at that time.”17 Besides poetry, Brutus tried his hand at other forms of writing while at university. He joined the editorial staff of the student journal, The SANC, and the editorial board of the student newspaper, The Fort Harian, for which he occasionally wrote book and film reviews. “In one of them,” he recalls, “I did a terrible review of James Joyce, an essay on Ulysses, which appals me now, looking back on my straight-laced Catholic solemnity.”18 Written under the disguised acronym “DIP,” Brutus takes issue with the Irish writer’s employment of “so-called obscenity” and his depiction of “gross human perversions.” At the same time, however, he recognises the originality of Joyce’s narrative technique and characterisation, and concludes ambivalently that Ulysses is a “bad, brilliant book.” On the same page, also using the acronym “DIP,” Brutus is a little more generous in his review of the reissue of a film based on the Victorian writer Charles Dickens’s novel David Copperfield and is complimentary about both its cinematography and acting.19 *** Brutus was interested in Afrikaans literature, too, and initially took Dutch (“Hollands”) as his second major (the two languages are often housed in the same department at South African universities). This was not his first encounter with Dutch literature: while at high school, he used to dip into his father’s neatly annotated copy of the poetry anthology Van Maerlants tot Boutens (From Maerlants to Boutens), compiled by S.P.E. Boshoff and Gerrit Dekker.20 This benefited him at university, where it was one of his prescribed texts. He also recalls the prescribed work of Dutch poet Willem Kloos and the plays of Joost

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 59

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

60

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

van den Vondel. The Afrikaans part of the syllabus included J.R.L. van Bruggen’s 1942 novel, Die Gerig (The Judgement), which he regards as underrated, and the poetry of Eugène Marais.21 Van Bruggen, in particular, made a significant impact on his understanding and appreciation of poetry. “I must say that that was one of the most helpful books that I read on the craft of poetry and the craft of literature,” he declares, presumably with reference to Inleiding tot die Studie van Letterkunde (Introduction to the Study of Literature), the 1942 literary study that Van Bruggen edited jointly with P.C. Schoonees. This text even enhanced his understanding of English poetry: “In fact I only understood the poetry of someone like Dante Gabriel Rosetti via an Afrikaans author.”22 Brutus’s proficiency in English and Afrikaans was rewarded with the Chancellor’s Prize for bilingualism during his first year at SANC.23 He does not give any details, but mentions that he tied with a final-year student for a gold medal in Afrikaans as well in his first year.24 However, he fared poorly in his Dutch examination the following year. “I think I was really very much out of touch with my work,” he confesses.25 As if to exonerate himself of responsibility for failing, he claims he was distracted during the exam by a toilet being flushed near the exam room. Instead of responding to the exam questions, he says, he wrote a poem about the flushing toilet, linking it to notions of memory and erasure. Elsewhere, Brutus claims that, on his way to write the exam, he walked through long grass that was wet with dew. When he got to the exam venue, he says, he wrote poetry most of the time instead of responding to the exam questions.26 Whatever the reason for flunking the exam, he was forced to replace Dutch with psychology as his second major, a subject in which he did excel. According to Brutus, his psychology professor, O.C. Jensen, regarded him as “one of his brightest scholars.”27 His other university courses were history, geography and education – typically those taken by students preparing for a career in teaching – as well as politics. Yet Brutus, ever eager to venture beyond the formal curriculum, read widely outside his degree studies and took a particularly close interest in St Thomas Aquinas, presumably because the thirteenthcentury Italian theologian and philosopher occupies such an important

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 60

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

61

position in the intellectual life of the Catholic Church.28 In fact, Brutus contends in an unpublished autobiographical text that his thought is “the structure on which all modern Catholic thinking is built.”29 No doubt Brutus, who was studying apologetics in his free time, was also attracted by Aquinas’s attempt to find a place for reason in theology. His was clearly an enquiring and insatiable mind. *** Besides his studies and extracurricular reading, SANC played a vital role in his life in other ways. Although Brutus occasionally attended public meetings with his father in New Brighton, a residential area inhabited by African people on the northern outskirts of Port Elizabeth, his interaction with people outside the segregated neighbourhood of Dowerville was limited. A rare exception was his relationship with his mother’s friend, Tom Zini, a court interpreter from New Brighton who ran an employment agency on the side and employed Brutus as a money-lender during school holidays.30 SANC’s missionary founders, on the other hand, actively encouraged social interaction between students from different racial backgrounds. At the student hostel, Beda Hall, where Brutus lived, for instance, it was policy from its inception in 1920 “to mix the students of the various races – Bantu from various parts, Indian, and coloured.”31 When a permanent hostel was opened in 1935, Beda Hall introduced a rule that, in those dormitories which accommodate five students, “no more than two in any dormitory should be non-Bantu.” The rationale was explained as follows: “This is an advantage for the idea of any university is that students should get culture apart from what they learn at lectures or in the laboratories.”32 Such a declaration of intent probably appealed to Brutus, who was one of just 19 coloured students of 246 enrolled in 1944.33 He was already introduced to a non-racial ethos at high school and was always keen to acquire knowledge over and above that provided in any syllabus. SANC enabled Brutus to meet people from other parts of the continent, too. From the outset, the British protectorates of Bechuanaland (now Botswana), Basutoland (Lesotho) and Swaziland (Kingdom of eSwatini)

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 61

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

62

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

supported the need for a college to provide more advanced education for those who were then described as non-Europeans, in the expectation that their own students would benefit from such an institution.34 SANC soon attracted students from elsewhere on the subcontinent – South West Africa (now Namibia), both Rhodesias (Zambia and Zimbabwe) and Nyasaland (Malawi) – and even from as far as Kenya and Uganda in east Africa.35 Brutus acknowledges the social, intellectual and political importance of his exposure to students from elsewhere in Africa. “I think if I had gone anywhere else I would have been less exposed to African culture and African intellectuals,” he states.36 Among his fellow students, for example, were Seretse Khama (who later became president of Botswana) and Ntsu Mokhehle (the future prime minister of Lesotho).37 According to Brutus, there were students from Nigeria and Ghana, too: “We were getting intellectual quality from the whole of the continent, not just South Africa.”38 Not surprisingly, SANC played a key role in his political education. “I first experienced discussions about the relationship of culture and politics as a student at Fort Hare University,” he acknowledges.39 Besides engaging in informal discussions with students, Brutus was also president of the university’s debating society.40 He once participated in a debate on migrant labour, in which he argued in favour of the reform of the system rather than its abolition – “a clear [indication] of my political naivete, and lack of understanding of apartheid at that time.”41 *** Apart from participating in theoretical debates, there were also more immediate political issues that directly confronted students on campus. “We were of course being educated in a society dominated by a white minority,” Brutus observes.42 The students resented the strict discipline exercised over them, which they regarded as paternalistic if not downright authoritarian. For instance, spot checks were regularly conducted at night in hostels by wardens to ensure that students were not out late. Students were compelled to attend Sunday night church services as well. This rigid disciplinary regime extended into the

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 62

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

63

classroom; students detected a refusal by academic staff to enter into any critical engagement: There was a clear sense that it would not do to become too independent-minded in relation to the professors, that there ought not to be any challenge to their authority either in terms of their position or their expertise and that free inquiry, especially free political inquiry, was clearly restricted by unspoken pressures. Students lived in constant fear that a refusal to comply would be met with reprisals, ranging from low grades to expulsion. Yet, even in the face of such severe deterrents, they embarked on various protests from the mid-1930s.43 During Brutus’s time at SANC, there was at least one major dispute. Students felt aggrieved about the poor hygiene in the campus kitchen, and dispatched a delegation to meet with university authorities. As a Student Representative Council (SRC) member, Brutus participated in negotiations with Clifford Dent, the university’s acting principal at the time. However, it is at education professor Alexander Kerr, the founding principal of SANC, and social anthropology lecturer Monica Wilson, also warden of the Women’s Hostel from 1944 to 1946, that Brutus directs most of his anger: “[They] treated students not as adults, but as if they were still at high school, probably an offshoot of the unconscious patronage and arrogance of white educators towards black students.”44 The unresolved – if not irreconcilable – tension between a well-intentioned philanthropy and an overbearing paternalism, which sometimes verged on the dictatorial, provoked sporadic protests at SANC over the years. Brutus also noticed other, more overt, forms of racial prejudice in broader society during his time at SANC. “One of the things that struck me was that some of the best athletes in the country were at Fort Hare and they were performing better than any white athletes in that particular sport,” he recalls, “but they were not allowed to be on the Olympic team because the government proudly announced that there would never be a black on the Olympic team.”45 Among the exceptionally talented athletes

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 63

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

64

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

at the university was Khama, whom he describes as the best high-jumper in the country at the time. Of course, Khama was not allowed to compete against white athletes in South Africa. Brutus was infuriated by this vulgar expression of racism in sport. “I thought that was just wrong,” he states. “Maybe that was how I came to choose sport as a terrain on which to fight for fairness.”46 The exclusion of black athletes from national sports teams certainly provoked him to campaign against racism in sport for the first time. “I was really very annoyed about it and I got involved in organising meetings and forming unions,” he recounts. “I was travelling very widely in South Africa, mostly hitchhiking all over the country during my holidays, and meeting sportsmen everywhere and talking to them about [their situation].”47 He adds pointedly: “It all started at college, I think.” *** Brutus’s time as a student at SANC was not characterised by intellectual pursuits and political concerns only. He enthusiastically participated in various sports activities as well: he played football, rugby and cricket, and took part in cross-country running.48 Unlike some of his fellow students, he was not especially talented on the sports field. “I was never a good athlete,” he admits candidly. “Let’s not kid ourselves about that.”49 Nevertheless, he was sufficiently skilled to be on Beda Hall’s cricket team. “I was a weak batsman, but I was used quite a lot because I was regarded as a good bowler,” says the left-hander, who also played club cricket while at Paterson High.50 Brutus enjoyed movies then, too. As a seven-year-old in 1931, he went with his brother Wilfred to watch his first film, Way Down East.51 It is unclear which of the four cinematic adaptations he saw of the US writer Lottie Blair Parker’s play, which is essentially a melodramatic romance (the sound version, which featured the actor Henry Fonda, was released in 1935). What he does remember about the adventure is how often Wilfred tried to close his eyes during the film to prevent him from seeing “any immoral parts.” From then on, movies remained a favourite pastime. While a student at SANC, he would go to the movies when

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 64

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

65

he went to Port Elizabeth twice a year to spend the holidays at home. He would also sometimes go to parties or out on dates during these holidays. May Malvina Sophia Jaggers, a factory worker who according to him virtually lived with his family at that stage, would sometimes go to the same movies and attend the same parties; they would even end up at the same picnics, once in a while.52 (Brutus and May would later get married, on 14 May 1950, at St Patrick’s Catholic Church in Sydenham, Port Elizabeth.) Despite such occasional moments of carefree pleasure, Brutus does not have particularly fond memories of his holidays while at university. “We just stayed at home; there was no money to go anywhere, and you didn’t even do anything special,” he recalls. “So holidays really were not special occasions.”53 Worse was still to come: in 1946, even though Brutus was studying on a three-year bursary, he was unable to return to university to complete his final year due to the family’s financial difficulties. “We had run out of money in the family,” he states bluntly.54 So, instead of returning to SANC, he took up a teaching post in the small eastern Cape town of Fort Beaufort, with the intention of earning enough to return to SANC to complete his degree in 1947. His year away from SANC turned out to be a blessing in disguise in at least one way. While employed as a teacher at St Michael’s Catholic Mission, he lived alone in a small place attached to the church, which gave him both the time and space to write a substantial number of poems. He estimates that he wrote at least a hundred poems during this period, which he kept in a collection he called “The Grey Notebook” (later, he renamed it “Green Harvest” because he regarded these early efforts as immature).55 No further details are recorded about the content or form of these poems, but his year in Fort Beaufort enabled him to devote serious attention to what was, by then, a deep-rooted passion for poetry. The disciplined and goal-driven Brutus returned to SANC in 1947 to complete his degree. He achieved a distinction in English, but missed one in psychology (he offers the excuse that he foolishly got intoxicated the night before the exam).56 He completed a teaching diploma, too, in his final year.57 Although this meant an increased workload, it enabled him to avoid spending another year at university and the additional financial

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 65

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

66

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

expenditure this would entail. To fulfil the practical requirements of the diploma, he taught at various nearby schools. Brutus derived immense pleasure from his interaction with pupils. “When I got out [during university] and was down in Port Elizabeth, I would offer or be asked to come and teach classes at the high school, and I found I enjoyed it,” he explains, and adds frankly: “I think it boosted my ego, and so I liked it.”58 During the holiday that followed his final exams, Brutus worked on trains as a porter (“a bedding boy”) – once again following in Wilfred’s footsteps. “He made it sound very glamorous – the places you travelled to and the people you saw,” Brutus reminisces. “I was envious of him.”59 However, he was sorely disappointed; there was very little in common between the seductive picture sketched by his brother and the mundane reality of carrying bedding to passengers or sweeping out the trains. Despite being disillusioned by the humdrum nature of a porter’s work, there was one major attraction about working on a train. It provided ample opportunity to travel: “I may even have developed my appetite for travel then because you were literally running six hundred or eight hundred miles by train from one city to another, constantly on the move.”60 Unfortunately the long journey, along with his various work commitments during the trip, were exhausting, and left him with little time or energy to explore his new surroundings: “The next morning you would get up and run the train back another eight hundred miles, and that was it.” *** He did not sound any more pleased when he took up a teaching post at St Thomas Aquinas High School (later simply known as St Thomas High School) in South End shortly afterwards in 1948.61 He taught English and Afrikaans there for a year.62 “After leaving the university, I taught for a short while and then threw it up,” he recalls. “I didn’t like teaching.”63 His experience of full-time teaching was very different from his occasional guest appearances while a student. “I found that in a limited area I can do very well and with great enthusiasm, and there are other parts of the syllabus that I dislike and I teach them very

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 66

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

67

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

badly,” he says. “So I guess I have some talent for teaching, but I don’t think I have the temperament of a teacher who will teach the things he dislikes as well and as thoroughly as he teaches the things he likes.”64 St Thomas Aquinas High was an important phase in his life for another reason. While teaching there, he fell in love with a pupil in his class, Dulcy, whom he affectionately called Sweetness or Sweet (a play on the meaning of the Latin word dulce).65 Although he did not pursue a relationship with her out of ethical considerations, he wrote a number of poems for her (he estimates the figure at around a hundred). He collected these declarations of his affection in a small red notebook which he called, unsurprisingly, “The Red Notebook.” Like the poems he wrote at university, many were influenced by the writing of those he regarded at the time as “exemplars of poetry.”66 The only poem that survives from this period is an untitled 14-line poem first published in 1963 in the journal, The Purple Renoster:67 So, for the moment, sweet, is peace I rest, wave-cradled, safe from emotion’s spray balmed by the shadeless trough, the sun-greened, sensed unfigured lean-feel of your ocean-self. Oh how I know unrest returns, the scourge – what love can pelican-peck for long its own swollen heart for sustenance? can one shake pain as raindrops from a cape? can the self, an unprotected molusc, crawl free from the past’s whorled labyrinths? Even the thought of pain’s return brings pain a fissure mars the moment’s quiet delf:68 help me my heart to hold this instant still, Keep me in quiet’s acquiescent curve.69 The influence of Hopkins, whose writing made a significant impact on Brutus’s early poetry, is evident in this poem. In an interview with the

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 67

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

68

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

literary academic William E. Thompson, for instance, he describes the Victorian as one of his two favourite poets at one stage (the other was Donne).70 In fact, Brutus’s use of the word “sweet” may also indicate the influence of Hopkins. Norman White, a biographer of the Victorian poet, regards it as one of his “overdone words, seldom used in his poems with precision or power.”71 Brutus, though, admires Hopkins’s command of the English language, in particular his innovative use of words with different sounds. He refers explicitly to his own use of assonance in the poem above, under the influence of Hopkins, and employs a very deliberate use of certain vowel sounds.72 In line 2, for example, the sound of the vowel “a” is repeated in the words “wave,” “safe” and “spray.” The alliteration in this line, which is continued in the next two lines, emphasises the respite from his pain that his beloved offers him: “safe from emotion’s spray / balmed by the shadeless trough, the sun-greened, sensed / unfigured lean-feel of your ocean-self.” Brutus draws attention to the numerous “f” and “l” sounds in the poem as well. To him, these “give the feeling of leaning against a wave.” Examples of half-rhymes in the poem are “scourge” (line 5) and “curve” (line 14), and “spray” (line 2) and “cape” (line 8). However, because these are so far apart, they are barely noticeable and, hence, not entirely successful. Even so, they are conscious attempts by Brutus to write in a formal, disciplined style in his early poems. His frequent use of such techniques illustrates that, as he acknowledges, he was “on a Hopkins kick” when he wrote the poem.73 *** Brutus left St Thomas Aquinas High for Paterson High in 1949, but was approached by the Department of Social Welfare in Port Elizabeth that same year to work as a social welfare officer.74 The frustrated teacher eagerly grasped the opportunity, it seems, despite any political discomfort that the association with a government institution may have caused him. “This put me on track of working within the system,” he admits. “I had a car; I had an official title of sorts.”75 His

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 68

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

69

position gave him regular and unrestricted access to the povertystricken parts of the city. “He very soon realized that the majority of the coloured and African population live in appallingly unhealthy… conditions,” notes the literary critic Jacques Alvarez-Pereyre. “He was also able to see the extent to which the black [person] is hounded by the impossible circumstances: not only does the law keep him in inferior and underpaid jobs, but the social services, too, through their lack of resources, are incapable of correcting the basic inequalities.”76 This experience heightened his awareness that apartheid – which began to inform every single aspect of government policy after the NP won the elections – was at the root of many of the social and economic problems of black people: “I suppose there I discovered not only the futility of the kind of patchwork the government did in the non-white areas, and how little one could do, how organic the defects were – poverty and disease and everything else – which meant I had an understanding of the nature of the system.”77 Nevertheless, for at least a year, he devoted himself fully to his responsibilities as a social worker. He later explains his role at the time: “I’ve always been [politically] committed, but my commitment has taken many forms. When I was a social worker, my concern was with social rehabilitation, social welfare. This was my involvement in the society.”78 *** Despite his reservations about his suitability for the teaching profession, he rejoined Paterson High in January 1950. He never explained the reasons behind this decision. Perhaps he simply could not resist teaching as a calling, no matter what his concerns about his professional shortcomings. In addition to English and Afrikaans – then the two official languages of South Africa – he taught Latin (“there was no one to teach it”), physiology (“a subject I had enjoyed at high school”) and religious instruction (“treating the Bible, for instance, as great literature”).79 He later taught himself enough astronomy to volunteer to offer a class on this subject as well. “I made a serious effort to identify the constellations and bought books that enabled me to do so,” he recalls.80

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 69

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

70

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

It was in English, though, that Brutus’s exceptional gifts as a teacher came to the fore. He covered a wide range of material – from Chaucer and Shakespeare to then contemporary poets such as Spender and W.H. Auden. He took particular delight in teaching Donne, Richard Crashaw and other Metaphysical poets. “I find them so much akin to my own temperament,” he explains. “The combination of intellectualism with sensuality especially in Donne – the tension between the two and this delight in complexity for its own sake, which is quite unlike Shakespeare – where complexity is functional, it is part of something else…These people yoked unlikely ideas together. But I like that combination.”81 Fred Simon, a matric pupil in 1948, vividly remembers Brutus reciting Donne’s “The Apparition” while teaching the poem.82 “He really made poetry alive,” recalls Simon, who went on to graduate with a science degree from the University College of Fort Hare and then became a teacher in Port Elizabeth.83 Brutus also succeeded in conveying his enthusiasm for Hopkins to his pupils. As a result, some of them began to imitate the Victorian poet’s style in their own writing. Arthur Nortje, most notably, was especially enchanted by Hopkins, and Brutus lent him his copy of a W.H. Gardner study on the poet.84 But, Brutus adds approvingly, Nortje – who later went on become a highly acclaimed poet – did not try to replicate Hopkins’s style uncritically. He notes that even though Nortje “liked what Hopkins was doing, he occasionally imitated it, but was never mired in Hopkins.”85 Brutus clearly made a lasting impression on many of his English pupils. Neville Murison, who was in his class in 1952 and 1953, describes Brutus all these years later as “our beloved English teacher.”86 He fondly remembers Brutus walking in the corridors on his way to class and reciting poetry softly to himself.87 “He instilled in us a love of poetry, good literature, classical music and all the fine arts not offered by a typical high school of that time,” recalls Murison, who became a teacher in Canada. “We got to love the works of Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Shakespeare, etc.”88 He adds: “I assume he had a penchant for the English Romantic poets because of their reaction against the stiff and formal style of the foregoing Neoclassical poets. All stressed imagination rather than strict literary styles.”89 Brutus encouraged his pupils to learn at least 200

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 70

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

71

lines of poetry and prose from their prescribed books, which included Shakespeare’s play Henry IV, Shaw’s play Saint Joan and Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice. *** Brutus’s engagement with his pupils was not confined to the school syllabus; he adopted a holistic approach to teaching. Lionel Adriaan, who was in his English class from 1952 to 1955, states: “Life out there is hard, it’s tough, and you must prepare these children in your charge to be able to face reality. And Dennis Brutus was excellent at doing that.”90 Adriaan grew up in Schauder Township (now Schauderville), an economically depressed residential area in the northwest of Port Elizabeth, to where Paterson High was relocated in 1951.91 “But with Dennis Brutus around, you never felt at a disadvantage,” he declares. “He always had very encouraging words, knowing what your circumstances were.” Adriaan, who later became principal of Harold Cressy High School in Cape Town and is now retired, endorses Brutus’s approach to teaching: “As a teacher, I believe in that as well… There is more to it than just teaching your subject.”92 Brutus challenged his pupils to be critical thinkers about society as well. Peter Carelse, who was in his English class in Standard 9 and 10 (Grades 11 and 12) in 1956 and 1957, says Brutus regularly set aside a period or two for discussion on any topic.93 “I would answer any question they asked,” Brutus confirms in an interview, “including questions about the political system, and whether or not they were inferior.”94 Mervyn Rousseau, who was in his class in 1955 and 1956, mentions Friday sessions in which English lessons were replaced with discussions on the news content of newspapers. His impression was that Brutus’s intention was “to conscientise us about our plight as ‘kleurlinge’ [coloureds].”95 Brutus elaborates in a later autobiographical essay: “As a teacher, I was determined to help and inspire my students to become as well educated as possible to take their place as equals in society, and to impart knowledge with humour, spontaneity, and a relevance to everyday living.”96 He explains his approach as follows: “Through a combination

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 71

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

72

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

of tenacity and sensitivity I tried to inspire students to interweave life’s truths with academic pursuits.”97 As part of this process, he strove to provide his pupils with “a sense of identity, worth, and accomplishment through education.” Brutus courageously took this endeavour beyond the classroom. He once arranged to get tickets – through John Sutherland, the liberal-minded editor of the local newspaper, Evening Post – to a reading of Shakespeare’s King Lear by the actor André Huguenet at the Opera House, a whites-only venue. Brutus took along five pupils, including Nortje, Gerald Jeftha and Urvin Coetzee, to attend the reading, accompanied by a reporter from the newspaper. When they entered the foyer, they were, predictably, stopped and prevented from attending. According to Rousseau, Jeftha told him that Brutus contacted Huguenet at his hotel afterwards and informed him that they were turned away from the reading.98 In response, Coetzee remembers, the actor graciously turned up at Paterson High to apologise and gave a reading for the school’s matric pupils.99 Jeftha – who was in Brutus’s English class from 1957 to 1959, alongside Nortje100 – recalls that he involved pupils in protests in other ways as well. They would enter whites-only shops with Brutus, for instance, and sit down. “But,” laughs Jeftha, “that didn’t go very well because the people just served us, and the protest went nowhere.”101 Coetzee, too, remembers participating in sit-ins at whites-only restaurants on Friday nights. Such demonstrations were not a reckless involvement of pupils. “We wanted to do it,” says Coetzee. “It was our contribution to the anti-apartheid struggle.” Brutus was also mindful of their safety. When he saw Coetzee in class with Fred Copeman’s 1948 autobiography, Reason in Revolt, he took it from the youngster and never returned it. Coetzee never asked him why, but assumes that it was to protect him from the attention of the security police.102 Adriaan recalls handing out pamphlets that urged residents to turn out in support of various civic campaigns: “We weren’t ratepayers, but we were still being exploited.” He adds: “Dennis Brutus was very active in trade unions and civic organisations.103 He associated with the underdog – always.”104 Brutus enlightened his pupils about political events taking place elsewhere in the country, too. Rousseau, for instance,

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 72

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

73

heard about the Freedom Charter – a statement of the core political principles and demands adopted at the Congress of the People in Kliptown, Johannesburg, in 1955 – from him. “Dennis read the Freedom Charter to us before it was published,” he remembers.105 Sometimes Brutus even asked Rousseau to deliver messages to various political activists. For example, when he was in matric in 1956, he delivered a message to Govan Mbeki, an ANC leader who was then the local editor of the weekly newspaper, New Age, whose offices were in Court Chambers in North End. On another occasion, Rousseau took a message to Masilamoney Pather, a medical doctor who was active in various political campaigns. However, when he got to Pather’s home in Schauderville, he was told by the doctor’s wife, Mavis, that Pather was in jail in North End after being arrested the previous day.106 Brutus introduced Nortje to Christopher Gell, a Briton who contracted polio while serving in India’s civil service and who relocated to South Africa in 1947 with his South African wife Norah, after his early retirement. Though he was paralysed and relied on an iron lung to help him breathe, Gell was a committed anti-apartheid campaigner through his writing and Brutus often visited him at his home.107 “Arthur took Christopher newspapers and ferried poems and other slips of writing between him and his colleagues, editors, friends, and so on,” Brutus says.108 His interaction with such a principled and impassioned man obviously made a deep impression on Brutus’s pupil. In October 1960, Nortje even wrote a poem, “For Christopher Gell,” in honour of his courage and commitment to justice.109 *** Yet there was far more to Brutus than literature and politics. In an unpublished letter to the Port Elizabeth newspaper Evening Post written around September 1980, Brutus confirms a deep interest in classical music. He was introduced to the violin by a school friend – presumably Mqotsi, who played the instrument while at Paterson High110 – and discovered the piano mainly through recordings.111 While at school, Brutus also first encountered what he describes as the great concerts of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn and Anton Bruckner.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 73

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

74

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

In later years, when he was a teacher, Brutus attended a concert by the Polish pianist Stanislas Niedzielski (“a splendid Chopin interpreter”) and the Hungarian pianist Louis Kentner at the Feather Market Hall, but was unable to attend a performance by the Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau to an exclusively white audience in the Port Elizabeth City Hall.112 Nevertheless, he surreptitiously listened to part of the performance from a basement in the hall where a friend worked on the city council’s duplicating machine: “Later, when it grew unsafe in the passage, I stood on the pavement outside close to the wall behind the stage and strained for faint snatches of melody as the night grew darker and a faint misty rain sifted down until I gave up in despair.”113 Many of Brutus’s former pupils recall his intense interest in classical music. Sometimes he would play them recordings in class of the compositions of Mozart, Chopin and Bach. Other pupils, like Murison, would visit Brutus at his home at 20 Shell Street in North End – rented from Anthony Sam, a football administrator who owned the popular shop Sam’s Fish and Chips nearby – to listen to his records: “We borrowed some of these to play at home as well…Naturally, we developed a taste for the classics, which we did not have at home and could only hear on the SABC…on Sunday afternoons.”114 But Brutus’s interest in music was not confined to classical music. Rousseau reminisces fondly about his teacher’s substantial collection of jazz records: “We were really taken in with Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole and all the rest of it.”115 Other popular jazz musicians they listened to at the time were Count Basie and Duke Ellington. In an interview with Wahlman and Helen Chandra in June 1973, Brutus adds Lionel Hampton and Cab Calloway as being among “the big jazz men of my time” in South Africa.116 Brutus enjoyed dancing, too, and made a memorable impression on his pupils with his long legs.117 Adriaan often saw him do the jive, a jerky dance that was popular in the 1940s and 1950s: “Dennis was a very good dancer. I’ve seen that man jive. And I thought, hey, when is this man going to dislocate [something]? The way he could move those legs. It was just extraordinary.”118 His distinctive hairstyle at the time – which Adriaan describes as looking like a nest from behind – made his performance on

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 74

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

75

the dance floor even more unforgettable. He made a similar impression on Rousseau: “Dennis could dance quite well. All of us were influenced to a lesser extent by American music – by jiving, and that kind of thing.”119 Brutus confirms in an interview with Wahlman that he enjoyed dancing in South Africa – “whether it was African jazz, which is one kind of jazz or Township Jazz, a kind of African jazz with a heavy American input, or American jazz and the whole range from Ma Rainey [Gertrude Rainey] and the Blues, from Bessie Smith to Billie Holiday, or the Big Bands of the ’30s and the ’40s, down to, say Stan Getz or Stan Kenton or Charlie Parker.”120 He explains with undisguised enthusiasm, and just the slightest hint of boastfulness: “One didn’t say you can’t dance to that; all you did was listen for the right rhythm, and preferably dance off the beat, because you were then walking a kind of knife-edge. Anybody can dance on the beat, but to dance between the beats is so much more a subtle balancing trick. So you do that.” Besides exposing his pupils to American music and dance forms, Brutus introduced some of them to American culture in more direct ways too. He often visited ships in the Port Elizabeth harbour to talk to US sailors and sometimes acted as a tour guide for them. During one of these visits, he took along a few of his pupils. Rousseau recounts boarding the USS Duxbury Bay when it arrived in South Africa around 1955: “I was on this ship with Dennis and my brothers and sisters to meet these Americans. There were some [African-Americans] on the ship.” It was a thrilling experience for the youngsters as they were enchanted by the US. “We used to dress like Americans too – those bright-coloured shirts – and most of us tried to affect an American twang,” Rousseau remembers.121 The visit to the USS Duxbury Bay gave Brutus a revered place in the hearts of those pupils who accompanied him. *** Brutus’s participation in sport at school endeared him to his pupils as well. He excelled, in particular, at table tennis and often played against fellow teachers and pupils.122 “He had long, thin fingers and long legs,” says Adriaan. “And that is why he could move very easily.”123 Adriaan

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 75

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

76

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

represented Paterson High in table tennis and regularly practised with Brutus in the school staffroom: “I remember Dennis as a very good left-hander, and he fooled you when he played table tennis. Being left-handed can be very tricky.”124 Carelse adds that Brutus joined his pupils in cricket, too, and remembers his skill as a left-handed fast bowler.125 He coached the school’s baseball and softball teams as well. Brutus arranged various sports trips for his pupils to compete against other schools in the eastern Cape, and would regularly accompany them. “This showed the man’s interest in you as a person at that time,” says Adriaan. Brutus also helped to arrange a cricket match between a provincial black team and a provincial white team in the early 1960s. The black team included the likes of Neville Francis, Eric Majola and Fareed Abrahams from the Eastern Province Cricket Association (EPCA).126 The white team, selected from the ranks of the Eastern Province Cricket Union (EPCU), “was chock-a-block with really good players,” and included the Pollock brothers, Graeme and Peter, and Atholl McKinnon, who all went on to illustrious careers at national level.127 “They [the white team] gave them a lekker [nice] hiding,” remembers Jeftha. According to Ramleigh O’Brien, an accomplished player himself and a spectator at the game at the Adcock playing fields in Korsten, the Pollocks in particular were outstanding.128 Francis, a left-handed batsman affectionately known as “Armpie” (Small Arm), was the other team’s top scorer, with 23 runs. But, in the final analysis, the result was largely irrelevant; the mere fact that the game took place was, in itself, a major achievement. As Francis notes: “It was in the apartheid years.”129 Lionel Smith, who was a spectator at the historic encounter, stresses this aspect as well: “It was groundbreaking stuff that a local [black] team could play a white team.”130 For Brutus, sport was clearly far more than a recreational activity. It was also not exclusively about the pursuit of personal excellence; he recognised its enormous potential to play a broader developmental and political role in society. He came to this realisation early in his teaching career, thanks to fellow teachers at Paterson High. “It’s through sports that I became aware of the discrimination that existed by law, as opposed

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 76

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

77

to day-to-day interactions,” he reflects. “I got marvellous insight from a colleague who was a Marxist and quite important – Erik Ernstzen.”131 Aldridge Adamson, who attended the Olympic Games in London in 1948 – the first after the Second World War – was another important influence. “I was beginning to be aware of the whole race and sports issue and its significance,” comments Brutus.132 Another fellow teacher, Harry Jeftha (the father of his English pupil, Gerald), was a formative influence as well. He drew Brutus’s attention to a founding principle in the charter of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) which prohibits discrimination in sport in any form. In the first of what it describes as its fundamental principles, the IOC declares: “No discrimination is allowed against any country or person on grounds of race, religion or politics.”133 Based on his newly acquired knowledge, Brutus says: “I put the pieces together. The facts of apartheid in South Africa were in contradiction with the Olympic governing rules.”134 In response to his growing recognition of the potential role of sport in challenging apartheid, Brutus took his pupils to play table tennis in New Brighton. Brutus explains the rationale behind these inter-school matches as follows: “It encouraged coloured kids to play against African schools. So really, I was crossing that barrier – breaking out of one ghetto to get into another ghetto. The political component was there, but it was not defined as such.”135 To some of his pupils, the effect was life changing. Carelse describes the impact on them of excursions into townships such as New Brighton: “That was where he ignited in us this thing that if we were going to break the back of apartheid, one of the means would be through sports.”136 Hence, in addition to coaching Paterson High teams in various sports codes, Brutus increasingly became involved in the administration of school sport. “Out of that came association with a number of schools and a number of programs for sports,” he recollects.137 This led to him first representing the school sports organisation in the city’s sports union, and then subsequently in provincial and national bodies. “I found myself being elected to various positions, ending up on about seven national boards of sport – tennis, cricket, and others,” he recalls. “This created

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 77

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

78

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

one person who knew what was happening in several sports, who could coordinate at both the provincial level…or at the national level.” *** His first attempt to set up a national sports organisation was the CCIRS in 1955. It set out to bring together different sports codes under one umbrella, with the primary objective of seeking international representation. However, this initial effort did not get much support, which Brutus blames on fear of police victimisation among sports administrators.138 He later claims that police harassment and intimidation did, indeed, follow in the wake of the CCIRS’s launch.139 Yet the collapse of this body did not end efforts to gain international recognition for non-racial sport bodies and, in 1956, the South African Table Tennis Board (SATTB) – with Brutus as vice-president – won recognition from the International Table Tennis Federation ( ITTF) at the expense of the white South African Table Tennis Union (SATTU).140 Brutus attributes this early success to the enlightened leadership of the ITTF’s president, Ivor Montagu, an English film-maker and screenwriter with left-wing political sympathies (he was, at various times, a member of the British Socialist Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain). What was perhaps even more decisive in the federation’s decision to recognise the SATTB was the white union’s decision to ban black spectators from attending matches of a tour by Israel. This move was counter-productive: while the ITTF was initially prepared to recognise both the SATTB and the SATTU as governing bodies of table tennis in South Africa, the white union’s ban on black spectators swung the support of the ITTF in favour of the SATTB.141 In the wake of this major breakthrough, other black sports bodies tried to secure international recognition as well, including the South African Cricket Board of Control (SACBOC) and the South African Amateur South African Amateur Weightlifting and Bodybuilding Federation (SAAWBF).142 These attempts threatened the status and authority of the whites-only bodies as the primary structures that were organising and managing national sport in South Africa. In response, the government intervened and spelt out its sports policy in some detail for the first time.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 78

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

79

It chose the daily newspaper Die Burger, then regarded as a mouthpiece of the NP, to do so. In what was described as a special interview, the Minister of the Interior, T.E. Dönges, claimed that sports bodies operated with full autonomy in South Africa, and declared that there was no government interference in their internal affairs. However, he added that there was a commonly accepted viewpoint that was completely aligned to the government policy of separate development: “This viewpoint is that whites and the respective non-white populations should conduct their sports activities separately through separate governing bodies.”143 In line with this position, Dönges declared that the government was opposed to racially integrated sport within the borders of South Africa, both within and between teams, and called on foreign sportsmen and women touring the country to respect this position. He further maintained that the international interests of black sports organisations were best served by those white organisations that were already recognised abroad; those requests by black organisations deemed to be reasonable, he added, could be managed by the “older and more experienced white sports bodies.”144 Those who sought to replace white bodies in international forums, Dönges argued, were motivated by a desire to exclude South Africa from participation in international sport, and he warned that the government would not grant travel privileges to those who agitated for South Africa’s isolation from international sport. He urged all those involved in sport not to allow their organisations to be used for ulterior purposes, and warned that doing so would result in “incalculable consequences” in sport, and race relations in general. *** Despite the threats implicit in Dönges’s intervention, Brutus and others continued their efforts to bring together sports organisations opposed to apartheid, which eventually culminated in a meeting at the Milner Hotel in East London in October 1958. There was, predictably, once again close scrutiny by the security police of those involved, accompanied by concerted attempts to disrupt the meeting. “By the

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 79

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

80

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

time sportsmen had converged on East London…it was evident that there were going to be very few East Londoners at the preliminary meeting: the ‘Fighting Port’ was a very frightened port,” Brutus remarks sardonically.145 Yet, this time, not all sports administrators opposed to apartheid were intimidated into inaction; they bravely decided to go ahead with their meeting, and even physically prevented two security policemen from entering the meeting room by barring the door. Still, the police refused to leave. “We all got impatient,” writes Brutus in a colourful account in the monthly publication Fighting Talk. “They threatened us with a warrant. We threatened to blast the story in the newspapers.”146 Eventually the police moved away from the meeting room, and so began a creative and dynamic new phase in the campaign against racism – the birth of SASA. The launch was attended by 20 national organisations,147 which represented an estimated 70 000 sportsmen and women from various sports codes.148 SASA held its inaugural conference in January 1959 at the Natal Tamil Vedic Society Hall in Durban, and pledged in its constitution “to work for the removal of all race discrimination in sport.”149 For Brutus, it was the first truly non-racial organisation in South Africa.150 Another key objective in SASA’s constitution was to “co-ordinate the work of various bodies for international recognition.”151 The author Alan Paton, who was then national chairman of the Liberal Party, delivered the keynote address at SASA’s first conference. He came out in full support of the organisation’s objectives and strongly endorsed its quest to secure international recognition for its affiliates. Paton, who became a patron and vice-president of SASA, told delegates: “To my mind sportsmanship and the colour bar are incompatible. Sport is supposed to teach all those virtues that the colour bar destroys.”152 G.K. Rangasamy, president of the SAAWBF, was elected president at the conference, with V.C. Qunta as vicepresident, Brutus as secretary, Arthur Lutchman as assistant secretary and N.G. Naidoo as treasurer.153 The formation of SASA was a watershed moment in the history of the anti-apartheid sports movement. As Brutus notes at the time in an article in the quarterly publication Africa South: “Some 200 000 non-whites

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 80

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

81

participate in sport every week, but not all of them are still content to be excluded from sport as they are excluded from other spheres of civilised living.”154 In addition, according to Brutus, SASA’s significance extended way beyond the sports terrain – the importance of sport to individual self-esteem and to the prestige of the country made it a vulnerable target in the struggle against apartheid. In this sense, Brutus was far ahead of his time. Tom Newnham, a New Zealand teacher who later became a prominent campaigner against racism in sport, recognises this: “Sooner than most, he saw the importance of the struggle for non-racial sport in the context of the general struggle against apartheid.”155 The first target of SASA’s campaign against racism in sport was a cricket tour of South Africa by an all-black West Indies team scheduled for the end of 1959. The NP government approved the tour, an initiative of SACBOC, in which the visitors would compete against all-black teams. SASA discussed the planned tour at its inaugural congress in January, and rejected it as an act of collusion with apartheid. The organisation duly informed the West Indies Cricket Board of Control and SACBOC of its opposition to the tour.156 SASA did not limit its opposition to a mere statement of censure. Brutus demonstrated – probably for the first time – his formidable skills as a political organiser. He cobbled together an alliance between the ANC, various coloured and Indian organisations and the trade union movement, which informed West Indies captain, Frank Worrell, that the tour would be a “conspiracy between colour bar sportsmen and the South African government to persuade – by fair means or foul – non-colour bar sportsmen to accept apartheid and an inferior status in the sporting world.”157 In the end, due to a combination of dialogue and coercion – in particular, a threat to invade cricket pitches and disrupt the games – SACBOC called off the tour.158 Brutus recognises the significance of this early victory: We felt [the planned tour] was assisting in consolidating the racial structure in South African sports. It was the campaign in 1959 which, I think, was SASA’s baptism of fire. At the same time, it established us firmly in the minds of black and white

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 81

2020-01-17 03:50:42 PM

82

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

South Africans as the campaigning body on racism in sports in October 1959 when we succeeded in getting Worrell to cancel the tour.159 In 1959, SASA also campaigned against a planned tour of South Africa by the New Zealand rugby team. Brutus wrote an article in Fighting Talk on the omission of New Zealand’s Maori players from selection for the tour – scheduled for the following year – because of the NP government’s insistence on their exclusion. Under the pseudonym, John Player, he wrote: “The opposition [to the tour] is based on the simple principle that there should be no racial discrimination in sport and that merit should be the only criterion.”160 He repeated SASA’s call for the tour to be cancelled unless the teams of both countries were selected on merit: “SASA’s stand is quite clear: If there is to be discrimination in the Tour it should be abandoned.” SASA organised a petition to cancel the tour if their call for meritbased selection was ignored. The result was predictable: police ransacked the homes of petitioners in an effort to confiscate all completed forms. Despite this relentless harassment, close to 8 000 signed petitions were smuggled to New Zealand and handed to then prime minister Walter Nash, who was also the country’s Minister of Maori Affairs.161 According to Brutus, there were protests in New Zealand as well by 18 trade unions, 4 universities, various civic and cultural organisations, several churches and all Maori institutions and organisations (with the sole exception of one associated with the New Zealand Rugby Union).162 The Citizens’ AllBlacks Tour Association (CABTA), a widely representative organisation based in Wellington, launched a “No Maoris – No Tour” campaign. This culminated in a meeting with Nash and other government leaders – just nine months before a general election in New Zealand – where CABTA presented them with a petition signed by 153 000 people who were opposed to the tour of South Africa.163 Despite SASA’s involvement in such campaigns to oppose racially segregated sports tours, the organisation did not regard interventions around specific events as its main strategy. Its sights remained firmly on the IOC: persuading the Olympic body to prohibit racial discrimination

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 82

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

83

in South African sport would simultaneously bring about change in a number of sports codes. In line with this view, Brutus sent a copy of SASA’s resolutions to international sports organisations on 6 April 1959. “We are making a determined effort to bring to the notice of all international bodies the existence of discrimination in South African sport in violation of the principles of the International Olympic Committee,” his accompanying letter states.164 Brutus subsequently sent a letter to the IOC on 5 May 1959, in which he informed the organisation of SASA’s intention to submit a memorandum on racial discrimination in South African sport for its consideration at the IOC meeting in Munich in the Federal Republic of Germany later that month. He appealed to the IOC “to uphold its principles and to insist that the South African bodies should observe the laws of true sportsmanship.”165 *** Despite his awareness of the potential role of sport in the antiapartheid struggle, and his increasing participation in various efforts to maximise its impact, Brutus did not confine himself to this area. He was still active in the TLSA, which he had joined in 1950. He fully embraced the objectives it outlined in its constitution: to fight for the removal of apartheid in education; to align this struggle with the fight for democracy in South Africa; to strive for free, equal and compulsory education at all government schools; and to seek equal pay for equal work and qualifications, regardless of colour or gender.166 In particular, he was attracted to the quality of the TLSA’s political analysis: “It had an anti-CP [Communist Party] bias and was Trotskyite but had great political clarity – in many ways their political analysis was more sophisticated and rigorous than anything coming out of either the CP or the ANC, and they had taken a non-racial position.”167 Brutus subsequently became editor of the journal of the TLSA’s Port Elizabeth branch, Education News. He immediately demonstrated his flair for attention-grabbing marketing by changing the title to a more catchy, EN. The journal gave Brutus an important public platform and, under his

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 83

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

84

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

editorship, it became a voice for what he describes as “the local radical position.”168 He and the editorial board defined the audience of the journal as reaching beyond the teachers who made up its constituency. In an editorial in the November/December 1953 issue, Brutus declares that the branch intends to make it “an instrument of political education for all.”169 And, as the TLSA was affiliated to the Anti-CAD movement, the editorial notes defiantly: “Our pre-occupation with the Anti-CAD is, we feel, perfectly justifiable.” In line with this view, Brutus participated in the Anti-CAD movement during the 1950s. This movement brought together a range of community organisations, church bodies and sports clubs, and was initially established specifically to oppose the formation of a racially separate Coloured Affairs Department. More generally, though, the AntiCAD movement opposed collaboration with all government bodies and initiated a number of boycott campaigns. Frank Landman, a teacher at South End High School, helped to launch the movement in Port Elizabeth and subsequently served as local chairman of the Anti-CAD movement, with Brutus as vice-chairman.170 Both of them attended the 5th National Anti-CAD Conference in Cape Town on 7 and 8 January 1954. The 120 delegates from 69 organisations passed a number of key resolutions. These included a rejection of the Separate Representation of Voters Act passed in 1951,171 and, instead, called for a boycott of the CAD, which replaced the CAC in 1952.172 The Group Areas Act – which “provides for the establishment of group areas, for the control of the acquisition of immovable property and the occupation of land and premises”173 – was another particular focus of attention and anger. Since 1950, all areas were demarcated along racial lines. The conference restated its rejection of the Group Areas Act, and passed a resolution which described it as “an extension, to the coloured and Indian people in particular, of the iniquitous system of land and property restriction, economic ruination and dispossession enforced against the African People through the various Land Acts and resulting in the rural and urban locations or ghettos of cheap, regimented labour.”174 This uncompromising rejection of the Group Areas Act found particular resonance with the Port Elizabeth delegation. In 1951, 21 000

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 84

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

85

of the city’s 46 000 coloured residents were living in areas proposed as white group areas – at 45.7 per cent, almost half the total number of coloured people in Port Elizabeth.175 South End, for so long home to anyone irrespective of racial background or classification, was now often described by many white residents as a slum after the promulgation of the Group Areas Act, and they increasingly demanded the relocation of its black residents.176 An estimated 63.7 per cent of South End’s population was disqualified from remaining in their homes on the basis of their racial classification.177 Brutus attended a public meeting at the City Hall one Sunday, called to reassure affected residents about the implications of the Group Areas Act. “I’m a political nobody; I have no political track record at all,” he recalls years later in a tape-recorded discussion.178 Even so, Brutus voiced his objections to the new law from the floor. When the audience struggled to hear him, he walked to the front of the hall and took the microphone from the speaker. “I took over the meeting,” he later says in an interview, and strongly came out in opposition to the new law.179 This was a turning point in Brutus’s political activism. He subsequently assumed what he describes as a minor leadership role in politics and delivered his first public address in the same hall. By his own admission, he was an effective public speaker. “I became known in a fairly short period not only for the clarity of my exposition…I could also be something of a mob orator (rabble-rouser),” he states quite candidly. “I was also known as something of a wit, something of a humorist.”180 When the Anti-CAD movement in Port Elizabeth set up the Group Areas Action Committee, an umbrella organisation to represent all community groupings in South End opposed to the implementation of the new law, he wholeheartedly threw his support behind it. Landman and Brutus addressed protest meetings of the action committee at the Muslim Movement Hall in Sprigg Street during the 1950s. At one of them, Brutus warned that the new law would lead to racial friction, and expressed concern that black home and business owners would not be adequately compensated for their property.181 “I had no commitment to the protection of property,” he explains later. “But I had a commitment to protecting a right, and the right was the right to live where you pleased

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 85

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

86

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

and, certainly, the right not to be moved because of your race. That was the struggle in which I became involved.”182 From 1956, Brutus helped to mobilise opposition to the Group Areas Act through the Parent-Teachers’ Association (PTA), which was aligned to the Anti-CAD movement as well. He regards these associations as a particularly successful component of anti-apartheid campaigns in the community. They enabled the Anti-CAD movement to draw people, who were not necessarily involved in any overtly political organisations or trade unions, into their activities. “We led a quite successful opposition,” recalls Brutus. “We were able to mobilise the people, especially through the Parent-Teacher Associations, the PTAs, to challenge the government and get them to retreat on some issues.”183 He later refers to these associations as a pioneering example in South Africa of what he characterises as people power184 – the successful organisation and mobilisation of a crosssection of people to confront injustice or oppression. In addition to the Anti-CAD movement, the TLSA was affiliated to NEUM, a collective of civic and political organisations established in May 1943.185 In fact, the TLSA was the movement’s strongest affiliate, and most of NEUM’s leaders came from the ranks of teachers. The allegiance of this grouping to the Trotskyist left was clear from the outset, and it was an ardent proponent of non-racialism and a staunch advocate of anti-imperialism. NEUM’s objectives were outlined in its Ten-Point Programme, which included demands for universal franchise, compulsory and free education for all children up to the age of 16, freedom of speech and freedom of movement.186 In his keynote address at its launch, Ben Kies identified a particular obligation on teachers to assume a leading role in striving for these objectives: “The true teacher’s duty does not end with his pupils. He has a vital and active part to play in the liberation of the people. He has to help to educate the people in the struggle. He has to help to lead them along the right road.”187 Brutus certainly subscribed to this position, as his participation in the TLSA and the Anti-CAD movement attests. Yet, despite his involvement in these organisations, he did not view himself as tied exclusively to any particular ideological framework. “I was neither Trotskyist nor Stalinist – although I was with anti-CAD,” he states. “I didn’t feel I was locked

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 86

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

Chapter 2: 1944–1950s

87

into that position. I was open to all ideas.”188 Instead, he adopted a pragmatic approach in his political activities: “My usefulness politically was on day-to-day issues – you know, the threat of the Group Areas Act and people losing their homes, of coloured education.”189 In line with this view, he and like-minded TLSA members such as Landman invited ANC representatives to address the TLSA branch in Port Elizabeth; in turn, TLSA representatives addressed local ANC meetings. When a local businessman offered Brutus the use of a hall to host a cultural club on Sundays during the 1950s, he adopted an equally inclusive approach. He started a debating forum called the Twentieth Century Club, and invited the ANC and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), along with members of the Anti-CAD movement, to participate in public debates on a wide range of issues.190 He recalls, for example, an address by Temba D. Mqota, an ANC leader in Port Elizabeth who was also active in the African Laundry Workers’ Union,191 on “Political Consciousness, Its Use and Abuse.” It turned out to be a stinging dismissal of Trotskyists as armchair intellectuals. “What I am trying to say is that I was keeping an open house,” explains Brutus. “I was open.”192 Brutus assessed political ideas on their own merits; he did not subscribe to any particular viewpoints merely because they emanated from a certain organisation or ideology. As a result, he found himself at odds with those who dismissed the Freedom Charter, an initiative of the ANC and its allies, collectively known as the Congress Alliance: “The Trotskyist groups…defined the Freedom Charter as phony, and said it didn’t mean anything.”193 However, as a participant in drawing up the document at Mbeki’s invitation, Brutus knew otherwise. While he is careful not to overstate his role in drafting the Freedom Charter, he points out that he helped to select the proposals and to improve the language. “I saw it as a very good way to define what the struggle was about,” he observes. “To me it was a genuine process…To me, it was a purely legitimate exercise.” And while he did not support the document unconditionally, he was open to its enormous potential as a tool to rally support for the struggle against apartheid: “I was open to anything that would help the struggle.”194

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 87

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

88

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Brutus adopted a similar approach in his relationships with individuals: he associated with whomever he identified as being able to play a constructive role in the fight against apartheid. This explains his close relationship with Gell, a liberal with close links to the ANC, whom he regarded as “a very influential man in my life.”195 For much the same reason, he maintained relationships with liberal intellectuals such as Paton and Sutherland.196 He was also on friendly terms with Patrick Duncan, the editor of the liberal fortnightly newspaper Contact, and occasionally even attended its editorial meetings.197 Such independentmindedness probably did not sit well with those organisations aligned to the Trotskyist left. However, this did not perturb Brutus. When he was chastised by TLSA officials for inviting ANC speakers to address the local branch, for example, he simply disregarded their objections. Even a personal reprimand from NEUM leader I.B. Tabata for being “too friendly” with the ANC did not dissuade him from issuing invitations to the organisation.198 Brutus pursued a strategic pragmatism, in which the primary consideration was to advance the struggle against apartheid. To this end, he actively cultivated relationships with a diverse range of individuals and organisations – irrespective of their ideological affiliation. This practical, goal-driven approach enabled him to make groundbreaking contributions to the anti-apartheid struggle during the 1950s.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 88

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 89

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 90

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

THE SOUTH

DENNIS BRUTUS

Af RICAN YE ARS Chapter 3: 1950s-1962

As a result of Brutus’s growing involvement in organised resistance to apartheid in the 1950s, he did not devote much time to writing poetry during this decade. His participation in various activities of the TLSA and the PTA of the Anti-CAD movement, and his subsequent involvement in the launch of SASA and its local and international campaigns, imposed severe constraints on his time. For Brutus, there was not much room for choice: the 1950s was the period when the NP government devised and systematically embarked on a programme of action to regulate racial segregation and to provide a legal framework to entrench privileges for white South Africans. These statutory measures included the Population Registration Act (1950), Group Areas Act (1950), Separate Representation of Voters Act (1951), Separate Amenities Act (1953) and Industrial Conciliation Act (1956).1 In turn, these measures unleashed a wave of opposition: the 1950s saw an ANC-led Defiance Campaign directed at various racially discriminatory laws (June 1952), the Congress of the People adopted the Freedom Charter (June 1955), and an estimated 20 000 women marched on the Union Buildings in Pretoria in protest against the extension of pass books to women (August 1956).2 The government responded swiftly and harshly. It made 8 326 arrests during the Defiance Campaign, nearly a quarter of them in Port Elizabeth alone,3 and at least 32 people were killed during the campaign.4 The government also restricted the activities of many anti-apartheid leaders – the ANC lost 42 of its leaders to banning

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 91

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

92

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

orders by the end of 1955 – and charged 156 political activists with treason in 1956,5 among them Mbeki, Mqota and Vuyisile Mini, all ANC leaders based in Port Elizabeth.6 As a result of the escalation in conflict, and Brutus’s ever-increasing participation in anti-apartheid organisations, politics entered even the most innocuous social activity in which he was involved at the time. Jeftha recalls, for instance, how Brutus and his father Harry got together with teachers from various schools at their home in Cotton Road in Dowerville on Friday afternoons. The group – which included Kenny Cairncross, Gordon Jenneker and Philip Oosthuizen of Paterson High, Donald Jacobs of South End High and Johnny Phyllis from Humansdorp – played various games over drinks. Chess and klawerjas, a card game, were especially popular. It was politics, though, that was their main preoccupation during these gatherings. “They used to discuss politics from the time they sat down,” recalls Jeftha. “They always got very heated.”7 Brutus was also involved in more structured discussions on political issues during the 1950s. He participated in a local study group made up of teachers, writers and political activists who met once a month to analyse various texts – an initiative no doubt influenced by earlier groupings such as the Cape Town-based Spartacus Club. Brutus’s study group discussed political material, which they usually photocopied and circulated secretively within the group. Yet the group did not restrict the scope of their reading to texts of a political nature, according to Brutus: The stuff we read were not so much standard classical political texts – I think one of the books we discussed the most during our surveillance, and we were very careful, very tense and had a lot of debates about it, was a contemporary novel, whether it was William Green8 or even something very light like Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind which discussed the South in the United States, and slavery and so on.9 Brutus eagerly grasped opportunities outside his regular social and political networks as well to register his opposition to apartheid. He

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 92

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

93

and Rabbi André Ungar, who was ordained in London in late 1954 and based at Temple Israel in Port Elizabeth until the end of 1956, conspired to do so several times. Sometimes this would merely involve the rabbi inviting white guests to join him and Brutus for coffee at his home, resulting in much squirming about complying with the most basic social customs. Ungar, who was an outspoken critic of apartheid, enjoyed the discomfort of his white guests: “To shake hands or not to shake, this seems to have been the profound predicament of my paleskinned friends. Some shook, some didn’t, some simply set eyes on the darker guest, turned and fled forever.”10 At other times, their gestures of defiance extended to public events. Brutus and Ungar once attended a recital by the French cellist Pierre Fournier at the Feather Market Hall; on another occasion, they went to watch a performance at the City Hall when the rabbi’s then wife, Corinne, was unable to accompany him.11 “The men at the door somehow didn’t dare to interfere with the local rabbi, even when he was infringing an unwritten rule with unparalleled shamelessness,” recalls Ungar. “There were knowing nods, whispers, silences, cold stares and nervously averted gazes all around us.” Brutus and Ungar even once spent a vacation together in Rhodesia, visiting the Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe Ruins and Wankie Game Reserve. Ungar mischievously acknowledges: “Yes, the sweetness of defiance both increased and marred its relaxed joy. My congregants stood quite aghast at such folly and immorality.”12 The government, on the other hand, was far less tolerant of any act of defiance. In 1950, it passed the sweepingly broad Suppression of Communism Act. The Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), with an estimated membership of between 2 000 to 3 000, was ostensibly its target.13 However, while the declared intention of the new law was supposedly to prevent the spread of communism, its major purpose was, in fact, to curb the activities of any individual or organisation that was opposed to apartheid. It arbitrarily and vaguely defined communism as “any doctrine or scheme…which aims at bringing about any political, industrial, social or economic change…by the promotion of disturbance or disorder, by unlawful acts…or by the threat of such acts.”14

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 93

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

94

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

In addition, the NP government employed a range of other measures to stifle opposition to apartheid in the years that followed. Ungar himself became a casualty of the government’s concerted efforts to eradicate resistance to its laws and policies. In December 1956, he was served with a deportation order and forced to leave South Africa by 15 January 1957. “Rabbi Ungar had on several occasions criticized the South African Government’s racial policies as immoral and contrary to the Jewish religion, as it is to others,” observes Gell in a magazine article. “Perhaps his most obvious cause of offence was to address a series of what the local Afrikaans papers described as ‘piebald’ (racially mixed) meetings held to denounce the Group Areas Act.”15 By the time Ungar was deported in 1957, it was clear that South Africa was increasingly becoming locked in an increasingly harsh and protracted political conflict. *** As a result, Brutus began to harbour serious reservations about the efficacy of poetry. Besides the constraints imposed on his time by his engagement in anti-apartheid activities, these doubts probably contributed to his extremely limited literary output during the 1950s. In fact, he even stopped writing poetry at one point. “I think that for a long while I saw the two as so separate that I couldn’t merge them,” he points out. “So I gave up writing poetry for perhaps as long as ten years; I can’t remember now. But there was a time that it seemed to me that to go on writing in such a conflicted situation was untenable, kind of irrelevant.”16 In a later interview, Brutus places this period at around 1950, and says it lasted for about a decade.17 Still, despite his concerns about the limitations of poetry, Brutus could not completely resist the urge to express himself in verse. An example is an untitled poem written, according to an accompanying note, during the mid1950s. It is a grim reflection on political events then unfolding in South Africa yet, at the same time, brims with defiance: Abolish laughter first, I say: Or find its gusts reverberate

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 94

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

95

with shattering force through halls of glass that artifice and lies have made. O, it is mute now – not by choice and drowned by multi-choired thunder – train wails, babies’ sirens’ wails: jackboots batter the sagging gate the wolfwind barks where the tinplate gapes, earth snarls apocalyptic anger. Yet where they laugh thus, hoarse and deep dulled by the wad of bronchial phlegm and ragged pleuras hiss and rasp the breath incites a smouldering flame; here where they laugh (for once) erect – no jim-crowing cackle for a watching lord, no sycophant smile while heart contracts – here laugh moulds heart as flame builds sword. Put out this flame, this heart, this laugh? Never! The self at its secret hearth nurses its smoulder, saves its heat while oppression’s power is charred to dust.18 In April 1956, Brutus published another explicitly political poem, “For a Dead African,” under the initials D.A.B. in the weekly newspaper New Age. It is about ANC member John Nangoza Jebe, who, according to a footnote to the poem by Brutus, was shot dead by police in Port Elizabeth during a religious procession on Good Friday that year.19 Despite his sorrow and anger at Jebe’s death, the tone of the poem is remarkably restrained and is written in a disciplined, formal style: its three fourline stanzas end in rhymes on alternate lines, while the repeated “s” sounds subtly but powerfully create a menacing undertone: We have no heroes and no wars only victims of a sickly state succumbing to the variegated sores that flower under lashing rains of hate.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 95

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

96

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

We have no battles and no fights for history to record with trite remark only captives killed on eyeless nights and accidental dyings in the dark. Yet when the roll of those who died to free our land is called, without surprise these nameless unarmed ones will stand beside the warriors who secured the final prize.20 *** The fatal shooting of an estimated 69 anti-pass law protesters on 21 March 1960 in Sharpeville,21 outside the industrial town of Vereeniging near Johannesburg, must have further compounded Brutus’s anxieties about the role of poetry at a time when political repression was becoming increasingly violent. As the political scientist Philip Frankel observes, the shooting was “a largely gratuitous act of violence inextricably connected with the whole system of racial violence in South Africa,” and “crystallised the sheer repressive horror of apartheid in the form of a tangible body count.”22 The government declared a state of emergency on 30 March and detained more than 20 000 people throughout the country in the wake of the shooting.23 The horrific incident and its aftermath certainly provided further impetus to Brutus’s political activism. And, even though the government banned the ANC under the Unlawful Organisations Act on 8 April, Brutus immediately decided to throw in his political lot with the organisation: “After that, I said, ‘Well, I’ll go all the way.’ To me, at that time, prison was irrelevant. It was not so much ideological. It was a matter of social injustice.”24 The following extract from a later poem, “Sharpeville,” indicates his outrage at the unprovoked police attack: What is important about Sharpeville is not that seventy died:

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 96

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

97

nor even that they were shot in the back retreating, unnamed, defenceless and certainly not the heavy calibre slug that tore through a mother’s back and ripped into the child in her arms killing it Remember Sharpeville bullet-in-the-back day Because it epitomized oppression and the nature of society more clearly than anything else; it was the classic event Nowhere is racial dominance more clearly defined nowhere the will to oppress more clearly demonstrated25 Another reason for his decision to turn to the ANC was that he regarded the uprising that followed the Sharpeville shootings – and forced the temporary suspension of the pass laws – as the first time there was a challenge to apartheid that was so serious it could lead to its collapse. This convinced him that the ANC and its allied organisations offered the most viable option for mass-based opposition to apartheid.26 He subsequently dismissed the organisations affiliated to NEUM as indulging in armchair theorising: “It is not enough to theorise, one has to be involved in mass activity, and it is the mass response of the ANC that appeals to me, makes me turn away from the Unity Movement.”27 Although he was not able to formally join the ANC – the organisation only opened its membership to all South Africans after its consultative conference in Morogoro, Tanzania, in 1969 – Brutus became involved in

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 97

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

98

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

some of its underground activities after the Sharpeville shootings. He provided a hiding place for Oliver Tambo at his home in North End one night before the ANC’s then deputy president went into exile in April 1960.28 And when Nelson Mandela was on the run during the early 1960s, he also stayed at Brutus’s home for a few days.29 “He was confined to one room to make sure that no one could see him through the window,” Brutus recalls. “To kill time, Nelson – who had been a very good amateur boxer – taught my sons to box.”30 Brutus acted as a courier for ANC material as well during this period under the name of Mr Ransome (with his travels for SASA as a cover).31 Yet, even in the aftermath of the massacre of dozens of unarmed people at Sharpeville by police accompanied by armoured vehicles, Brutus did not entirely give up on writing poetry. In August 1960, he published “At a Funeral” in the Port Elizabeth newspaper Eastern Province Herald under the initials, “D.A.B.” The poem is a tribute to a young medical doctor, Valencia Majombozi, who died from a heart attack at the age of 29 just a few months after she graduated from Wentworth Medical School in Durban: “So suddenly all the years, the effort that her parents put in to put her through medical school, seem to be totally wasted by her death just after she’s completed her studies,” notes Brutus, who attended Majombozi’s funeral in nearby Uitenhage. “So the poem is about her and about talent and potential being frustrated.”32 At the same time, the poem makes a political statement: while it laments the loss of a gifted and driven young woman’s life, it simultaneously makes an appeal to people to rise up against apartheid, and defiantly refers to the colours of the ANC in the first line (“Black, green and gold”) even though by then it was a banned organisation. The poem also makes a scathing attack on the pass laws that provoked the Sharpeville protest. As Brutus subsequently declares: “A Pass Book…controls your movement, and even determines where you will be buried when you die. Your life is segregated all the way through.”33 Brutus points out that the poem invokes the influence of Donne, “speaking about several things at the same time.”34 And, even though “At a Funeral” is overtly political, its language and style – like Brutus’s few other poems in the late 1950s – is once again formal: it employs rhyme

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 98

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

99

Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

and alliteration in both of its two six-line stanzas. In addition, the poem clearly bears the influence of Hopkins – “playing consonants and vowels against each other, creating tensions in sound”35 – as the stanza below illustrates: Oh all you frustrate ones, powers tombed in dirt, Aborted, not by Death but carrion books of birth36 Arise! The brassy shout of Freedom stirs our earth; Not Death but death’s-head tyranny scythes our ground37 And plots our narrow cells of pain defeat and dearth: Better that we should die, than that we should lie down.38 *** Despite such occasional forays into poetry, Brutus devoted most of his time and energy during this period to direct involvement in political campaigns. For example, in line with his newly declared commitment to the ANC after Sharpeville, he supported its call in December 1960 for a national convention to draw up an alternative constitution for South Africa.39 The plan was to hold three or four conventions beforehand,40 starting with the All-In African Conference, which would eventually culminate in a national non-racial convention.41 Brutus participated in planning the convention for what he describes as the coloured section of the oppressed.42 The purpose of the convention was outlined at length in a pamphlet, “Why a ‘Coloured’ National Convention?”, published by the planning committee in June 1961. Among its key objectives were “to provide a time and place for the coloured people to state clearly their views on the affairs of the nation” and “to assist with people of goodwill of all other groups in the formation of a New Constitution.”43 The planning committee declared emphatically: We believe that colour should be utterly irrelevant in the national life, certainly as regards its Constitution and laws. We believe that we are not to be anti- or pro- any group, but that we are to be for human dignity and decency, regardless

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 99

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

100

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

of skin colour, and we are convening this Convention in the hope that we may be able to make some contribution towards making a reality of what all who wish to live in this country have in common by their very humanity. We would like to see developed a wider South Africanism, capable of embracing all the peoples of this country, whatever their race, colour or creed.44 Those involved in planning what came to be known as the CNC were from an impressively diverse range of political backgrounds. Along with Brutus, they included Barney Desai of the Coloured People’s Congress (CPC), Eddie Daniels of the Liberal Party, Nicky Kearns of the British Commonwealth Ex-Servicemen’s League, David van der Ross, an executive committee member of the first governmentappointed CAC, and Lionel Morrison, the former Cape Town branch secretary of the CPC’s predecessor, the South African Coloured People’s Organisation (SACPO). Without any exaggeration, Brutus describes them as inclusive of “the right, left, centre and far left” of the political spectrum.45 Three ANC representatives attended a planning meeting in February 1961 and duly endorsed the initiative.46 Apart from wide-ranging political backing, those involved in planning the CNC also attracted support from a number of other organisations. Richard van der Ross, who was vicechairman of the convention (his father David was its chairman), notes: “The Coloured Convention movement had certain unique features. Probably the most important of these was the breadth of its appeal…They had good standing in the Church, in Education, in business, in Trade Unionism and in Welfare.”47 The organisers of the movement felt so encouraged by their rapid progress within just a few months that they scheduled a convention for 24 June 1961. However, due to a government ban on anti-apartheid meetings from 19 May to 26 June, they were unable to go ahead on that date. An application to the Magistrate of Cape Town for permission to go ahead with the CNC was rejected on 23 May. Yet this did not deter the organisers, who carried on mobilising support for the planned convention until the

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 100

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

101

ban was eventually lifted after a threat of court action by Progressive Party MP Zach de Beer.48 On 24 June, Brutus – a member of the Port Elizabeth Planning Committee – and Landman addressed a gathering of 400 people at the Crispin Hall. “We have no vote, we have no say in the laws that are passed against us,” he told the meeting. Brutus also drew attention to unemployment in the city: “Some of us are without work now – and many more of us will still lose our jobs. We will be hit hardest by the times that are coming. This is because the policy of apartheid-in-work will again be applied against us. We will go first.”49 The meeting enthusiastically supported a resolution calling for a national convention as soon as possible after a coloured national convention was held. Eventually the CNC was rescheduled for 7–10 July 1961. Brutus, among the 150 delegates, was tasked with delivering a paper on the franchise. However, the day before the gathering at the Claremont Civic Centre in Cape Town, David van der Ross – in his capacity as CNC chairman – was served with an order issued by Minister of Justice F.C. Erasmus under the Suppression of Communism Act, which prohibited the meeting in Cape Town and eight surrounding magisterial districts.50 But the convenors refused to give up so easily, and engaged in a flurry of urgent talks to discuss a way forward. Someone noticed that nearby Malmesbury was not included in the banning order, so – in a calculated act of defiance – they decided to meet at a farm called Dassenberg on 8 July. Brutus arrived at the new venue just as the convention was about to start. “Already, in the circular depression in the grass, the crowd was gathering, boxes and chairs were being planted shakily in the grass, a chair and table were being brought for the chairman to sit squinting into the sun,” he recounted in an article in Fighting Talk. “Then, with a prayer and a little initial fumbling in procedure, we were off, papers were being read and discussed, resolutions were being formulated.”51 To avoid being detected by police, the delegates met in separate groups at various houses in the peninsula the following day, determined to continue with the convention. The police, however, were equally intent on preventing them from meeting; they found 11 delegates at a house in the Cape Town residential area of Athlone, and arrested and charged

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 101

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

102

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

them under the Suppression of Communism Act with convening and/or addressing an illegal gathering.52 Still, the other delegates were undeterred. They met again on 10 July, this time in a shed on a farm in the Malmesbury district owned by Peter Melck, a relative of then Black Sash national president and Liberal Party member Eulalie Stott, who attended the convention as an observer.53 The police discovered the new venue at the farm Rondberg later that afternoon, and promptly attempted to disrupt proceedings. When they entered the barn where delegates were meeting, Brutus was on the floor and defiantly continued speaking. “I still think it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done,” he declares proudly, “and the meeting went on.”54 Despite the interruptions in their discussions over the three days, and persistent harassment by security police, the delegates managed to skilfully navigate their way around various divisive issues – some, on the left, advocated nationalisation; others, on the right, supported a qualified franchise – and find common ground. “In retrospect, the degree of understanding and cooperation was to prove unbelievable,” Brutus marvels. “Above all, the economy of discussion (on the whole), the businesslike approach, the grasp of the bare bones of our problems, brushing aside the frills that clothe and disguise them.”55 This is reflected in the content of the resolutions passed by the delegates. They unequivocally rejected the legal categorisation of people into separate racial groups, and called for full and equal citizenship rights for all South Africans. In line with these resolutions, delegates rejected the Group Areas Act and job reservation, called for free and compulsory education for all within a unitary system, and urged a redivision of the land.56 The significance of the Malmesbury meeting is still not fully recognised today: it was not just another talk-shop of like-minded people; it brought together, for the first time, people who were seriously divided along ideological lines. As Brutus notes in a report in Contact, it was “the most representative gathering ever held of the coloured section of the South African population.”57 In addition, it managed to attract people from outside traditional political circles, including those in religious and cultural organisations, and its support extended beyond legally prescribed racial boundaries. As Richard van der Ross observes

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 102

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

103

in his autobiography, “it was the first broad-based occasion in the years of official apartheid, organised by the coloured people, with the support of whites to some extent, and supported by Africans from the African National Congress, of a magnitude which commanded attention and respect.”58 Brutus was appointed as an additional member to the convention’s Continuation Committee, and represented the eastern Cape. This committee was tasked with making contact with other organisations that supported a national convention, and with working towards organising such a gathering of “all the people of South Africa as soon as possible.”59 Various public meetings subsequently took place to garner support for such a convention. On 18 July 1961, for example, Brutus and Landman addressed a report-back meeting attended by about 400 people at the Crispin Hall in Port Elizabeth. Brutus described the unity across the political spectrum at Malmesbury as unprecedented, and said all the delegates agreed on “a programme of justice and freedom for every South African.”60 He repeated a similar message at a report-back meeting in Uitenhage on 24 July: The big changes in history have always come after the broad mass of a people have decided to alter one or other condition of their life. This essentially is what happened at Malmesbury…[An important development] is the new way of thinking amongst us – we no longer think in terms like coloured. We are not coloureds, or Malays, or something else – we are simply people of South Africa – all of us. We must carry this new way of thinking amongst us and into our homes and into all spheres.61 In September 1961, Brutus addressed a meeting at the Port Elizabeth City Hall, this time alongside CNC secretary, Joe Daniels.62 He also spoke at a consultative conference in a church hall in Cape Town, along with then Liberal Party national chairman Peter Brown, in October 1961. A paper by Z.K. Matthews, a former Cape leader of the ANC and treason trialist, was read on his behalf. In his speech, Brutus

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 103

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

104

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

told the 108 conference delegates that, sooner or later, the idea of a national convention must become the most significant political force in South Africa. “Government is by consent of the governed and the time must come when those who govern now without our consent will be incapable of governing when the overwhelming majority of our population reject the ideas of racial supremacy,” he warned. “The areas of freedom for all of us are steadily shrinking and all of us must throw off this incubus of oppression.”63 The delegates courageously heeded the calls of the speakers and passed a resolution to work towards holding a national convention.64 However, Brutus was banned under the Suppression of Communism Act – which prevented him from attending any gatherings for five years – the day before he was due to deliver a paper at a regional consultation in Port Elizabeth on 21 October 1961.65 Landman, who was scheduled to chair the meeting at the Conference Centre, was similarly banned.66 As a result of such increasingly systematic and brutal silencing of opposition to apartheid, the CNC fizzled out soon afterwards.67 The formation of the CNC was nevertheless a very significant moment in coloured politics. Its participants emphatically rejected a separate legal and political status for coloured people, and made a concerted effort to reach out to those aligned to the ANC in order to devise a new political dispensation for South Africa. “Here, then, was clear evidence of a shift to the left in influential moderate coloured circles,” Van der Ross rightly suggests.68 And, despite its limited lifespan and its predominantly middleclass support base, it was a broad, inclusive attempt to build support for the principles of a non-racial democracy. In addition, those behind the CNC did so at a critical time, when few dared to raise their voices in the wake of the bannings and arrests that followed the Sharpeville shootings. Eddie Daniels justifiably points out in his autobiography that it played a vital role in helping to keep these ideals alive.69 Because of these reasons, no doubt, Brutus regards the CNC as “one of the most useful political activities I was ever involved in.”70 ***

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 104

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

105

Over and above his involvement in the CNC, Brutus continued to serve as SASA secretary in the wake of the Sharpeville shootings. The organisation subsequently intensified its campaign against racial discrimination in South African sport. A South African cricket tour of England due to begin in April 1960 was a particular focus of attention at this time. SASA approached the South African Cricket Association (SACA) and enquired whether any black players would be considered for trials. When it became clear that white players only were invited, SASA contacted them and appealed to them to withdraw.71 Brutus engaged SACA president Arthur Coy and its long-standing secretary Algy Frames as well about SASA’s concerns on the exclusion of black cricketers. However, his efforts were brushed aside at a meeting in Johannesburg, and even threats to approach the English cricket administration to intervene were scornfully dismissed. The six-month tour went ahead, but was plagued by protests in the UK organised jointly by the newly formed Anti-Apartheid Movement and the Campaign against Race Discrimination in Sport – the beginning of a campaign that would eventually lead to South Africa’s exclusion from test cricket.72 The security police, in turn, increased their harassment of SASA’s leadership. They raided the homes of several officials – including Brutus, Rangasamy and Lutchman – in May 1960.73 All SASA material was confiscated, even blank letterheads.74 Yet the organisation refused to be intimidated, and eagerly grasped the first opportunity after Sharpeville to make direct representations to the IOC; they tried to attend an executive meeting in Rome, Italy, that same month. Brutus was refused a passport, however, and Rangasamy’s passport application was deliberately delayed.75 This forced SASA to rely on Rev. Michael Scott, an Anglican clergyman and anti-apartheid activist from England who once lived in South Africa, and Ghana-based South African exile Nana Mahomo, a founding member of the PAC, to represent it. Brutus felt SASA was “badly handicapped” by the absence of its own delegates, and SAONGA was able to get away with little more than an appeal to cooperate with non-racial sports bodies to address racism in South African sport.76 Presumably in line with this appeal, Reg Honey – SAONGA’s chairman, who attended the Rome meeting in May as an IOC delegate

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 105

2020-01-17 03:50:43 PM

106

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

for Africa – accepted an invitation to address SASA’s biennial general meeting in January 1961 at the Patidar Hall in Fordsburg, Johannesburg.77 He admitted that there was discrimination in sport, “just as there are in other fields – social, political and economic.”78 However, none of SAONGA’s proposals recommended any fundamental changes to the status quo. It offered SASA representation on the national Olympic committee, for example, but on condition that its representatives be white; it also proposed separate trials for Olympic events.79 “Not only did Mr Honey admit that discrimination existed,” Brutus sarcastically notes in a newspaper report, “but he urged that those who were discriminated against should accept the discrimination.”80 He argued that SAONGA’s response opened the way for the IOC to become more active in confronting racism in South African sport. In addition to lobbying the IOC, SASA continued to campaign against all sports events organised along racial lines, in line with a resolution adopted at its January meeting. In June 1961, Brutus wrote a letter to the New Zealand Cricket Council on behalf of SASA and expressed its opposition to a planned tour to South Africa: “It will play against teams selected by the South African Cricket Association, which rigidly excludes non-white South African cricketers, and the matches will be played on grounds where there will be racial discrimination against non-white South Africans.”81 He wrote a similarly worded letter to the Australian Rugby Board, and threatened a SASA campaign against a planned tour to South Africa if it went ahead: “Your Board must be aware of the tremendous volume of protest and opposition which was aroused when the Rugby Board in New Zealand agreed to accept racial discrimination in the tour of South Africa last year: since then opposition has grown.”82 SASA gave further impetus to its call for a boycott of sports events organised along racial lines by launching Operation Sonreis (Sunrise), an acronym for “Support Only Non-Racial Events in Sport,” in July 1961. Brutus specifically singled out the planned tours by New Zealand’s cricket team and Australia’s rugby team in a newspaper statement. Operation Sonreis also urged South Africans to rally behind SASA and to hold meetings to expand its internal support base.83 Brutus even involved Paterson High pupils in this campaign. Former pupil Hilton M.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 106

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

107

Magnus recalls that they were kept informed of all new developments whenever he returned from sports meetings: “When Operation Sonreis was implemented it kept the struggle for equality in sport very alive. He taught us that we must…under no circumstances compromise our opposition to racial sport.”84 In September 1961, Brutus wrote to the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA), and informed it that the Football Association of Southern Africa (FASA) still practised racial discrimination – despite injunctions to the contrary from the world body.85 SASA called on FIFA to suspend its South African affiliate pending an investigation into its refusal to comply with the international organisation’s directive. Less than two weeks later – on 26 September – FIFA suspended FASA’s affiliation. While Brutus commended SASA in a newspaper article for its “relentless campaigning against racialism of all forms in sport,” he acknowledged the role of the non-racial South African Soccer Federation (SASF), and in particular its president George Singh, during several years of lobbying.86 SASA was involved in several other sports initiatives in 1961. These included campaigns to ensure apartheid South Africa’s exclusion from the Commonwealth Games in Australia in 1962,87 and its expulsion from the Imperial Cricket Conference (ICC), later renamed the International Cricket Council, and the International Weightlifting Federation.88 Yet the main focus of its efforts remained the IOC and the Olympic Games; it was determined to challenge the right of SAONGA teams to represent South Africa at the Olympics. Instead, SASA set its sights on ensuring that a non-racial South African team would attend the next Olympic Games in October 1964 in Tokyo, Japan. “This challenge will come at the 1963 meeting of the International Olympic Committee at Nairobi,” Brutus announces, “and SASA is already organising external support for its stand among the sports bodies of the world, especially those in the Afro-Asian countries.”89 *** Brutus’s involvement in various anti-apartheid organisations increasingly attracted the attention of certain quarters in government

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 107

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

108

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

and its security apparatus. As a result, police intensified their surveillance of Brutus. His eldest son, Marc, remembers as a nineyear-old being woken abruptly after midnight in 1961 by the sounds of banging and kicking on their front door. “I awoke dazed and confused – another raid at four in the morning,” he records in a newspaper article. “And the house was turned upside down. They confiscated even what belonged to us children.”90 This was an extremely harrowing time in the life of the family. Even a false alarm once plunged them into a state of intense anxiety. Marc relates, for instance, how the family gathered near the stove in the kitchen one night – a rare occurrence due to Brutus’s various political commitments – and shared stories about their friends and experiences. “As we sat and talked, we were disturbed by a loud banging on the door,” Marc recounts. “Dad grabbed his jacket, and bolted out the back door, jumped over the high wall and kept running while Ma, shaken, delayed answering the door.”91 However, it was just a friend pretending to be a policeman. Brutus’s wife was not amused by the prank; nor was Marc: “I did not like to see my father this afraid, nor my mother upset. The mood and the evening was ruined.” Worse was to come. The Department of Coloured Affairs, under which Paterson High fell, approached the police about its concern over Brutus’s political activities. In response, security police head, G.L. Prinsloo, submitted a seven-page memorandum to the Ministry of Justice on 9 May 1961, which provided details of some of the meetings attended by Brutus between June 1955 and January 1961.92 In a letter dated 27 September 1961, a security official states: “Brutus exercises much influence over the non-whites and if he is allowed to continue unhindered with incitement against the state and white residents, it can later take on dangerous proportions.”93 A subsequent letter – the date is unclear but it appears to be written in October 1961 – refers to Brutus as “a dangerous agitator who is actively busy inciting the non-whites to overthrow the existing government system,” and recommends that he be prohibited from attending meetings.94 During that month, police visited his home five times, presumably in an attempt to serve a banning order on him.95 “At the beginning of

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 108

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

109

October…10 people are served with banning orders. I was the eleventh, but they couldn’t find me,” Brutus recounts. “I knew I was going to be banned if they found me so I just went into hiding.”96 However, police tracked him down one Friday night when he attended a party to raise funds for arrested ANC members. He was immediately given a letter in terms of the Suppression of Communism Act that banned him from attending all meetings, except with pupils and colleagues in the course of his duties as a teacher at Paterson High.97 The consequences of this restriction, which took effect on 20 October, were far-reaching. As Brutus later explains, the banning order was so open-ended that “it was illegal for me to drink tea or go to a dinner party or meet anyone socially.”98 Even going to church was no longer possible. He captures his sense of despair eloquently in the following poem, which was first published in Penpoint, a literary journal of the Department of English at Makerere University College: When they deprive me of the evenings how shall I speak my inexpressible grief? Think of the night-air, sweet with dew and stars the moon a molten ingot’s spilling-splash plaqued on the night’s glassed-ocean floor, the elegance of lamp-lit autumn oaks preening in accidental man-made grace and this rat-ceilinged hovel on my head. When I am prisoned from my evenings how shall I word my inarticulable woe? I shall curl to the tight knot of a shrivelled worm or angularly bundled like a mangy cat huddle against myself for warmth or grub among leaf-litter of my autumn years rustling foregone endearments in my throat and seeking easement in remembered tenderness

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 109

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

110

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

but how shall I mouth my unencompassable woe and how shall I be consoled?99 The repercussions of the banning order extended way beyond restrictions on his freedom of movement. Already suspended from his teaching post earlier by the Port Elizabeth School Board – a combination of elected members and nominees from the Cape provincial administration and representatives from the Port Elizabeth municipality and the Division Council – Brutus was subsequently dismissed after he was banned.100 Protests from his pupils, followed by a petition demanding his reinstatement, were contemptuously ignored.101 *** Fortunately, no restrictions were placed on the publication of Brutus’s writing by his banning order at that stage. Being unable to participate in political organisations, and without any full-time employment, gave him more time to write. It is reasonable to assume that these circumstances played a significant role in his ending his self-imposed decision not to write poetry for almost a decade; it now became an important outlet to express his opposition to apartheid. One of the first poems he wrote at the time was “Luthuli: December 10th 1961,” a tribute to then ANC president Albert Luthuli on his departure for Norway to accept the 1960 Nobel Prize for Peace, which was published anonymously in New Age that same month: The African lion rouses from his shadowy lair and roars his challenge through the clamorous earth: – its billow blots all discords and all jars. Hippos and elephant and buffalo without dispute go lumbering to the drinking pools: – but all the land he views he rules:

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 110

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

111

From here he pads on sun-picked bone and brittle thorn stifling the tawny skies of a new day: – power ripples over him like the light of dawn.102 This poem is important for another reason as well: it is his first known poem in which the influence of African poetry on his writing can be discerned (even though some conventional features of poetry in the traditional English literary canon, such as rhyme and half-rhyme, are still present). Brutus describes the nine-line poem as “featuring great images from the oral tradition.”103 He subsequently explains in an interview: “I was pleased when I looked back on them…to find that the images were so markedly African – and rural as opposed to urban African…but it was all unforced and in fact unconscious.”104 More generally, “Luthuli: December 10th 1961” falls within the oral tradition of a praise poem: it honours Luthuli and celebrates his Nobel Prize.105 Brutus also experimented at the time with a form of poetry that first emerged in Japan during the Middle Ages. He explains its appeal to him as follows: “The Japanese have a poem that you write on a fan on all the vanes of the fan. Each vane has a line of the poem. But you can close [and open] the fan at any point and the lines will make sense.”106 These poems, written on scrolls, screens or even fans, were often exchanged as gifts between lovers or friends. Brutus refers to “For Bernice,” which he wrote after sitting on a Wits University lawn at dusk one day in late spring with fellow student Bernice Kaplan, surrounded by jacaranda trees in bloom with its purple flowers, as an example of such a poem: How delicately the blossoms fall! Like gauze to clothe and swathe my naked lands, so delicately the blossoms fall. How delicate their mauve suffusal! Like allusions to elusive or illusory perfumes, so delicate their mauve suffusal.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 111

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

112

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Scarcely disturbing the jacaranda air! Descent and elegance distill a fragrance scarcely disturbing the jacaranda air. And I observe with nervous hands how delicately the blossoms fall and, hesitating, half-approach the parent bole so delicately the blossoms fall!107 According to Brutus, repetition is a distinctive feature of this kind of poem. In “For Bernice,” Brutus therefore repeats the words “delicately the blossoms fall” twice in both the first and the last stanzas. In addition, he repeats the word “delicate” in the second stanza and the phrase “the jacaranda air” in the third stanza. His intention is clear: “No matter how randomly you read the poem, it will make sense and that is what I’m trying to do here.”108 It is a daring and innovative attempt to extend the use of the lyric beyond the form generally employed in the traditional English literary canon. Although his banning order was presumably a key factor behind his decision to resume writing poetry, Brutus points to other reasons as well. Among them was the end of a romantic relationship with a fellow political activist around December 1961. Not only were they involved in underground political activities together, what further complicated their relationship was that she was white – a criminal offence under the Immorality Act, which prohibited such liaisons.109 Brutus describes their traumatic break-up in an interview in 1974 as “probably the most important event, or series of events, in my life.”110 He later adds in another interview: “So, the poetry then comes out of this combination of political activism and a love affair of great intensity under conditions of great danger. Then she is deported after having to choose between either prison or deportation.”111 *** What further propelled his return to poetry was his discovery of the work of Auden at roughly that time. He describes the Anglo-American’s

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 112

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

113

poetry as a turning point in his approach to how he writes poetry. “It was through teaching…Auden’s work that I became aware of the possibilities of combining the private and the public, the personal and the political, in a way that freed me,” he declares.112 He cites Auden’s poem “Lullaby” as particularly significant in this regard.113 Brutus’s poem “Nightsong: City,” which was written around December 1961 and first published in Fighting Talk in June 1962, is one of his earliest attempts to fuse the personal and the political. It is about a romantic relationship with a woman that, simultaneously, refers to South Africa as an object of his desire. Brutus candidly describes it as “at once a poem about Port Elizabeth and South Africa on the brink of armed resistance, of sabotage and explosions, and a poem for a particular woman”114: Sleep well, my love, sleep well: the harbour lights glaze over restless docks, police cars cockroach through the tunnel streets; from the shanties creaking iron-sheets violence like a bug-infested rag is tossed and fear is immanent as sound in the wind-swung bell; the long day’s anger pants from sand and rocks; but for this breathing night at least my land, my love, sleep well.115 “Erosion: Transkei,” published in the same issue of Fighting Talk, displays a similar duality. Brutus wrote it after travelling by road from Port Elizabeth to Durban through the Transkei in the eastern Cape. At one level, it is a lament about the effects of erosion on the land. According to Brutus, this was caused by the government’s refusal to provide those in the Transkei who rejected its policy of separate ethnic homelands – the Transkei was scheduled to be the first homeland to receive nominal autonomy in 1963 – with irrigation and equipment. On another level, he declares in an interview, the poem also invokes

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 113

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

114

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

the memory of a woman with whom he danced in Durban, and recalls that she wore “a sari draped over her bare flesh so that I had all this lovely sensual feel of her flesh under my hands as we danced.”116 Brutus fuses these two aspects – the devastation caused by the erosion and the memory of a woman who once enchanted him – in “Erosion: Transkei”: Under green drapes the scars scream, red wounds wail soundlessly, beg for assuaging, satiation; warm life dribbles seawards with the streams. Dear my land, open for my possessing, ravaged and dumbly submissive to our will, in curves and uplands my sensual delight mounts, and mixed with fury is amassing torrents tumescent with love and pain. Deep-dark and rich, with deceptive calmness time and landscape flow to new horizons – in anguished impatience await the quickening rains.117 The imagery in the poem is fraught with sexual connotations: the parched land begs to be sated; the reference to rain hints at sexual fulfilment. The poem becomes more explicit in the second stanza: “Dear my land, open for my possessing.” The curves described in line 7 can either be regarded as a reference to the attractions of the landscape or to the body of a woman. Beier drew attention to the dual imagery. “The poem is ostensibly about erosion,” he comments, “but the double sense is obvious.”118 Lindfors, too, recognised that it was a “double-breasted love lyric.”119 Brutus’s dual references to his love for South Africa and to his love for a woman became a distinctive feature of his early poetry, and he describes it as “one of my most worthwhile achievements.”120 He is caustic about those who fail to notice this

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 114

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

115

device in his early poems, and specifically cites “Erosion: Transkei” as an example of this endeavour: There seems to me a strand so persistent running through my early work that critics who fail to see it are themselves deficient in some way. The strand I refer to is the fusion of the emotionally private and the politically public, the fusion of political statement at one level with the private, emotional statement on another level and the same words functioning simultaneously for both purposes. Brutus’s interpretation of Auden’s writing provided him with a creative way to incorporate politics in his poetry. He no longer regarded poetry and politics as mutually exclusive, and from then on believed that separating them into two distinct categories of human endeavour was a false binary. Years later he explained that, to him, politics became like any other area of human activity, and was therefore a perfectly valid and natural subject for the poet. “I think that poets who decline to deal with the real world and who exclude politics and everything else that happens in life from their poetry do themselves a disservice,” Brutus argues. “Nothing that is human is alien to the poet.”121 In apartheid South Africa, he feels, it was even more short-sighted to exclude politics from a writer’s subject matter. “South Africa is a landscape in which you cannot escape the politics,” he submits. “Wordsworth couldn’t escape writing about Grasmere Rydal Mount; Eliot couldn’t escape writing about the urban images of the cities; it seems to me you have to deal with your landscape, and that’s my kind of landscape.”122 Nevertheless, Brutus did not regard himself as a political poet per se, and rejected employing poetry to serve as political propaganda. He explains his rationale as follows: “I think it is immoral for an artist to import propaganda into his work. It shows a lack of integrity.”123 He is quite emphatic about his desire to avoid his political views from intruding into his poetry (at least, at that stage in his writing career). Instead, he prefers to describe an experience, and then leaves it to his readers to formulate

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 115

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

116

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

their own opinion about what he describes. He outlines this view at some length in a later interview. “By reporting a simple experience I ask people to make up their own minds,” he states. “But I don’t try to persuade them as to how they ought to make up their minds.”124 He stresses: I may be a little old-fashioned in this, but I have tried not to preach about racism or to make political speeches about racism in my poetry because I really believe that there is a thing called artistic integrity. I really believe that one ought not to turn art into propaganda. I think this is not only dishonest, I think it’s a prostitution of the art. Instead, even when he was banned, he relied extensively on prose to express his political views, most notably in Fighting Talk, New Age and The New African. He wrote several articles – under his own name and various pseudonyms, including L.N. Terry, J.B. Booth and John Player – on a range of topics in 1962.125 In March, for instance, he wrote a scathing review of the UK-based South African writer Noni Jabavu’s autobiography, Drawn in Colour.126 He found it patronising and offensive: “I found it stilted, artificial and critical in the worst downthe-nose white tradition. Clearly she had become an alien in her own culture.”127 In June, Brutus took issue with Mphahlele, then president of Mbari, about his defence of a short story competition restricted to black African writers. “Even if it were true that all whites were privileged and all non-whites were underprivileged,” he contends, “this would not justify discrimination on the grounds of colour.”128 Yet, even when he was banned and unemployed, Brutus did not always adopt a serious and sombre tone in his writing. In “Some Exciting Finds,” published in January 1962, he gives an amusing account of an exchange with a security policeman during a raid on his house early one morning. Brutus even cheekily intended to go back to bed during the search – purportedly for explosives – but the policeman angrily intervened. In a mocking tone, Brutus notes some of the material confiscated during the raid: “sports papers, a discarded short story, Muslim News, an essay on Luthuli and the Convention, eleven essays…I had just finished, Convention correspondence.”129 Even a

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 116

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

117

Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

piece of wood – “part of a broken bench, with whitewash stains on it” – came in for excited scrutiny by the policemen. “Annoyed and cold I advised them to take it,” Brutus writes with derision. That same month he published “Cattle,” a fictional account of a political discussion in what appears to be a pub or shebeen.130 An unnamed narrator predicts that racial confrontation will be avoided in South Africa because more white people will eventually turn on the government when anti-apartheid resistance intensifies. His drinking companion, named Peter, vehemently rejects this as unfounded optimism. In response, the narrator cites the Convention movement as a sign of real hope. However, his companion once again dismisses this as evidence of any real cause for optimism, and even mockingly refers to “a liberatory movement that hasn’t been built up yet.” The only reason for hope, Peter insists, is that white people are not all voting cattle – that they will ultimately exercise their independence and sensibly vote against apartheid. While neither of the speakers makes a particularly compelling case for their viewpoint, and the characters are little more than political talking-heads, the story cannot be faulted as an expression of a desire for a better future. *** Brutus was, eventually, prevented from publishing any of his writing. In July 1962, by then a part-time law student at Wits University, he was among 102 writers and journalists prohibited from publishing any writing under the General Law Amendment Act (the so-called Sabotage Act), along with Pieterse and Alex la Guma.131 They were even banned from being quoted. Yet this sweeping measure did not silence Brutus. Just a few weeks later, he submitted some poems to The Purple Renoster editor Lionel Abrahams for consideration. In a follow-up letter dated 25 August 1962, he addresses what appear to be concerns of Abrahams about the usefulness of defying the ban in relation to the risks involved: This is surely to lose sight of the real problem and the real wrong. What has happened in South Africa is that the most

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 117

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

118

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

innocuous writing – creative or otherwise – can be banned under the “Sabotage” Act. And this seems to me a terrible thing…This is the barbarism of a doomed group, willing their own destruction and determined, quite indiscriminately, to destroy anything of value that seems to threaten them…And this brutality inflicted on the human spirit – for this is what they are striking at and what they fear – must be fought, even at great peril to ourselves, if we truly value what we surely do, the uncrushable spirit of man.132 Brutus makes a similar point – under the pseudonym J.B. Booth – in an uncompromisingly forthright article in Fighting Talk. He calls on fellow writers throughout the world to come out in opposition to what he describes as “a fresh barbarism,” and declares: “If the Act itself is directed against sabotage of the structure of Apartheid, the gagging clause is itself a sabotage of the human spirit.”133 He adds scathingly: “Men and women are damned to silence without trial. They are forbidden to communicate their emotions, experiences and visions to their fellow men. Protest is strangled in the throat. The creative outpouring which could enrich the community is blasted.” In response, Brutus urged fellow writers to go beyond mere public expressions of outrage; he also appealed to them to refuse to allow their books to be sold in South Africa and to deny permission for their work to be performed on local theatre stages or to be screened in local cinemas. He realised that this could be counterproductive, but argued that the alternative was “to provide compost for a dung heap where noxious and strangling weeds proliferate.” He identified a central role for organisations such as the international writers’ organisation PEN and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in such a campaign: “If all these can be mobilised, a telling impact can be made.”134 He recognised that this would not bring about any fundamental change in South Africa. “But,” he asserts, “it will establish the contempt and opposition of the world.”135 Brutus wrote several other articles in Fighting Talk under the name J.B. Booth after he was listed under the General Law Amendment Act.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 118

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

119

These contributions addressed the manifestation of apartheid in various forms. In September 1962, for example, he celebrated the British union Equity’s ban on performances to segregated audiences in South Africa.136 In a follow-up article in December 1962, he applauded the tabling of a resolution proposing a similar ban by the US organisation Actors’ Equity Association. Brutus welcomed the opening of Port Elizabeth’s formerly all-white venue, The Empire, to black audiences – even though only on certain nights. He regarded this as a victory, however limited, “at a time when the pressures of apartheid are mounting in savagery.”137 In the same article, he praised the decision of the US-born violinist Yehudi Menuhin to refuse to perform to a whites-only audience in South Africa,138 and berated the Russian conductor and pianist Igor Stravinsky for his halfhearted attempt to justify his visit to South Africa. Brutus addressed the extension of apartheid in education in an article in November 1962, with particular reference to the planned transfer of coloured education to the Department of Coloured Affairs. “This is part of the overall plan of the Nationalist Govt. to control the minds of all,” he warns.139 Anti-Transfer Action Committees (ATACs) were set up in Port Elizabeth and elsewhere to oppose the transfer, and received support from a range of organisations, including the Liberal Party, Black Sash and National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Conspicuously absent, in Brutus’s opinion, were organisations that specifically represented teachers and parents. He lambasted the TLSA and other NEUM affiliates for their “customary insularity or obscurantism.” The CPC initially distributed leaflets and held meetings, but – as with the CNC movement – lapsed into inaction. Brutus castigated the organisation for its failure to attend ATAC meetings and accused it of “chronic dilatoriness.”140 He was alarmed by the lack of vigorous and sustained action, and saw ATAC as offering the only serious opposition to the transfer of coloured education. Accordingly, he urged ATAC to continue with its publicity and protest campaigns: “the need for it as a watchdog and a recorder of the inequities of indoctrination will be even greater in the future when the system gets into gear.”

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 119

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

120

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Another noteworthy intervention was an article on Negritude in October 1962, following a writers’ conference hosted by Mbari in Nigeria, where it was a major topic of discussion. Brutus came out in support of some of the reservations expressed by Mphahlele in his 1962 book, The African Image, about the movement. Nevertheless, he argues that Negritude – which advocates the expression and affirmation of a distinct African identity – deserves more attention in view of the widespread support it enjoyed at that stage in many parts of the continent. He goes on to describe the movement in positive terms as “the expression of a peculiar blackness or African-ness in literature which is related to matters like the development of an African personality and the cultivation of a recognizably African literature.”141 In particular, Brutus supports the contention of Léopold Sédar Senghor, the Senegalese poet who was one of the founders of the movement in France, that there are certain characteristics that constitute a uniquely African identity. “At the risk of sounding charlatan,” he submits, “I begin my answers with the assumption that the life of people on this continent is indeed different in certain respects from that of people on other continents, and that to express this life and the peculiar vitality of Africa is not only a feasible but laudable aim.” He also believes that the particular brand of African nationalism that informs Negritude “is evolving into something more all-embracing in which we can find the expression and ultimate fusion of many diverse cultures.”142 He welcomes such a more inclusive identity, which would not be confined to any particular culture.143 *** Brutus also increasingly turned to poetry in the second half of 1962 after being silenced under the General Law Amendment Act. While at Wits University, he published several poems in the Johannesburg-based student publication, adelphi literary review. The publication of these poems – even though under the deliberately obscure initials, B.K. – was no doubt intended as a deliberate act of defiance.144 Brutus refused to be deprived of the last remaining means of political resistance left to him – the freedom to write and publish. His poem “Somehow We

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 120

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

121

Survive,” published in November 1962 in adelphi literary review, reflects this determination to refuse to be bludgeoned into submission: Somehow we survive and tenderness, frustrated, does not wither. Investigating searchlights rake our naked unprotected contours; over our heads the monolithic decalogue of fascist prohibition glowers and teeters for a catastrophic fall; boots club on the peeling door. But somehow we survive severance, deprivation, loss. Patrols uncoil along the asphalt dark hissing their menace to our lives, most cruel, all our land is scarred with terror, rendered unlovely and unlovable; sundered are we and all our passionate surrender but somehow tenderness survives.145 Like some of Brutus’s other poems written in the wake of his discovery of Auden’s work, “Somehow We Survive” is simultaneously a personal and a political statement. On one level, it reassures a lover – the same white woman who participated in underground political activities with him – that their illicit love will survive “fascist prohibition” (line 6); on another level, it is a declaration that his love for South Africa will continue despite the violence and repression inflicted by the government: “all our land is scarred with terror, / but somehow

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 121

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

122

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

tenderness survives” (lines 13 and 16). As he explains in a tape recording: “There is an intensely personal emotion at the same time that there is a very clear political statement being made for those who will listen.”146 The poem “This Sun on This Rubble After Rain,” also published in November 1962 in adelphi literary review, is in similar vein. It is presumably about the same woman and about South Africa,147 and is a fusion of what Brutus characterises as the emotionally private and the politically public: “the fusion of political statement at one level with the private, emotional statement on another level and the same words functioning simultaneously for both purposes.”148 The couple is subjected to the “jackboots” (line 5) of those who enforce apartheid; South Africa, even more horrifyingly, has been “Sharpevilled” (line 10) – a reference to the callous shooting of unarmed protesters by police. Yet, despite such blatant cruelty and violence, the poem is not devoid of hope – the couple still manages to find comfort in each other, while the rain brings some relief to the country: This sun on this rubble after rain. Bruised though we must be some easement we require unarguably, though we argue against desire. Under jackboots our bones and spirits crunch forced into sweat-tear-sodden slush – now glow-lipped by this sudden touch: – sun-stripped perhaps, our bones may later sing or spell out some malignant nemesis Sharpevilled to spearpoints for revenging but now our pride-dumbed mouths are wide in wordless supplication – are grateful for the least relief from pain – like this sun on this debris after rain.149

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 122

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

Chapter 3: 1950s–1962

123

A poem bearing the footnote “Flying into Kimberley” – written in or around February 1963 – recounts Brutus’s flight to the northern Cape to meet the woman before she leaves South Africa. At one level, it is a love poem to her – “a description of an emotional relationship with a particular woman.”150 At another level, the poem is about South Africa; in the first stanza, it describes the land below the descending plane as “muddied by ageless misery.”151 In addition, Brutus points out, the footnote “places it [the poem] geographically and topographically, flying into this barren town in the middle of the plateau of South Africa with the wasteland, the diamond diggings, the puddles, the pools one sees from the air.”152 The footnote thus inserts his emotional relationship with the country into the poem in an understated though still highly conspicuous way: So it’s a poem which is both about a woman and about South Africa and about the predicament of both. The woman is being deported, the land is being raped. So I’m really dealing with the two and my own tenderness for both the woman and the land and so I write the lines “descending to you / in a rage of tenderness / you bear me / patiently.”153 However, it is an untitled poem with the opening line “Kneeling before you in a gesture” that Brutus singles out as perhaps his most successful attempt to fuse the personal and the political. In an interview, he submits that “in some ways this one…may be the best expression of that kind of lyricism.”154 The first lines of each stanza are addressed to a particular person. He then proceeds to thank her in the last stanza for protecting him from “the knives and teeth; boots, bayonets and knuckles.”155 Brutus comments that “worked into that texture is the unmistakable qualities of the South African landscape so that, though the poem has a personal and intimate and private relevance for a particular individual, it is a poem others living in the South African society with its batons, its clubs, its violence, any person living in the South African society can relate to the predicament of the people in the poem.”156

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 123

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

124

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

The government prohibition on Brutus publishing any of his writing therefore clearly did not have the intended effect. If anything, it provoked him into writing more regularly. Before then, as he points out in an article published by PEN, he produced little more than the occasional poem.157 He shared these incidental efforts with friends, and did not make any concerted attempt to publish his writing. Part of the reason was that he saw his poetry as a personal pastime; more seriously, he did not regard his poems highly. After July 1962, however, his attitude towards writing poetry changed: it was now no longer a casual act of self-expression; writing, and publishing, poetry now became a political imperative. He defiantly refused to accept the criminalisation of his writing. “Of all the restraints arbitrarily put on my freedom by the government, that which made it illegal for me to publish anything in South Africa seemed to me quite the grossest,” he asserts. “I felt profoundly affronted. Affronted to the point that I was willing to act in defiance of the order and to use any ruse to get around it.”158 The quasi-legal attempts to silence Brutus thus backfired. His initial banning order in October 1961, along with his suspension from teaching and his subsequent dismissal, led to his relocation to Johannesburg the following year. There – in the political and economic heartland of South Africa – his involvement in opposition to apartheid intensified. His listing in July 1962 under the General Law Amendment Act, too, failed to deter him. In fact, it infused his writing with a new urgency, and he published several newspaper articles anonymously while in Johannesburg. His listing also added a new purpose to his poetry; the occasional writer of poetry now became a far more dedicated and regular writer of poems. “Looking back,” he notes, “the banning order spurred me to greater creativity and to the decision to publish.”159 It is this frenetic period in Johannesburg that will now be addressed more closely.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 124

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

THE SOUTH

DENNIS BRUTUS

Af RICAN YE ARS Chapter 4: 1962-1964

After Brutus was dismissed from his post as a teacher at Paterson High, he decided to relocate to Johannesburg in 1962, having secured a teaching post there at a privately run school. The Central Indian High School – initially located in Central Road, Fordsburg, near the city centre – was established in 1955 in protest against the forced removal of people classified as Indian from central Johannesburg under the Group Areas Act. Its first principal was Michael Harmel, a founder member of the Congress of Democrats, and its staff members included prominent anti-apartheid activists such as Duma Nokwe, Molly Fischer and Alfred Hutchinson.1 Such an overtly politically grounded school was a logical new educational base for Brutus. Another reason behind Brutus’s move to Johannesburg was supposedly to study at Wits University, for which he obtained a scholarship from Leeds University.2 In fact, he was initially offered funding to study at the UK university, but when his application for a passport was refused, he secured an agreement to use the scholarship to study in South Africa instead.3 As for his choice of subject, Brutus maintains that his decision to study law at Wits University was quite arbitrary, and that he did not have the slightest interest in the field. Instead, he claims, his primary concern was to register as a student in order to avoid the extension of his 12-hour house arrest to 24 hours – which, according to a security policeman, was already under consideration. “At that stage I knew so little about law that I didn’t even know how to punctuate LLB,” he submits. “I stood

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 125

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

126

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

there [one afternoon in the Wits University registration queue] figuring out where the full stops had to go.”4 Perhaps his choice of study was also informed by the realisation that the future prospect of ever earning a living as a teacher again after being served with a banning order was highly unlikely.5 A law career was appealing for another reason, too: it offered him an opportunity to continue engaging with apartheid while banned, this time by challenging its statutory foundations and effects on people in court. “My approach to law at that point was [initially] academic,” he recalls. “Subsequently it got very serious – I was constantly up against the law and the South African system.”6 Whatever the reason for Brutus’s choice of study, it was no doubt a traumatic decision to move to Johannesburg. It meant leaving behind his wife with their children. In addition to their three sons, Marc, Julian and Antony, there were now also three daughters, Jacinta, Justina and Cornelia.7 Besides looking after the children, May was the family’s only breadwinner at the time as a teacher at a crèche. Fortunately, Brutus’s mother, known to the children as “Ma Brutus,” lived with them in North End and was able to provide some support.8 Whatever his personal distress about leaving home, Brutus immediately plunged into political activities of one kind or another in his new place of abode. He re-established contact with Ahmed Kathrada, for instance, with whom he occasionally used to stay in his flat at Kholvad House in Market Street in Johannesburg’s city centre.9 Kathrada, an underground South African Communist Party (SACP) member, was then serving a five-year ban himself. Coincidentally, his banning order was ending in January 1962. In order to avoid another ban being served on him when it expired at midnight on 15 January, Kathrada stayed away from his flat and contrived to leave Johannesburg just after midnight.10 Along with fellow English teacher and political activist Tommy Vassen, Brutus accompanied Kathrada on a road trip to Cape Town. Kathrada describes the long drive southwards in his Beetle as an enriching experience. “I could just listen to them…Both of them were very good in English literature,” Kathrada recounts. “I was the driver. They kept me going.”11 He also fondly recalls their ribald sense of humour. “Apart from

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 126

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

127

their [literary] knowledge, they were both very humorous people. They were not all the time serious,” he adds. “Dennis was very down to earth. With Dennis, there were no holds barred. We never said, ‘This is a rude joke, we can’t say it.’ That was our relationship…It was very close. We could swear; we could do anything.”12 *** Presumably after his return to Johannesburg, Brutus registered as a part-time law student at Wits University. He selected the following subjects: Introduction to South African Law, Roman Law, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law and Procedure, Public International Law and Legal Latin.13 However, his time at the university was anything but an idyllic interlude. Unlike the racial prejudice experienced in more subtle ways when he was a student at SANC, he found the racism and sexism at Wits University’s law school to be far more overt. He singles out Professor H.R. Hahlo, the head of the law school and the dean of the law faculty, for particular censure. According to Brutus, Hahlo often expressed the view during his course on jurisprudence that black people and women were not equipped to study law.14 Nor did Brutus escape prejudice outside the lecture theatre: in terms of the permit that allowed him to study at a whites-only university, he was not allowed to use any of the institution’s sports or dining facilities.15 The first two stanzas of his poem “Off the Campus: Wits” reflects a profound sense of social alienation at the university:16 Tree-bowered in this quaint romantic way we look down on the slopes of sunlit turf and hear the clean-limbed Nordics at their play. We cower in our green-black primitive retreat their shouts pursuing us like intermittent surf peacock-raucous, or wracking as a tom-tom’s beat17

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 127

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

128

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Life was even less bearable beyond the campus. After Brutus secured a teaching position at Central Indian High, he sought permission from the government in mid-February to take up the post. He even informed the Department of Justice of his intention to move his wife and children to Johannesburg if allowed to teach at the school. However, his request was viewed with disdain. “It is rather disquieting that the cause of these people, who are running a school which is for all practical purposes a breeding place of communists, should be furthered by allowing others who share their views also to teach there,” the Department states brusquely in a letter signed on 11 and 16 April 1962 . “The difficulty Brutus finds himself in is the direct result of his past activities.” It adds sarcastically: “He will no doubt be able to find other employment and the Department therefore feels that his application should be refused.”18 There was a serious limitation, however, to the employment options open to Brutus as a banned person whose freedom of association was severely curtailed. The security police already suspected – quite correctly – that he was teaching surreptitiously at Central Indian High, but was unable to obtain sufficient evidence to prove it. Brutus, for his part, insisted that he worked at the school in a temporary capacity as a secretary while awaiting a decision from Minister of Justice B.J. Vorster.19 He was eventually refused permission to teach at Central Indian High in July 1962.20 Brutus refused to allow such acts of vindictiveness to drive him out of Johannesburg. In August 1962, in an audacious move, he decided to stand for election to Wits University’s SRC – barely a month after he was listed under the General Law Amendment Act. There was probably far more to his decision than merely performing an impudent gesture of defiance. He probably viewed membership of the student body as offering him a legal avenue to remain active in public affairs of one kind or another. Remarkably, even though he was unable to campaign for office due to his banning order, he attracted the third-highest number of votes.21 In fact, he believes his campaign slogan, “Dennis Brutus Can’t Speak,” probably won him many sympathy votes.22 His involvement in the SRC did not go much further, however. In October 1962, the Department of Justice

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 128

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

129

curtly dismissed a request from the student body to allow him to attend meetings of the SRC or any of its subcommittees.23 *** Brutus was more successful in remaining active in SASA that year. Even though his banning order prevented him from attending any meetings, he managed to secure a one-on-one appointment with Gordon Leggat, the manager of New Zealand’s touring cricket team, in February 1962 in Port Elizabeth.24 During the discussion, Brutus reiterated SASA’s opposition to the tour on the grounds that South Africa’s team was unrepresentative because it included white players only. Leggat responded that the tour did not involve test matches and that, in any event, it was up to the ICC to decide whether the South African team was representative. Brutus disputed this, and argued that it was entirely within the New Zealand Cricket Council’s power to decide whether or not to tour South Africa: “As to whose cause was advanced by this tour, I would say that all it has done is to strengthen the hand of those who are organising racial cricket in South Africa – they are being supported in their policy by New Zealand – a policy that is not forced upon them.”25 Some speculate that Leggat agreed to see Brutus primarily because of his concern about the financial implications of the SASA-led campaign against the tour.26 He specifically raised the non-attendance of black spectators at matches, and complained that the tour would probably end up with a financial loss. Brutus was unapologetic in his response: “I hope you won’t mind this, but I must say that I am very pleased to hear that you have received little non-white support. We have been working on a campaign asking people not to support any form of racial sport.”27 The tour ultimately resulted in a deficit of £8 900 for New Zealand – a substantial sum at the time.28 Brutus also found other ways of continuing to participate in SASA’s activities in 1962. Writing, of course, remained a key mechanism through which to do so. In May 1962, for example, he published an article in New Age in which he tried to clarify the organisation’s opposition to certain

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 129

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

130

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

sports tours.29 That same month Brutus, Rangasamy and Paton jointly addressed the British Lions rugby team in a newspaper letter “on behalf of many who fervently wished that you would not make a tour of South Africa.”30 It reminded the team that only white players were selected to play for the Springboks, and challenged them: “What would you say if in Britain all Welshmen, or manual labourers, or Jews were debarred from selection for provincial and national teams.” Brutus also wrote directly to the British Lions on behalf of SASA; he outlined the association’s objections to the planned tour of South Africa and requested a meeting to explain its views. He reminded the team’s management that “true sportsmanship consists in giving a fair chance to all to prove their worth, with no restrictions based on racial prejudice.”31 In June 1962, Brutus wrote two reports for New Age on racism and sport in South Africa. In the first, he welcomed the increase in international pressure on what he witheringly referred to as “our sports racialists.”32 A week later, he predicted greater pressure on non-racial sports bodies from government – at both municipal and national level – to force them into racially prescribed organisations and areas. “There will not be much we can do about it either,” he warned. “It will be backed by the police and the courts.” In response to this expected onslaught, he reiterated calls for a boycott of segregated sports events in South Africa and appealed for support for SASA.33 These newspaper reports were among his last public interventions on behalf of SASA. In July 1962, he was prohibited from publishing any writing under the General Law Amendment Act. Yet he was no doubt still furtively involved in SASA behind the scenes. It was largely on his initiative, for instance, that SASA decided to establish a non-racial Olympic committee. Initially, Brutus’s intention was merely to establish an official relationship with the IOC.34 This objective later shifted to a decision to seek direct affiliation to the Olympic body by forming SANROC.35 In line with this goal, SASA passed the following resolution at an executive committee meeting in July 1962: “SASA has served its purpose, and cannot take the Olympic fight [for IOC representation] any further.”36

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 130

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

131

The final decision on SASA’s future was scheduled for discussion at its council meeting in Durban on 4 October 1962. As SASA president, Rangasamy wrote to Vorster on 18 September to request permission for Brutus to attend the meeting. He described the planned meeting as important and said Brutus’s presence, in his capacity as secretary, was essential.37 Not surprisingly, the request was rejected. In a separate memorandum marked “Secret,” dated 3 October, the Department of Justice noted that SASA “is not favourably disposed towards Government policy and attacks it overseas.”38 It also referred to the organisation’s efforts to exclude South African sports teams from the Olympics unless they were fully representative: “It is almost certain that the Government’s policy will be criticised at the meeting and that Brutus will endeavour to sow further seeds of discord.” Brutus’s enforced absence from proceedings did not significantly alter the course of events at the council meeting.39 SASA decided not to disband on the grounds that there was still a role for it, but launched SANROC anyway – with Brutus as president.40 Once again, he was the mastermind behind this shrewd act of defiance. He subsequently explained his proposal to SASA as follows: “It’s just a name – I won’t do any work, because I’m banned, but they might as well give me this link. So I became honorary president, with no work to do, no function, nothing.”41 It was a cunning way of getting around some of the restrictions imposed by his banning order, with the government unable to prevent him from assuming a position that did not require his attendance at meetings and was seemingly devoid of any direct functions. This position nevertheless allowed him vital access to SANROC, and enabled him to continue to be tangentially involved in its activities despite his ban. SANROC even called for a national convention on sport – an unmistakeable echo of the call of the CNC, in which Brutus was centrally involved until his banning, for a national convention on the country’s constitution.42 In an article in Fighting Talk in December 1962 under the pseudonym John Player, he rejoiced: “Non-racial sport forged ahead in 1962. And the racialists ran around in circles trying to throw up obstacles. But the progress seen in past years was steadily maintained and there is lots more in the offing.”43 Although he anticipated greater

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 131

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

132

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

political pressure from the government and white sports bodies in future, he felt confident enough to predict: Facing the new year, we are faced with two demands: To tighten up our organisations and make them efficient for the coming showdown; and to see that the sportsmen of the world are fully informed of the position here and take their stand on our side against racialism in sport. If we can take care of this, 1963 promises to be our biggest year in sport ever – Apartheid in sport is on the way out! *** Another reason for Brutus to celebrate was that he entered the new year with a quartet of poems. He published these, with the umbrella title “Tourist Guide,” in Fighting Talk in January 1963 under the initials, B.K. The poems are reflections on some of South Africa’s main cities, among them Durban and Cape Town, two places he knew well through his travels across South Africa on various political assignations. In addition, he was very familiar with Durban because his two sisters were living there: Catherine with her husband, Louis Fayle, and their two sons, Vaughn and Aidan; and Helen with her husband, Harold Yon, and their two sons, Gregory and Paul. In fact, according to Gregory Yon, Brutus spent some time in their flat at Hawa Mansions in Centre Street in Overport, in hiding from the security police, around 1961.44 In the poem “Port Elizabeth,” Brutus powerfully evokes the diverse and contradictory elements of his hometown. On the one hand, it is “a settlers’ settled town / of cockneys, upstarts and misfits” (lines 1 and 2); on the other, Africa, the native continent, is present with subdued insistent presence in the horned feet of gaunt dock labourers and in the shadows of the township’s broken streets (lines 11 to 14).

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 132

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

133

The haunting memory of those shot in the city during a procession on Good Friday in 1956, first recounted in the poem “For a Dead African,” refuses to leave him; he once again pays homage to them in the last line of “Port Elizabeth.” The poem “Johannesburg,” too, recounts the overwhelming contrasts in the city where he is now based: Hills and dumps and concrete piles and ragged areas of untended veld burrows and tremors pulsing underground and females and fists in the warrened cliffs but hints of sky and trees redeem the air when thunder deluges the fug and metal in the clank of teeming shacks tocsins the surgeon’s cleansing cleaver.45 Brutus also published the poem “Autumn” in January 1963 in the student publication adelphi literary review under the initials, B.K. (it was later republished without a title in his debut collection). The 10line poem, which deals with the beauty of nature, bears clear traces of Hopkins’s influence on the imaginative way that Brutus employs compounds. In fact, Gardner describes the Victorian poet as a genius for his ability to compound words to create a new word. Hopkins does this in several ways, including by fusing words or by hyphenating words. “The purpose of this compounding is to weld together, in one concentrated image, all the essential characteristics of the object,” observes Gardner.46 Brutus often imitates this device of compounding words in his early poems. Daniel Abasiekong, one of the earliest literary critics of his work, believes this invention of what he calls “original double-barrel coinages” infuses Brutus’s poetry with vitality.47 In “Autumn,” this is evident in lines 2, 4 and 7:48 Autumn comes here with ostentation. Her polite-shrew’s voice is sharp in the wind

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 133

2020-01-17 03:50:44 PM

134

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

she trails her hair, wind-blown browns in the blonde, across the oaks, streaking their nervous green: her gusty breath, passion-keen, is sweet in the morning air intense with the desire for possession – and for death.49 *** Later that year Brutus published “A Troubadour, I Traverse All My Land,” which was a defining moment in his poetry.50 It is the first poem in which he assumes the poetic persona of a troubadour, a composer of lyrical poetry during the Middle Ages in what is now Europe. Before he was banned, he often criss-crossed South Africa to attend political meetings. Even when he was confined to Johannesburg under an amended banning order, he continued to travel from time to time: he and his wife concocted various reasons to obtain permission for him to travel home to Port Elizabeth.51 It was as a result of his constant travels – at least in part – that Brutus first thought of adopting the poetic persona of a troubadour: I liked those trips [from Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth] because I was doing what they were telling me I couldn’t do. So, travelling around and having this notion of myself travelling around, the ideas began to fall into place with this shape. Gradually they came together. I wanted to catch a certain medieval quality – I forget why – and that’s why you have a troubadour, a Don Quixote, quixoting in the poem.52 The troubadours first emerged around 1100 in what is today known as France.53 According to Ruth Harvey, the word “troubadour” is derived from the Latin word trobare,54 which means “to invent” (or, in this context, to compose). In particular, troubadours were poets who

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 134

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

135

performed their compositions. More specifically, troubadours were composers mainly of lyric poetry.55 For this reason, Harvey emphasises that the word “troubadour” has “the fairly specialised sense of a man who composed lyric poetry.”56 Brutus’s poem “A Troubadour, I Traverse All My Land,” first published in Purple Renoster in 1963, certainly fits this description: A troubadour, I traverse all my land exploring all her wide-flung parts with zest probing in motion sweeter far than rest her secret thickets with an amorous hand: and I have laughed, disdaining those who banned inquiry and movement, delighting in the test of will when doomed by Saracened arrest, choosing, like unarmed thumb, simply to stand. Thus, quixoting till a cast-off of my land I sing and fare, person to loved-one pressed braced for this pressure, and the captor’s hand that snaps off service like a weathered strand: no mistress-favour has adorned my breast only the shadow of an arrow-brand.57 It features all three attributes that Brutus associates with the troubadour: the fighter, the singer and the lover.58 Firstly, the speaker characterises himself as a fighter: he disregards personal danger in lines 5 and 6 (“disdaining those who banned / inquiry and movement”) and fearlessly confronts the enemy in lines 6 and 7 (“delighting in the test / of will when doomed by Saracened arrest”). This is an indirect reference to Brutus’s occasional defiance of his banning order, which restricted his ability to leave his house and to travel freely. Secondly, like the troubadour of Brutus’s imagination, the fighter sings during his confrontation with the enemy (line 10). And, thirdly, the speaker compares his love for his country to his love for a woman, and

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 135

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

136

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

describes his travels as “exploring all her wide-flung parts” (line 2) and “probing… / her secret thickets with an amorous hand” (lines 3 and 4). Like that of the troubadour, his love is unrequited: “no mistressfavour has adorned my breast” (line 13) – in Brutus’s case, because South Africa, the object of his love, discriminates against him on racial grounds because he is classified as coloured. The poem provides several other indications of how Brutus conceptualised the troubadour. At one level, “Saracened arrest” (line 7) refers to the armoured cars purchased by the South African police from the army to quell anti-apartheid protests. They were deployed against those who gathered in Sharpeville to protest against the pass laws. However, on another level, the word “Saracened” can be read as a reference to the Saracens, the inhabitants of the south-western part of Asia known as Arabia, who forcibly occupied Jerusalem during the seventh century. It is clear that Brutus employs the word “Saracen” in a pejorative sense in the poem: he uses it to refer to an intruder or invader. Years later, in a discussion of the poem, he specifically mentions the Saracens and goes on to explain the dual meaning of the word that he was attempting to evoke: “There is a deliberate attempt there to play on both the Saracen in a medieval context and the modern Saracen as the armoured car of the South African police.”59 In the same discussion, he even refers to “Saladin” (Salah-ed Din Yusuf), the sultan who fought against the crusaders when they tried to reclaim Jerusalem during the Third Crusade (1189–1192). Brutus was therefore drawing a direct comparison in the poem between the Saracens as foreign invaders and the NP government as colonial occupiers of South Africa. This suggests a view of the troubadour as a courageous fighter engaged in a deadly battle in pursuit of a just cause. Such a reading is supported by the image of an “unarmed thumb,” a hand sign used by supporters of the ANC. There is another important indication in the poem of how Brutus views the troubadour. He uses the verb “quixoting” in the opening line of the sestet, which is obviously based on the name of the central character in Miguel de Cervantes’s 1605 novel, The Adventures of Don Quixote de La Mancha. In broad terms, the novel is about a retired member of the

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 136

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

137

Spanish nobility who decides to become a knight and roams the country on horseback in pursuit of various causes, accompanied by his faithful servant, Sancho Panza. As Anthony J. Cascardi comments, the novel has since “become reduced in the popular mind to the pencil-thin profile of its principal character, an errant knight of La Mancha seen tilting at windmills.”60 Brutus appears to share this characterisation of Quixote as a comical figure engaged in a seemingly absurd and futile quest. In his interview with Pieterse in 1966, he states: There is an element of laughter in my work; it may be that I am engaged in a fight but at the same time I find a certain delight in it. I enjoy the fight; and this is where the laughter and the music, the gaiety and the humour come in. I can laugh at myself and see myself as a little like Don Quixote, tilting at windmills or, if you like, fighting a losing battle.61 Decades later, in an interview with his editor Lamont B. Steptoe in 2004, Brutus still draws comparisons between himself and Quixote, “the guy who fights hopeless battles.”62 However, such comments must not be taken at face value. Brutus was a committed political activist who participated in various campaigns in the struggle to achieve a just and equitable society in South Africa. It is unlikely he would have been involved in these activities, over such an extended period, if he truly believed there was no prospect of victory. Nor does the facetiousness of comparing himself with Quixote hold for his poetry. As Pieterse points out to him: “I’d like to say that I think you do yourself an injustice – not a losing battle, certainly that is not the tenor, the resonance of your verse.”63 In fact, Brutus may resemble Quixote in quite a different sense. Ian Watt points out that, during the Romantic period at the end of the eighteenth century, certain writers in England, France and Germany transformed Quixote from a buffoon-like figure into “a pure and genuine fighter for social equality and for an ideal.”64 Wordsworth, for instance, refers with some admiration in Book Five (lines 59 and 60) of his autobiographical poem “The Prelude” to “The famous history of the errant knight / Recorded by Cervantes.”65

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 137

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

138

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Contemporary writers advocate a more nuanced reading of Don Quixote as well. The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, for instance, observes in his foreword to an edition of the novel published in 1986 that “in spite of his recurrent disasters as a do-gooder, [Quixote] never fails in his faith in the ideal of justice.”66 There is certainly sufficient evidence in the novel for such an interpretation. For example, Quixote himself proclaims that “the order of knight-errantry was first instituted to defend damsels, protect widows, and succour the needy and the fatherless.”67 Nevertheless, the temptation must be resisted to read too much into a single reference to Quixote in “A Troubadour, I Traverse All My Land.” What appeals to Brutus most about Quixote, by his own admission, is that he regards Cervantes’s character as “a variation on the troubadour idea.”68 In his view, “the man who goes ‘tilting with windmills’ is not very much different from the troubadour, minstrel or el trovatore – I think this is the same thing – the man who travelled across Europe, fighting and loving and singing.” It is these contradictory elements in Quixote that attract Brutus – more than the popular image of Quixote as a ridiculous figure engaged in a hopeless mission – and which he believes are present in the troubadour as well.69 *** Brutus’s poem “A Troubadour, I Traverse All My Land,” even at just 14 lines, is therefore rich in evidence of how he conceives the troubadour. Perhaps, most important of all, is the following phrase in line 3 of the first stanza: “in motion sweeter far than rest.” This suggests that, in the prevailing circumstances, Brutus finds much greater solace in constantly being in motion rather than in being in a state of repose. Furthermore, he appears to equate immobility with inactivity. As a result, even when his freedom is restricted after he is banned and listed, he still tries to find ways to get around these prohibitions – hence his continued clandestine involvement in SANROC in South Africa during the early 1960s. This became even more difficult after his banning order was replaced with a new, more restrictive, decree by Vorster on 21 January 1963. Three

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 138

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

139

sets of restrictions – issued under the Suppression of Communism Act and valid for five years – were served on him on 2 February at the boarding house where he lived at 15(a) Park Road, Fordsburg. These prevented him from attending any political or even social gatherings “at which any principle or policy of the Government of a State is propagated, defended, attacked, criticised or discussed.” He was also disallowed from entering “any location, native hostel or native village” or any factory, and was barred as well from communicating with any person listed under the Suppression of Communism Act or the Riotous Assemblies Act. In addition, he was ordered to report to the Fordsburg police station every Saturday between 8 am and 6 pm.70 Brutus’s only concession to the sweeping new ban imposed on him was to resign as president of SANROC. Nevertheless, he remained active in its affairs clandestinely. The security police were well aware of his continued involvement in the organisation. A police report dated 20 May 1963 stated that he still performed the role of SANROC president; in addition, it noted that he was a secretary at Central Indian High and a student and SRC member at Wits University. “As he belongs to these organisations, he is in a favourable position to continue his propaganda,” declared the report, and recommended several additional restrictions. The Department of Justice concurred: “It is clear that he has no intention of ending his activities; on the contrary, he uses every available opportunity to continue his leftist activities.”71 This conclusion was certainly justified. For example, when SANROC was invited in May by SAONGA to a meeting with Swiss journalist Rudolf Balsiger, who was in South Africa to write a report on racism in sport, Brutus turned up as well. According to SAONGA chairman Frank Braun, six SANROC representatives came to their offices on 29 May.72 Brutus later claimed that he merely wanted to introduce the SANROC delegation to SAONGA with the intention of helping to minimise any potential acrimony between the two rival bodies. Soon after he arrived, however, so did two security policemen – who promptly arrested him for allegedly contravening the terms of his banning order.73 He was duly charged in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on 30 May 1963 and released on bail of R400.74

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 139

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

140

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Brutus was confident that he would be acquitted of illegally attending a gathering (in fact, he was arrested even before the meeting started). But, as his amended restrictions indicate, the government was becoming increasingly determined to neutralise him; a conviction for breaking his banning order would provide it with a convenient pretext to imprison him and remove him from the political domain for a while. And, if that failed, it could always draw on new repressive measures from its constantly expanding legal arsenal. Since 2 May 1963, for example, Section 17 of the General Law Amendment Act empowered any police officer to detain anyone suspected of a political crime (or even merely possessing knowledge of such a crime) without a warrant of arrest, and to hold them for 90 days without access to a lawyer.75 According to one estimate, 544 people were arrested in the first six months after the 90-day law was passed.76 In the face of such draconian legislation, some fellow activists advised Brutus to go into exile. SANROC chairman John Harris, a teacher and Liberal Party member, was among those who encouraged him to leave the country.77 “John insisted that even if I were acquitted… it was probable that I would be detained indefinitely so that I would be completely ineffective,” Brutus recounts.78 In July 1963, his banning order was amended for the fourth time – barely six months after the previous set of restrictions were added. Now he was also prevented from entering “any place or area which constitutes the premises on which any public or private university, university college, college, school or other educational institution is situate[d],” and barred from “giving any educational instruction in any manner or any form to any person other than a person of whom you are a parent.”79 These additional measures naturally made him the focus of increased police surveillance. Warrant Officer Albertus Helberg, in particular, monitored his movements closely. The security policeman made frequent visits to Central Indian High to keep a watch on Brutus, and told him that he knew he was teaching there illegally. It was also Helberg who served his amended banning order on him in February. Yet Brutus was still full of uncertainty about whether or not to leave the country. “I still temporized and was extremely reluctant,” he states, “and in fact never in all the time I was in South Africa looked at a map to consider possibilities of escape.”80

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 140

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

141

Eventually he learnt that it was relatively easy to reach neighbouring Swaziland, at the time still a British-controlled territory, as its border was poorly guarded and large numbers of visitors often entered it. A fellow student at Brutus’s boarding house assured Brutus of the lax security and the voluminous traffic across the border. Harris also constantly made enquiries about the best options for sneaking out of the country and kept relaying new information to him. In the end, Brutus decided to leave for Swaziland and, from there, to make his way to Kenya to attend a meeting of the IOC executive in October. He first arranged for his wife to visit him in Johannesburg, and informed her of his decision to leave the country. His intention was that his family would join him later. *** On 27 July 1963, as usual, he signed the register at a police station in terms of his bail conditions. The next morning, a Sunday, he joined Harris and his wife Ann in their Volkswagen minibus.81 And so began his life-changing journey to Swaziland. Brutus, initially concealed in what he describes as a box, was wracked with guilt. “I remember feeling a great anguish about leaving South Africa,” he recalls. “This was compounded of a sense of denial, almost of amputation, and indeed of betrayal of leaving the country when I ought to have remained there (and, of course, fear of arrest).”82 He adds: “It was part sorrow, part guilt, part a sense of betrayal, of a failure to serve the country, of deserting it.”83 His ambivalence about leaving probably continued to torment him on the drive eastwards, via Ermelo, to the Swazi capital of Mbabane. His attachment to South Africa is poignantly reflected in the poem “When Last I Ranged and Revelled All Your Length” (the dateline, “Jbg/Mbabane” suggests that it can be linked directly to that fateful journey):84 When last I ranged and revelled all your length I vowed to savour your most beauteous curves with such devout and lingering delight that they would etch themselves into my brain to comfort me throughout the prisoned night.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 141

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

142

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

But waking early in the frosty dawn and finding you dishevelled and unkempt my heart arose as though you showed your best – and then I wryly knew myself to be the slave of an habituated love.85 Brutus entered Swaziland without any difficulty.86 The country immediately made a positive impression on him when he passed the border post: “Green hills, heavily forested, tall trees along the road.”87 It was very different from the vast stretches of arid land he had passed through on the way from South Africa. Brutus stayed for a few days in Mbabane with Jordan Ngubane,88 a Liberal Party member who went into exile after he was banned earlier that year, and afterwards with Allen Nxumalo, a Swazi medical doctor, on his farm on the outskirts of the town.89 The more carefree lifestyle there appealed to him, too. Yet, despite these new attractions, his thoughts still lingered stubbornly on South Africa. His ambivalent feelings about South Africa are captured eloquently in the poem “I Am out of Love with You for Now,” which he started while at Wits University and worked on again in Swaziland:90 I am out of love with you for now; cold-sodden in my misery your contours and allurements cannot move me: I murmur old endearments to revive our old familiar glow again – like sapless autumn leaves they rasp in vain. You have asked too much of me: fond-fool, bereft I cling unloving, to remembered love and the spring.91 ***

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 142

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

143

But, for the moment, there were more immediate matters that demanded his full attention in Swaziland: the country’s authorities refused to grant him a residence permit.92 He made renewed attempts to get to neighbouring Mozambique, then still a Portuguese colony, where he intended to board a flight to Nairobi in Kenya to attend the IOC meeting in October.93 He was still in Swaziland, though, when his 81-year-old father died in September 1963. “[He was] a lonely man, an old man who had lived a full life, much of it at the end very sad, and it filled me with great sadness,” Brutus reflects.94 That he would be unable to attend his father’s funeral made his grief even more painful. However, there was no turning back; he would have been arrested immediately if he reentered South Africa. Instead, he turned to religion to assuage his guilt. He even attended Mass at a cathedral in Manzini on the Sunday after his father died: “I think it was my father’s death that turned me very strongly in a religious direction.”95 In spite of the personal anguish he was going through, he pressed ahead with his plans to get to Mozambique. However, his attempt to join a chartered flight to Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) fell through when the pilot succumbed to threats from South Africa that it would shoot down the plane. George Msibi, a Swazi medical doctor, then volunteered to drive him to Mozambique. Brutus accepted the offer and, once again, chose a weekend – Saturday, 14 September – to make his getaway. It was a relaxed journey in a Volvo, unlike the tense and fear-filled drive from Johannesburg to the Swazi border. The presence of Beatrice Simelane, a nurse and Msibi’s lover, added to the convivial atmosphere. Brutus even found time to admire the scenery along the way: “We drove through the wooded countryside, and then over the hills on a good road, all round us the entire horizon encircling us, suffused in purples, soft pinks, a kind of mixture of colours as one might see in a seashell, opalescent or iridescent.”96 Brutus clearly remembers reaching the Swaziland-Mozambique border at sunset. Msibi was greeted cheerfully on the Swazi side, followed by a lengthy discussion with a border official. They eventually got back into the car and headed for the Goba border post in Mozambique. When they reached it, the car was immediately surrounded by armed

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 143

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

144

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

men with automatic rifles. All three occupants were ordered out of the car and marched off to nearby offices. Brutus’s passport was inspected very closely, and the car was thoroughly searched – even the seats and the hubcaps were removed. His fountain pen, too, was unscrewed and carefully scrutinised. Yet Brutus was not perturbed; after an irritated objection to what he regarded as excessive precautions, he proceeded to work on a crossword puzzle in that morning’s newspaper. When a jeep arrived at the border post with police from Lourenço Marques, Msibi’s car was searched again. He and Simelane were then released.97 Brutus, on the other hand, was taken to the jeep and handcuffed to a metal ring on the floor at the back of the vehicle. He was driven to Lourenço Marques, where he was interrogated for several hours that night at Vila Algarve, which he later learnt was the headquarters of the Portuguese secret police in Mozambique. The notorious Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado, known commonly by its acronym PIDE, rejected Brutus’s request to see a lawyer or the British consul and instead locked him in a cell after his interrogation. Even then, Brutus was not alarmed and attributed his ordeal to no more than overzealous bureaucracy. The next day he demanded to be allowed to attend Mass. He also refused to eat unless he was allowed to see the British consul. Instead, on the Monday, he was again taken for questioning; it was now clear that the PIDE knew who he was, and that it believed him to be a dangerous saboteur. In an attempt to dissuade them that he was a communist spy, as they were misinformed, he showed them his rosary as proof of his Catholicism. Further interrogations nevertheless followed during the course of the day. And then came the fateful decision that would change Brutus’s life forever: the PIDE decided to hand him over to their South African counterparts at the border post at Komatipoort.98 *** There to meet him was his old nemesis, Helberg, and another policeman, Sergeant Christiaan Kleingeld: “I think that was the moment of sick panic, or a kind of nausea and numbness and a sense of betrayal by the Portuguese, and then gradually a kind of awareness of the kinds of

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 144

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

145

danger that now awaited me.”99 He was first taken to a police station in Komatipoort, and then locked in a prison cell. There, he spent the night agonising about how to escape; he was particularly concerned that no one in South Africa knew about his arrest. He managed to persuade some cellmates to help him over a barbed-wire fence the next morning, but eventually abandoned this plan, in part because the area was too isolated to evade arrest for long. After a brief court appearance later that Tuesday, Brutus’s case was remanded to Johannesburg. He was whisked out of the court by Helberg and Kleingeld, and taken to a Studebaker Lark waiting outside. And so Brutus’s journey back to Johannesburg began on 17 September, with two stops along the way. When they went to a shop in Middelburg, he dropped a cigarette packet with a message scribbled on it, no doubt a vain attempt to draw attention to his arrest. By the time they got to Pretoria, he admits, he felt distraught.100 Uppermost in his thoughts were the implications of his arrest for those who assisted him to leave the country and for those he was associated with in the ANC. That no one knew about his arrest also still gnawed away at him; he feared that he might be killed while in custody and made to disappear without a trace. It was in this frantic state of mind that he reached Johannesburg around 5 pm. The city streets were busy as people were already beginning to leave work. By the time Brutus and the two policemen pulled up at Marshall Square police station, he knew what he was going to do. “My nature is such I always start by being pessimistic,” he explained in a newspaper interview. “Then I begin to fight.”101 After they got out of the car to retrieve his suitcase from the boot, Brutus sprinted off. Ignoring the cries of the policemen to stop, he weaved through the crowds of pedestrians and made it on to a passing bus. Kleingeld caught up with the bus, but Brutus kicked at him to prevent him from boarding. However, the anxious bus conductor intervened and bundled Brutus off the bus, perhaps thinking he was a thief. He fell and hurt his knee, but scrambled up and ran off again – this time right into the path of Helberg. “I swerved by him, and as I passed him I heard a loud sound and felt a dull thump as if someone had punched me in the back,” says Brutus.102 He carried on running, but noticed a blood stain on

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 145

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

146

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

his shirt and realised he was shot. Helberg then arrested him near the headquarters of the mining conglomerate Anglo-American in Main Street: Of all of that experience, if I am to be honest, I most remember tears streaming down my face. I remember Godfrey Pitje, a college friend who’d just happened to be passing by, saying “Be a man” or something of that sort. The tears may have been a release of tension after the trauma. But I was at a point I think – and I was really very conscious of myself as well as how I was being seen by others – that I was justified in demanding pity, or at least evoking deep concern from bystanders who were being shooed from the scene both by the secret police and uniformed police.103 An alarmed Anglo-American employee, George Leeman, immediately summoned an ambulance and contacted the police.104 According to Brutus, when the ambulance staff arrived and discovered that the injured person was not white, they promptly left without him. In the meantime, he desperately tried to stem the flow of blood with a handkerchief. Eventually another ambulance arrived after 30 to 45 minutes, and took him to Coronation Hospital (now Rahima Moosa Mother & Child Hospital) in Coronationville, a coloured residential area in the west of Johannesburg.105 There he was immediately prepared for surgery. Even in the operating theatre, though, he was still under siege: “The police had been told to guard me so closely that even when I was lying on the operating table they stood around me – until the doctor refused to carry on unless they went over by the door.”106 The policemen eventually left the operating theatre and waited outside during the operation.107 According to hospital superintendent Dr G.E. Elliot, a single bullet passed right through the left side of Brutus’s body (it entered through his back and exited through his chest).108 Brutus subsequently describes his condition the next morning after the operation in some detail: I was really in very bad shape. I had lost a great deal of blood and was being given a blood transfusion from a large

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 146

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

147

drip suspended over me. In addition, because my energy had failed, I was being given a large drip from another glass container of glucose. I was also getting a saline drip of salt water pumped into my bloodstream, and in addition, because I was having difficulty with breathing – my left lung had collapsed under the impact of the whole episode, I was functioning, in fact, on one lung – I was required to have a thing clamped over my nose or mouth periodically in order to reactivate this particular lung by breathing exercises. I looked rather like a man ready for a space venture, with tubes and masks and contrivances.109 May flew to Johannesburg on Thursday, 19 September, but – in a calculated act of cruelty – was only allowed by police to see her husband for three minutes.110 On 20 September, Brutus refused to receive any further medical treatment unless he was allowed to see a diplomatic representative from the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. May managed to persuade him to resume treatment, though he remained adamant that he would again refuse any medical attention if no one from the federal government came to see him by 22 September. A week later, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland distanced itself from Brutus, and argued that it regarded him as a South African national and therefore did not have any claim to protection from the Federal government, even though he was travelling on a Federal passport when he was arrested in Mozambique.111 Despite his injuries, which required nearly two dozen stitches, Brutus was closely guarded in hospital. Some police officers stood guard outside his ward on the first floor, while others patrolled the hospital grounds and buildings.112 Their presence did not intimidate Brutus’s supporters, however. According to Jane Bijoux, a nurse who attended to him at the time, he received many visitors and was frequently sent red carnations: “Visiting hours at the hospital had to be seen to be believed, it was like a market place.”113 The throngs of visitors included his brother Wilfred, his personal doctor Zainab Asvat,114 his lawyer Ruth Hayman and many university students. Between visits, Brutus typically occupied himself

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 147

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

148

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

with his poetry. Bijoux mentions that he wrote a poem, “Bridesgift Tree,” about a tree he could see through a window in his ward (unfortunately no trace of the poem can be found). A pocket-sized transistor radio, smuggled in by a sympathetic nurse, kept him company as well and, more importantly, informed him of media coverage about his situation.115 Bijoux points out that Brutus was moved to another ward after a visit from Harris, presumably because police feared he would try to help Brutus to escape. She notes that one day Brutus received white and yellow carnations: “We remarked about the change.” The police presence outside Brutus’s ward was subsequently increased from two to four, and police patrols were even extended to Coronationville itself.116 There was indeed a plan to remove him from the hospital on 28 September, signalled by the mixed bunch of carnations, but it was called off after police became aware of it.117 *** On 30 September, a Monday, police hastily transferred him to the Fort prison in Braamfontein, on the outskirts of the city centre, to thwart any further attempts to free him. “Everyone was very sad,” notes Bijoux, “and his wife…was very emotional.”118 May was allowed to see him, but not speak to him. A sympathetic nurse surreptitiously inserted a carnation into a buttonhole before Brutus was transferred into an ambulance, which helped to lift his spirits. Even though he was in a wheelchair, the ambulance was escorted by police on motor cycles, their sirens blaring. A more pleasant memory during the trip was that of a uniformed policeman guarding him inside the ambulance who expressed a wish that it would never be necessary to shoot him or confront him in any other way during a conflict. “It was perhaps a kind of oblique tribute, but I thought I liked the spirit in which he said it,” observes Brutus.119 Brutus records his arrival at the Fort – an old prison largely reserved for awaiting-trial prisoners – in the first two stanzas of an untitled poem: They backed the truck right up to the huge door in the massive walls…

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 148

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

149

then through the fort: crenellated, intricate and inter-locking as the traditional fortress – historic monument, no doubt, to wars I remember with disgust.120 He concludes gloomily in the last two stanzas: The old building with the mannerisms of a bygone air exuded age, reeked history And we too were history. Initially Brutus was taken to the hospital section of the prison, where a warden clumsily – and prematurely – removed his 22 stitches with a large pair of scissors. “The conditions in prison were not unduly harsh,” he concedes, “at least in the period while I was in the prison hospital and awaiting trial.”121 His wife and other visitors were occasionally allowed to see him, though they could only speak to each other through an 18-foot high wire fence. He remembers once picking a petal from a rose on his way to meet May, and giving it to her through the fence.122 Their son Marc recalls another visit to the Fort with mixed feelings. While the family was waiting for Brutus, he tried to ease their anxiety – especially that of his mother – by telling them jokes. However, instead of the family reunion turning out to be a joyous occasion, it ended up being a distressing experience for Marc. “While joking, I rounded a corner, and there saw my father behind bars,” he recounts in a newspaper article. “There he stood, holding the bars, in a crowded cell, men herded together, spirits broken.”123 Marc adds sadly: “I could not speak or look at my handcuffed father when he joined us.” Another visitor at the Fort was fellow Wits University student Sybil Marcus, whose interest in literature and politics formed the basis of an instant and close friendship between them.124 In an undated letter to

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 149

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

150

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

May, he describes Marcus as “marvellous,” and informs his wife that she brought him “books, goodies, papers etc” – even hair oil.125 Brutus was also allowed food from outside to supplement his meagre prison diet. Marcus, for instance, helped to raise money for food for him from other Wits University students.126 A convicted prisoner assisted the still weak Brutus, who gratefully gave him snacks and cigarettes in return. However, while he was not treated unduly harshly at the Fort, he was horrified by the arbitrary beating of other prisoners. In particular, he recalls the brutal beating of a man charged with the rape of a white woman. The man was even left without any water.127 *** To pass the time, Brutus turned to poetry. For example, he tried to rework a poem he wrote in Lourenço Marques after he was captivated by the sight of a bullring and palm trees through a prison window; he tried as well to incorporate references to the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, who was killed in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War.128 According to Brutus, this poem is now lost. However, an untitled poem in his collection Stubborn Hope contains all the elements that Brutus mentions, so it may well be the reworked version of the poem he refers to as missing, or it may be an entirely new poem based on the same memory from prison in Lourenço Marques:129 I remembered in the tranquil Sunday afternoon, looking out on the villas and plazas, how friend Federico Lorca died from the prison window I could see a roccoco church and a square with waving grass and beyond, the gaudy facade of the bullring Overhead the hard bright blue of the sky compounded of tropic light and the salt air of the sea and palms waved amid tropic profusion of flowers

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 150

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

151

hibiscus and wisteria especially and when we rode there wafted into the prison truck a scent of syringa and wild orange and something that might have been frangipani and in the gathering afternoon that Sunday I remembered how the poet Lorca died.130 Brutus’s reworking of two earlier poems, “I Am out of Love with You for Now” and “When Last I Ranged and Revelled All Your Length,” did of course survive. An ode to the bright sunlight that entered the window of his bleak grey cell in the Fort is lost, however. “The Fort Prison,” dated 26 May 1989, tries to recapture this image, as the following poignant extract illustrates: Light was prismed through a fine mesh so it broke, iridescent, on the grey wall – patches of rainbow light delighted me but I saw how a life could shatter, be lost into eternity.131 Brutus also read prolifically in the Fort as an awaiting-trial prisoner. “I was deluged with books,” he recalls, “a great deal of reading matter.”132 The police tried to restrict his access to books by not allowing him to receive hardcovers. When this decision was reversed, he was then spitefully denied any paperbacks. It took the intervention of Hayman to lift these arbitrary restrictions. Brutus fondly remembers reading the work of Dickens and other Victorian novelists, the short stories of the Russian writer Anton Chekhov and the poetry of Yeats during this period. No political books were allowed, though he was able to indulge his interest in philosophy: So I had boxes of reading, which I then gave away to the prison library, and no doubt others made use of them. But I did have a

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 151

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

152

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

veritable feast. I would read for four, six hours at a stretch two or three times a day until the lights went out, or otherwise. Even if the lights burnt all night, one was not permitted to read after suppertime, but some of my most useful reading was done at that time, particularly some of the Victorian novelists, whose work I had not been able to do justice to before.133 *** While being held at the Fort, Brutus’s trial began in the Johannesburg Regional Court on 9 December 1963. He was charged with breaking his banning order by attending a meeting (count 1), leaving the Johannesburg magisterial district to which he was confined (count 2) and leaving South Africa without a valid passport (count 3). In addition, he was charged with escaping from police custody (count 4) and failing to report to the Fordsburg police station every Saturday as required under his amended banning order (count 5).134 Brutus was represented by Hayman and Ivor Schwartzman, then an advocate, and pleaded not guilty on all counts.135 Even though he was still recovering from a bullet wound, he was kept in handcuffs throughout the court proceedings. The trial was a stop-start affair. It was interrupted either by his poor health or on legal grounds. The law student also found the proceedings unnecessarily complex and elaborate. Brutus did not give any evidence during the hearing, but made a statement in mitigation when he was eventually found guilty on all charges. “What I am trying to establish is that the work I did for sport, was motivated by a desire to serve sport, that there was nothing malicious in it,” he told Magistrate W.G. de Vos. “That is that it was not hostile to any group. I was trying to serve all South Africans and not a particular section.”136 He referred to his work both as a social welfare officer and as a teacher: “And throughout this time, I tried to do what I could in the field of recreation in order to assist people.” Brutus added: “I have been a practising Christian all my life and my work in sport has been motivated by Christian morals and principles, as my work in other fields where I have tried to be of service.” He also

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 152

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

153

pointed out that his banning resulted in his dismissal as a teacher. When he subsequently tried to pursue an alternative career in journalism, he noted, he was listed and prohibited from publishing any writing. He mentioned that he even lost a job making tea at Wits University.137 All these factors, he argued, influenced his decision to leave the country: “It was impossible, or almost impossible, for me to find employment.” But, as he probably expected all along, he was given a prison sentence. On 9 January 1964, De Vos sentenced him to 18 months in prison: 12 months for leaving the Johannesburg magisterial district, leaving South Africa without a valid passport and failing to report to the Fordsburg police station (counts 2, 3 and 5); he received two further 3-month sentences for illegally attending a meeting and attempting to escape from police custody (counts 1 and 4).138 His response to his sentence was a mixture of relief and anxiety. He describes his bewildered emotions in the first poem in his second collection, Letters to Martha: After the sentence mingled feelings: sick relief, the load of the approaching days apprehension – the hints of brutality have a depth of personal meaning; exultation – the sense of challenge, of confrontation, vague heroism mixed with self-pity and tempered by the knowledge of those who endure much more and endure…139 Brutus’s treatment at the Fort, until then relatively benign, changed immediately after his conviction. He was forced to undress at the

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 153

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

154

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

reception desk on his return, and instructed to surrender his clothes and all his other possessions. He clearly remembers the garments he was given to wear instead: a small red undershirt and a pair of dirty shorts. To add to the discomfort and humiliation, he was not given any shoes or socks. And, like the other convicted prisoners, he was forced to crouch on the floor, and expected to retain this position even when he moved. “That first hour probably was…one of the grimmest I had to endure in prison,” he points out. “There weren’t many quite as bitter as that one.”140 *** Brutus assumed he would serve his sentence at the Fort. However, after his head was shaved on 10 January, the day after he was sentenced, he was summarily transferred – handcuffed to two common-law prisoners – to Leeuwkop prison near Bryanston, in the north of Johannesburg.141 The punitive rituals at Leeuwkop started almost immediately: “I was… made to run in the large prison courtyard with a crowd of others, a kind of aimless circular running where you were beaten at random by the warders who were either black or white.”142 Brutus was a particular point of attraction: “From a kind of parapet or catwalk surrounding this courtyard the guards gathered to look on, because word had reached the prison…that I was due to arrive; some of them looked at me in some astonishment and disgust on arrival because I was the notorious Brutus.” He notes wryly that the sight of him must have disappointed some onlookers: instead of looking like a dangerous saboteur, he speculates, he probably looked “like a plucked hen.” He was strip-searched, given a torn shirt and trousers, then taken to a communal cell where he spent the night with other prisoners. The next morning he was taken to another part of the prison: the D section for maximum security prisoners. “I sat there with skinny and cold shanks, cold feet, torn khaki shirt and pants, eating porridge with my fingers in the cold, pale blue dawn,” he recalls. “I must have looked a pretty miserable and disconsolate figure, and indeed felt that way.”143 He believes the intention was to humiliate him. Like other prisoners, he was

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 154

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

155

not given any footwear.144 Later that day he was placed in a large cell, where he spent the next two months. His recollection of his prison cell in Leeuwkop is etched vividly in his mind: One relief in the cell was that the bricks on one wall – the one [between] the adjoining cells – were burnt brick, exposed to various temperatures and various chemicals, so that they came out differently coloured and one had a wall of fascinatingly varied subtle changes in colour: reds, oranges, ochres, blues, greens, blacks – which was colourful for me, at least, and gave immense relief in the monotony of the cell. I could look across from my mat on the floor at night, to this coloured wall and count the bricks and use them as images of the weeks and months and days of [my] sentence, and indeed use it as a calendar and mentally check off each day as it passed.145 Brutus recalled his time at Leeuwkop in some detail during an examination of prison conditions by the London-based IDAF, a followup to an investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in May 1964.146 He told IDAF that there were usually between 25 to 35 prisoners in a cell, even though it could accommodate only 20 comfortably.147 Each prisoner was allocated three blankets and a mat to sleep on the cement floor; there was no other furniture in the cell. The toilet was in full view of the rest of the cell. To wash or brush their teeth, prisoners were compelled to use a tap behind the toilet seat. No towels or toothpaste were provided, and prisoners’ attempts to acquire their own were routinely obstructed. Prisoners were forced to wash their clothes in the lavatory pan. And, as no spare set of clothes was provided, there was no alternative but to wait naked for their clothes to dry on the floor of the cell. The discomfort was not only of a physical nature. Prisoners in the D section were restricted to writing and receiving just one letter every six months. When they were each eventually given a page and a pencil stub to write a letter, Brutus eagerly grasped the opportunity to write home. Later he discovered, though, that his letter was never received.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 155

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

156

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Nor was a single prisoner able to study at Leeuwkop, with the excuse that there were no appropriate facilities. They were not allocated any work either. “We were hardly allowed out of our cells, except to have blankets checked, or after we had complained about not being given opportunities to bath or shower,” Brutus complains. “We were taken out, usually on a Monday, to the portion of the quadrangle where taps were fitted on the wall and sent out powerful jets of ice cold water.”148 He later recounts his time at Leeuwkop in a poem, pointedly titled “February ’64”: In the cold open dawn harsh-blue, ice-blue sky doming overhead one forgot to be grateful for late summer’s mild steeling oneself against the icy cold unaware of a merciful providence.149 There were many moments of sheer vindictiveness. Food often played a central role in these routine acts of cruelty. Prisoners were made to run from their cells to a food line every day, for example, and then run back to their cells after they collected their food. If they were unable to catch their plate perched on a window ledge, or if their food fell out, it was not replaced. Speaking to each other in their cells – even in low voices – was punished by depriving them of three meals. And, when Brutus winked at a political prisoner one day in a fleeting act of solidarity, his porridge was taken away. Even merely smiling at another prisoner – a silent, momentary greeting – was punished with the loss of a meal.150 Other forms of punishment were even more brutal. When prisoners repeatedly asked to be allowed to exercise, they were once spitefully made to run around in circles. And, as they ran, they were beaten by prison guards. Brutus, for one, was unable to keep up and reminded them of his injury. “But the guards paid no attention to this and I was compelled to keep running and was beaten as I ran until I literally dropped from exhaustion,” he remembers. “Unable to continue, I was hauled off back

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 156

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

157

to the cell.”151 To avoid a recurrence, Brutus asked to see a prison doctor. After examining him, the doctor sneered: “Brutus, you are the man who wants to get the blacks into the South African Olympic team, so you should be grateful for the opportunity to have this exercise.”152 Such gratuitous ill-treatment of prisoners was a common occurrence at Leeuwkop. In particular, Brutus recalls the brutal reception that trade unionist Billy Nair and fellow prisoners received when they arrived from Durban after being convicted of various political offences. The new group was made to run “in wild circles around the concrete quad, circumcised penises jigging while the warders’ batons fell with joyful-sounded thwacks.”153 And yet the officer in charge was still not satisfied with this malicious act of cruelty; he urged the warders to exert even greater force. Brutus regards this incident as “the horror etched most deeply in my memory” of his time at Leeuwkop. In other ways, though, Brutus found his incarceration at Leeuwkop bearable – even “curiously rewarding.”154 The prisoners gave each other responsibilities; Brutus, for instance, was responsible for culture. He notes with regret that he never kept his promise to teach his fellow inmates how to play chess. But, when the day melted away into dusk, he relished the opportunity to be the storyteller during the time slots when the guards ate and changed shifts. Among the tales he retold were Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Sophocles’s play Oedipus Rex (“developing the notion of challenge to authority”) and Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov. Prisoners even bet pieces of meat on who killed the brutal landowner Fyodor Karamazov during the five days he told the story. “Great fun,” he recounts almost cheerfully. However, although Brutus presented these three works primarily as a form of escapism, he could not resist exploring their more serious undertones. He explicitly drew attention to aspects of the Oedipus complex in these stories, influenced by Ivan Roe’s psychoanalytical approach in The Breath of Corruption: An Interpretation of Dostoievsky, which was published in 1946. A key point in Roe’s argument was summed up for Brutus in Ivan Karamazov’s claim during his brother Mitya’s trial for patricide that everyone desires the death of their fathers.155 Brutus adds: “So I was, in my own way, even in that crowded cell, surrounded by

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 157

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

158

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

60 prisoners … (built for 30), pursuing my own enquiry into the nature of things.”156 However, Freud’s theory of an Oedipus complex did not appeal to Brutus in a literal sense; instead, he asserts, he viewed it as “an attempt to reinforce my own ineluctable commitment to resist, to rebellion against the authoritarian rule of the apartheid government.” Another favourite pastime at Leeuwkop was retelling films, among them Sorry, Wrong Number, a US thriller starring Barbara Stanwyk and Burt Lancaster, and the epic historical romance Gone with the Wind, featuring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, based on the best-selling novel by the US writer Margaret Mitchell published in 1936.157 He did not relate the award-winning film simply as a tale about love: “I found myself in narrating the story of Scarlett O’Hara and her attachment to Tara [her family’s cotton plantation in Georgia] and the land also telling the story of the ambivalence of the slaves; of those who rejoiced in their freedom, and those who regretted the loss of their masters.”158 He also foregrounded the racial prejudice of Mitchell which, for him, was an undercurrent in the story and in its characters. Playing draughts – a board game for two players – was another source of pleasure at Leeuwkop. The version played by the prisoners involved a homemade board drawn on the surface of the cell with a piece of tar and draughts made of bits of tar rolled into balls.159 The aim of the game, which involves diagonal moves, is to capture the opponent’s draughts by jumping over them. This simple yet entertaining game provided much relief from the drudgery and discomfort of life in prison. Brutus’s time at Leeuwkop came to an end suddenly. On 9 March 1964, prisoners were ordered out their cells so that these could be searched. Some of the inmates correctly interpreted this as an indication that some of them were to be moved. The next morning, at around 3 am or 4 am, they were again ordered out their cells: “We were ordered to strip and stood in the cold courtyard on the concrete under the stars.”160 They were then given new prison uniforms – “coarse white cloth-jackets or shirts, trousers, but no shoes or socks” – and manacled in pairs before being taken to board prison trucks: “And so we journeyed off in the dark, with an armored car as an escort.”161

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 158

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

Chapter 4: 1962–1964

159

That was the day Brutus’s journey to Robben Island began. Altogether, there were 120 prisoners, squeezed into four trucks, on that long drive. Among the memories that linger for Brutus from that arduous trip was the half-hearted singing of freedom songs and some or other altercation between members of the ANC and the PAC. He retold the story of Gone with the Wind in order to provide some light relief (though, this time, with much less enthusiasm).162 But, above all, he remembers the faces of his fellow passengers at the end of that day – “the quiet faces in the dusk of the truck, their faces grim or strained with foreboding.”163 And so began another, even darker, phase in Brutus’s life in prison.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 159

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 160

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 161

2020-01-17 03:50:45 PM

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 162

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

Robben Island is a relatively small stretch of land: it is just 2 kilometres at its widest and 3.5 kilometres at its longest.1 Yet it casts an infinitely long shadow over South Africa’s history – as, at various times, a prison, a leper colony and a mental asylum. It is a place associated since at least the mid-seventeenth century with extreme hardship and deprivation, reserved almost exclusively for those deemed to be dangerous or even life-threatening, from which the rest of society needed to be forcibly protected. This once notorious and much-feared island in Table Bay, less than 10 kilometres from the coast of Cape Town, is where Brutus was unexpectedly taken to serve the rest of his time in prison. The journey by road from Leeuwkop in March 1964 was, in itself, a gruelling experience. The elbows and knees of the manacled prisoners constantly collided. Brutus describes his extreme discomfort in the first five lines of the poem “En Route”: Sixty packed in a truck we sat or crouched or perched or squatted warm shoulders, hips, elbows, knees squeezed and jostled in the pre-dawn dark forced into contorted postures by the chains.2

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 163

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

164

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Brutus also recalls the ordeal in the third stanza of an untitled poem in Strains: I have sat in one place in a prison truck gritting my teeth to keep from moving and bracing myself to keep from bobbing to ease the pressure of the manacles that cut into my wrists and ankles for a thousand miles.”3 They reached Colesberg, a small town in the northern Cape, late that evening and were promptly locked up in the local prison. Even though it was cold, and the floors of the cells were made of concrete, the prisoners were left barefoot. Early the next morning – at around 3 or 4 am – they were given porridge without sugar, and forced to eat with their hands as the warders did not bother to provide spoons. Brutus depicts this degrading experience somewhat dispassionately in the following extract from an untitled poem which, according to a footnote, was written in Colesberg (he later added, more specifically, “en route to Robben Island”4). Cold the clammy cement sucks our naked feet a rheumy yellow bulb lights a damp grey wall the stubbled grass wet with three o’clock dew is black with glittery edges; we sit on the concrete, stuff with our fingers

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 164

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

165

the sugarless pap into our mouths5 Ironically, Brutus also found some comfort in that moment of profound humiliation: “The experience I had at Colesberg, eating porridge under the stars of the Southern Cross in the sky, had a kind of consoling influence on me and still does,” he recalls. “In times of desperation I look up at the stars, and if I can find them, somehow things are more endurable.”6 In the Colesberg poem, he draws a striking contrast between the glitter of the chains on the ankles and wrists of the prisoners and “overhead / the large frosty glitter of the stars / the Southern Cross flowering low” (lines 23 to 25). After the prisoners were manacled, again in pairs, their journey to Cape Town resumed via Paarl on 11 March 1964. Brutus dreaded the prospect of being incarcerated on Robben Island. “The image of Robben Island in my mind was one of terror,” he confesses.7 He even feared that he would not survive his incarceration there. “Years before, I had read and written about the way in which this island…was being converted by the South African government into a concentration camp,” he explains. “The old hospital section was converted into a prison, and all of it surrounded by barbed wire, searchlights, and guns.” Along the way he even tried – once again probably in vain – to smuggle out a message to draw attention to his sudden relocation to Robben Island. When the prisoners eventually arrived at the Cape Town docks, Brutus noticed that the area was cordoned off and heavily guarded. They were immediately given a taste of the spiteful cruelty to which they would be subjected many times on Robben Island. The prisoners, still tied together in pairs at their wrists and ankles, were expected to jump onto a boat swaying uneasily in the quay. While awaiting their turn, Brutus looked around the docks and at what little he could see of Cape Town, and instinctively tried to engrave these sights into his memory. A line from the English poet Walter de la Mare’s “Fare Well” came to him: “Look thy last on all things lovely” (line 13).8 He was also reminded of the title of Lawrence G. Green’s At Daybreak for the Isles, a once-popular book published in 1950 about travelling around the islands off the South

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 165

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

166

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

African coast. Brutus movingly captures these memories in “Letter 13” in a sequence of 18 poems in Letters to Martha:9 “At daybreak for the isle,” and “Look your last on all things lovely,” and “So, for a beginning, I know there is no beginning.” So one cushions the mind with phrases aphorisms and quotations to blunt the impact of this crushing blow. So one grits to the burden and resolves to doggedly endure the outrages of prison. Nothing of him doth change but that doth suffer a seachange10 *** When the prisoners reached the island, there to join another 1 100 political prisoners and 200 long-term common-law prisoners, they were herded onto a truck and driven to the reception centre.11 Afterwards they were marched to the kitchen and fed, then taken to a large cell, recently completed and still without any water in the taps or toilets. This cell – which Brutus shared at one time with around 60 prisoners, and measured 96 ft × 16 ft × 11 ft high – was in a recently completed part of the prison known as The Sections.12 Their clothes were removed and they were given blankets to cover themselves for the night and slept on sisal mats on the floor (there was nothing else in the cell).

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 166

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

167

They were left with an ominous warning: “You think you’ve come to Robben Island. But you’ll find this is Hell Island.”13 The start of the next day, 12 March 1964, nevertheless looked deceptively promising. “I watched the dawn the following morning, the sky turning orange and saffron, and brilliant vermillion, against pale green like green ripening apples,” Brutus remembers.14 The new arrivals were given temporary clothes and breakfast that Thursday before being taken for a medical inspection, then locked up again. Brutus suspects they were deliberately placed afterwards in a cell in the administrative area from where they could witness a group of prisoners being punished. After the prisoners were lined up – including the ANC’s Andrew Masondo, an Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) member who was serving a 13year sentence for sabotage15 – the warders lashed out at them with batons and sticks; some even used pick handles from a nearby shed: “It was an indescribable kind of fury unleashed, and when we came out of our section a while later, there were still splashes of bright red blood, almost vermilion in contrast, on the gray broken flint that formed the gravel of the ground.”16 But that brutal display of violence was just a glimpse of what lay ahead for the newly arrived prisoners themselves. Later that same day, they were taken to a quarry and instructed to dump stones into a hole: The catch was, first, that we had to carry these stones at a run to the pole where they had to be deposited. Second, as we ran, we were beaten by guards to hurry us along. Third, they also attempted to trip us, and sometimes succeeded, so that we fell heavily, and were then beaten while we lay on the ground, or as we got up and gathered our stone and made off with it. As the work went on, the tempo increased – we were required to run ever faster – the beatings increased, and the number of guards who were beating us was augmented by other guards who were off-duty, and who came along to join in the fun.17 Other prisoners, presumably those serving long sentences for criminal offences, also enthusiastically participated in the assault – either to ingratiate themselves with the warders or because they derived some

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 167

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

168

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

perverse pleasure from participating in the orgy of violence. “It was my first experience of the arbitrary and almost limitless brutality, the sadism, the malicious glee with which the guards saw people fall and beat them and forced them to their feet again,” Brutus recalls.18 Worse was to follow the following Monday, 16 March 1964. Brutus was taken to the beach, and ordered to carry rocks out the sea to be used to build a wall on the periphery of the island to enhance its security. These rocks were large and slippery as many were covered in seaweed, and the poor prison-made sandals made the task even more difficult. When Brutus removed his sandals in order to get a better grip on the rocks, their sharp edges slashed the soles of his feet. “It was hard work, but I thought at that time that the sight and sound of the sea, the smell of the brine, the sparkle of spray in the air, the sight of the low, blue, luminous horizon – these things were compensations for the hard work,” he reflects.19 Brutus revisits this painful episode in a stanza in his extended poem “Robben Island Sequence”: on the sharp pale whitening edges our blood showed light and pink, our gashed soles winced from the fine barely felt slashes, that lacerated afterwards: the bloody flow thinned to thin pink strings dangling as we hobbled through the wet clinging sands or we discovered surprised in some quiet backwater pool the thick flow of blood uncoiling from a skein to thick dark red strands.20 That afternoon, a senior prison officer informed the guards of Brutus’s application to study while in prison, and sarcastically instructed them to give him special treatment in future.21 Perhaps in direct response, the still-injured and weak Brutus was ordered the next day, 17 March 1964, to push a wheelbarrow loaded with rocks. In itself, this was extremely strenuous; pushing a heavily loaded wheelbarrow on

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 168

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

169

sea sand was near impossible. He tried to cope as best he could, yet the guards were not satisfied; they felt his loads were too light and constantly instructed the common-law prisoners to put more rocks in his wheelbarrow. Again, Brutus persevered. Yet the beatings continued relentlessly; one prisoner, wearing boots, even leapt into the air and kicked him in his stomach.22 He recalls the horror of that day vividly in an article in Christian Action: I do not think I will ever be able to erase from my mind the images of that day of terror and violence by the sea with the bright water and the bright sunlight, and the men struggling with slimy masses of seaweed and on the sharp slippery rocks. We carried rocks from the sea. Or dug up sand and stones and wheeled off barrow loads of it – building embankments or sealing off inlets around the shore. And all the time men were beaten and kicked and the batons thwacked. For some it was worse than others; those who had been schoolteachers, or had applied for permission to study were generally singled out; and I was both.23 Indres Naidoo, an MK member who served a 10-year sentence on Robben Island after being convicted of sabotage in 1963, gives an equally disturbing account of this episode in his prison memoir. While Naidoo was in the prison hospital, made of galvanised iron, a semiconscious Brutus was brought there and flung onto the concrete floor: “He lay curled up on the floor and when I lifted his shirt I got a terrible shock. His whole back was red and black and there was a deep gash right across his stomach.”24 Naidoo recalls that Brutus’s face was contorted with pain and that he could barely speak. He believes that Brutus was the main target of the guards that day and that he received more blows than anyone else in his group. Later, as Brutus lay in a bed offered to him by a fellow prisoner, he could scarcely speak properly, according to Naidoo: “The words…came out in a groaning whisper, broken up and harsh, hardly making sense.”25

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 169

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

170

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

While in the prison hospital – “a long hangar-like building with roughly 20 beds in it”– Brutus was repeatedly asked to strip by warders who appeared to take cynical delight in the swathe of bruises on his body.26 “I myself became something of a spectacle, almost like a tattooed lady in a circus,” he remembers. “Standing in line at the hospital, where allegedly I was going to be attended to and where I was eventually put for treatment, and given suppositories, they suggested I was simply constipated when I was complaining of these stomach pains.”27 Eddie Daniels, who was imprisoned on Robben Island from 1964 to 1979, also believes Brutus was treated particularly harshly by warders and attributes this to a vendetta against educated prisoners. As a result, he states in his memoir, Brutus was “systematically and vilely persecuted.”28 After he was discharged from the prison hospital, Brutus returned to work in the quarry, the site of the most physically demanding labour. It was only after a routine medical inspection a few days later that he was transferred to work in the prison yard. Brutus describes this painful period in the first stanza of an untitled poem: On torn ragged feet trailing grimy bandages with bare thin legs I puttered around the prison yard awhile while politicos learning of me gaped wondering how they had managed to make of me a thing of bruises, rags, contempt and mockery.29 While working in the prison yard, Brutus helped to turn a patch of land into a football field. Although this work was far less demanding, the poorly made sandals still caused Brutus considerable discomfort and pain. And his khaki shorts, shirt and short-sleeved jacket provided little protection from the bitterly cold cells (a jersey barely offered any more comfort in winter).30 He informed his attorney, Barney Zackon, of the appalling conditions in prison during a visit to discuss his appeal. However, the Liberal Party’s Cape chairman – himself the subject of

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 170

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

171

uncomfortably close attention from the police – did not appear to be particularly eager to follow this up and chose to confine himself instead to strictly legal matters.31 *** In response to complaints smuggled out about poor conditions on Robben Island and other South African prisons, the ICRC sent its delegate president, Georg Hoffman, to conduct an inspection from 1 to 20 May 1964. However, Brutus is sceptical about how thorough Hoffman’s visit was and regards it as a curious episode: “I got the impression that he did not try very hard to establish the facts, but this impression is also complicated by the fact that the prisoners were not sure about who the Red Cross man was, and were not told that he was coming.”32 In addition, prisoners were fearful of the repercussions of disclosing information to Hoffman about their plight in the presence of warders. Over and above this, the prison authorities employed various deceptive measures during the ICRC visit. As Brutus later notes in a letter to a newspaper: “Prisoners who slept on mats alongside the beds in the prison hospital were, for the day of the visit, permitted to spend some hours in the beds. They spent the night, as usual, on the floor.”33 Brutus was, of course, speaking from first-hand experience.34 The authorities also gave Brutus a pair of shoes to wear in case Hoffman specifically requested to see him (in the event, he did not). As IDAF’s follow-up investigation points out: “Any investigation that can be prepared for well in advance and that is dependent upon the goodwill of the authorities being investigated, suffers from inevitable handicaps.”35 In support of this contention, it points out that it is aware of “sudden dramatic improvements in material facilities” in those prisons the ICRC was scheduled to visit. As a result, Brutus did not believe the ICRC visit significantly improved conditions on the island: “The Red Cross visit, I think, was a failure, because the kind of evidence which should have reached the Red Cross on the outside did not reach them through this visit.”36 Nor did the South African government subsequently make much effort to implement

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 171

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

172

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

the ICRC recommendations – which included separating political and common-law prisoners, and improving health and study facilities for convicted prisoners – outlined in a report to the government on 18 June 1964.37 In fact, it did not release any details of Hoffman’s report for more than two and a half years, and probably did so only in response to IDAF’s exposure of prison conditions during its campaign for the release of political prisoners in South Africa.38 Coincidentally or otherwise, Brutus was taken to Cape Town after the ICRC visit to receive medical treatment at the Victoria Hospital in Wynberg for his stomach wound – nearly three months after it was aggravated by the flying kick from a common-law prisoner, and only after he obtained legal intervention to receive medical attention from a private doctor.39 For two weeks in June 1964, Brutus was held in custody at Pollsmoor prison in Tokai, and transported back and forth to the hospital over several days. His brother Wilfred – a teacher at St Columba’s High School, then a Catholic school for coloured boys, in Athlone – and his wife Martha (née Koopman), a nurse, who were living nearby at Roy’s Mansions in Burns Avenue in Wynberg at the time, managed to visit him. During this period, Brutus was also allowed to see a priest (escape was once again on his mind, but a priest discouraged him). When Brutus returned to Robben Island on 24 June 1964, he was first taken to the Segregation section and then subsequently to a building made of grey flint stone – the recently constructed maximum security section. This new segregated section,40 now also home to Mandela and other prisoners convicted during what came to be known as the Rivonia Trial, consisted of 88 single cells built in a square around a courtyard; overhead was a catwalk patrolled by an armed guard.41 Initially the water supply to this section did not function, so the inmates were forced to strip and run to the old zinc jail to shower. There the warders took malevolent pleasure in either releasing powerful blasts of water or turning off the water abruptly while prisoners were still using the shower.42 However, there was a more fortuitous side to the weekly trips to the shower; these provided Brutus with the first opportunity to meet Mandela, Sisulu, Kathrada and other political prisoners on the island.43

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 172

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

173

After a breakfast of porridge and coffee, the prisoners in this section were put to work from 7.30 am till 4.30 pm every day, only broken by an hour-long lunch break in their cells.44 The first task of the prisoners in the new maximum security section was to clean the ground in the courtyard. It was in this courtyard, breaking stones with a two-pound hammer, that Brutus spent most of his sentence. Each morning he was given a load of stones in a wheelbarrow; even when blisters broke out on his hands, there was no choice but to continue hammering away. Not meeting the daily target resulted in going without food that day (and sometimes the next day, too). What made this task even more frustrating was that there was no practical purpose behind turning the stones into gravel; the gravel was simply scattered along the roadway: “There was really no use for it, and it was done in a sense to remind you how futile your work was.”45 In other words, breaking stones was little more than a cruel and prolonged exercise in humiliation and vindictiveness. *** Even though he was spared from the more harsh labour that other prisoners were exposed to in the limestone quarry, Brutus was still subjected to inhumane treatment in other ways. A nearby pail was the only toilet facility for prisoners assigned to break stones, for example, and access was only allowed with the express permission of the warders (who sometimes spitefully pretended not to notice the desperate attempts of the prisoners to attract their attention). When Brutus once used the pail without obtaining permission beforehand, he was threatened with punishment. This escalated into an altercation with a warder, during which Brutus made disparaging comments about then prime minister, Hendrik Verwoerd, widely regarded as the primary architect of apartheid. Brutus was summarily reported for insubordination; fortunately, the case was dropped when he demanded legal representation.46 Besides asserting his humanity through such occasional acts of defiance and confrontation, Brutus also tried to find slivers of comfort

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 173

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

174

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

in other ways whenever he could. Catching a glimpse of the sea from his cell, for instance, was a particular source of consolation. From his first cell in the maximum security section, near the entrance, he could sneak a peak of the ocean through a window if he stood on his lavatory pail on which a blanket was placed to gain some additional height. “The sea gave me pleasure on the rare occasions I was able to see it,” he recalls.47 But contriving to steal a look at the ocean was an extremely risky exercise; discovery by the warders would invariably be met with punishment. As an alternative, he would listen closely to the sounds of the sea and try to imagine the sight of the waves. He later wrote an untitled poem in which he vividly recalls this experience in the first stanza: At night on the smooth grey concrete of my cell I heard the enormous roar of the surf and saw in my mind’s eye the great white wall of spray rising like a sheet of shattering glass where the surge broke on the shore and rocks and barbed wire48 Brutus could also see some fir trees – a familiar sight from his childhood playground near Dowerville – through the window of his cell when he stood on the lavatory pail. The view was a precious source of joy, even though the trees provoked ambivalent feelings in him. He shares his mixed emotions in part three of the poem “On the Island”: It was not quite envy nor impatience nor irritation but a mixture of feelings one felt for the aloof deep-green dreaming firs that poised in the island air withdrawn, composed and still.49

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 174

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

175

And, when Brutus walked to a shed during the day, he passed some cypress trees. He relished the sight of these treasures of nature and wrote about them with near reverence in the final stanza of an untitled poem: I greeted the great cypresses green and black dreaming in their poised serenity in the limpid stillness of the brilliant afternoon gracious as an Umbrian Raphael landscape but more brilliant and more sharp.50 From time to time, Brutus tried to find solace in the stars at night, an often-acknowledged source of comfort to him before his imprisonment: “They have always, or for most of the time, been images for me of light, of brightness, of beauty, and of hope.”51 He emphasises that “the stars for me are not a poetic ornament, but a kind of constant companion to me…I respond to them whenever I see them.”52 In all his time on Robben Island, though, he never once managed to see the stars even though he made at least one desperate effort late one night. In “Letter 18,” written in December 1965, he despondently recalls his unsuccessful attempt to see the stars from a cell opposite the catwalk in the maximum security section of the prison: I remember rising one night after midnight and moving through an impulse of loneliness to try and find the stars. And through the haze the battens of fluorescents made I saw pinpricks of white I thought were stars.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 175

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

176

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Greatly daring I thrust my arm through the bars and easing the switch in the corridor plunged my cell in darkness I scampered to the window and saw the splashes of light where the stars flowered. But through my delight thudded the anxious boots and a warning barked from the machine-gun post on the catwalk. And it is the brusque inquiry and threat that I remember of that night rather than the stars.53 As he was unable to get a glimpse of the stars, Brutus often searched the sky for other sources of solace: he savoured the sight of birds and clouds, for instance. “The mind turns upwards / when it can,” he explains in lines 8 and 9 of “Letter 17.” He recalls in the fourth stanza that the complex aeronautics and the birds and their exuberant acrobatics become matters for intrigued speculation and wonderment (lines 14 to 18).54 In addition to the majesty of their flight, he envies their freedom and what appears to be an absence of cares (lines 19 to 21).

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 176

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

177

The movement of the clouds, too, enchanted him. He finds in “the graceful unimpeded motion of the clouds / – a kind of music, poetry, dance – / sends delicate rhythms tremoring through the flesh” (lines 22 to 24).55 He is fascinated by their journey, and poses some comforting possibilities about their destination: where are they going where will they dissolve will they be seen by those at home and whom will they delight? (lines 26 to 29). Music was another much-sought source of comfort for Brutus on Robben Island. However, as he laments in the first stanza of “Letter 12”: Nothing was sadder there was no more saddening want than the deadly lack of music.56 In the fifth stanza, he recalls how he and fellow music lovers found immense joy in reminiscing about a wide range of classical music, including work by Mozart (“Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”), Handel (“Music for the Royal Fireworks”), Dvorak (“The New World”), Beethoven (“Emperor” and “Eroica”) and Bach (“Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring”). In the final stanza, Brutus remembers with deep pleasure the “Surreptitious wisps of melody / down the damp grey concrete corridors / Joy.” And sometimes, almost equally blissful amidst the austere and forbidding surroundings of Robben Island, a guard would whistle the theme song of Never on Sunday, a popular Greek film in which the actress Melina Mercouri performed in 1960, and which was nominated for five Academy Awards.57 The Greek theme song “Ta Paidia tou Pirea” (Children of Piraeus), composed by Manos Hadjidakis, won an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 177

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

178

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

More than two decades later, in Part V of the poem “Endurance,” Brutus still fondly remembers “when a wisp of off-key melody had snaked into my grey cell / whistled by a bored guard in the sunlit afternoon outside.”58 Sometimes the prisoners would also whistle music to each other at night when the warders were not present: one prisoner would begin to whistle a melody, which was picked up by another prisoner until the harmony eventually became a small orchestra.59 *** Yet such moments of joy were few and far between; this was an extremely depressing period in Brutus’s life. He did not receive many visitors during this time. As a Category D prisoner, he was restricted to a single visit by one person every six months, and only received his first visit on Robben Island in August 1964. His situation improved when he successfully challenged his classification on the grounds that he was serving a sentence of less than three years. From then on, he received “a fairly regular monthly visit.”60 His wife May once visited him with Gregory, then their youngest child. His sister-in-law Martha also visited him once. She visited him again in November 1964, but this time he declined to see her as he was going through a particularly traumatic period.61 However, even at the best of times, these visits were unsatisfactory and frustrating. The 30-minute visits of Category D prisoners were interfered with in various devious ways by vindictive warders: there was usually a contrived delay while prisoners waited in a visiting hut for visitors to disembark from the ferry and then be checked at the docks. There were also other measures specifically designed to obstruct the already limited interaction between the prisoners and their visitors; they were routinely kept far apart from each other, for instance, making it very difficult to communicate comfortably: We were lined up along a netting fence which extended the length of the dark shed, in which there were no windows and light only entered through the open doors. There was a further

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 178

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

179

fence separated from the first one by a gap of about 3 feet – wide enough for someone to patrol in if necessary…Visitors lined up along the second fence – and were forced to shout to the prisoners…Usually there was so much shouting that it was almost impossible to hear each other; the whole business was miserably unsatisfactory.62 Sometimes the warders even deliberately concocted schemes to ensure that prisoners missed their visitors altogether. This was relatively easy to engineer as prisoners were never informed in advance of a pending visit. Warders could then claim, for example, that they were unable to find a particular prisoner when a visitor arrived.63 For most political prisoners, this meant waiting another six months for the next visit. As a result, they usually spent Saturday afternoons – visiting times – waiting around anxiously in case someone arrived from the mainland to see them. Brutus wrote evocatively about this intense state of suspense in the last stanza of the poem “On the Island.” On Saturday afternoons we were embalmed in time like specimen moths pressed under glass; we were immobile in the sunlit afternoon waiting; visiting time: until suddenly like a book snapped shut all possibilities vanished as zero hour passed and we knew another week would have to pass.64 Other forms of communication between prisoners and members of their family were similarly disrupted as a matter of course. Each letter, for instance, was restricted to 500 words once every six months for Category D prisoners. Any letter that exceeded this limit was either returned to the prisoner or, worse, simply not posted. “There was a clear policy of making letter-writing as difficult as possible, and often long delays before the letter-sheet was issued,” Brutus believes.65 The same punitive approach applied to incoming letters. Brutus remembers,

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 179

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

180

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

for example, that the second letter from his wife was given to him in separate monthly instalments on the grounds that it was too long. Some warders, however, brought unexpected relief from the daily rituals of cruelty and violence: occasionally there were what Brutus characterises as “periods of comparative quiet.”66 At such times, warders talked to the prisoners overnight and sometimes shared snippets of news with them (the more submissive prisoners were even rewarded with cigarette butts). Prisoners were able to converse freely with each other, too, during such less restrictive periods. Brutus was unable to discern a pattern in the behaviour of warders; he suspects that their treatment depended entirely on the temperament of the commanding officers. Some of them strongly disapproved of the behaviour of more reasonable warders and immediately intervened: “We had several changes while I was there and each new officer seemed to find it essential to prove to the warders just how tough he was – or how loyal he was to the regime which had thrust us on the Island.”67 Those warders who dared to treat the prisoners more humanely were promptly transferred. *** On the other hand, the treatment of political prisoners by commonlaw prisoners was unrelentingly harsh and self-serving. They were routinely used by the guards to help exercise control over the political prisoners. “It was their job to discipline us, feed us, take us to work, see that we worked hard,” Brutus declares.68 Sometimes the collusion of the common-law prisoners took the form of passing on information to the guards; other times, as in the case of Brutus, they resorted to extreme forms of violence. As a result of their active support for the guards, they were mockingly known by political prisoners as “boss-boys.”69 Such disparagement mattered little to them; they were prepared to do whatever it took to advance their own interests. So complete was their connivance with prison authorities that they even deliberately set out to lure political prisoners into violating prison regulations. Brutus, for instance, was allowed to smuggle out messages to

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 180

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

181

John Harris a few times through the assistance of a common-law prisoner. However, he was warned by George Peake – a founder member and former national chairperson of SACPO, who was a fellow inmate in the maximum security section after being convicted of sabotage in 1962 and given a two-year sentence – that the prisoner was part of an elaborate scheme to trap him.70 The intention was to tempt Brutus into committing an even more serious offence, for which he would then in all likelihood receive an additional sentence. This was a common ploy, and referred to by political prisoners as a bomb – “a scheme by which…a prisoner…is trapped in a conspiracy and gets into serious trouble.”71 In exchange for acting as the eyes and ears of the warders – and sometimes even as their fists and boots – common-law prisoners earned a range of privileges. Unlike their political counterparts, for instance, they were given shoes and a spare pair of trousers and a spare shirt. “This never happened to us till the end of my stay,” Brutus points out.72 When the clothes of political prisoners were taken to be washed on Saturday mornings, he recalls, they were sometimes forced to wait naked until they received another set of clothes from the laundry – still damp or even torn. Common-law prisoners benefited from their access to prison food, too. As they were responsible for distributing the food, they routinely reserved larger portions for themselves and their cronies. Brutus is particularly scathing about their lack of consideration for other prisoners in this regard: There is a great deal of corruption and deception with many criminal prisoners getting twice as much as they should, carrying to their friends in the cells twice as much as they were due and depriving others of their full ration or of meat altogether. The real hardship with regard to food on the Island, unpleasant and inadequate as it was, was caused by the dishonesty of the criminal prisoners who were in charge of delivering and distributing food to the various sections.73 Political prisoners were not the only focus of the attention of the common-law prisoners; sometimes they turned on each other in

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 181

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

182

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

explosions of ferocious violence. Brutus witnessed this while in the Segregation section along with some prisoners who were convicted on charges of murder and assault. When a fight broke out among prisoners in an area known as the “mes-stekers” (knife-stabbers) camp, they attacked each other with hammers, spades and pickaxes. During one incident, Brutus was removed from the scene by warders and taken to his cell. From there, he watched in horror as the fighting continued, with the approval – and obvious enjoyment – of the guards. “It was a kind of entertainment,” says Brutus, “bloody and almost animal.”74 The brutal confrontation was allowed to continue until some of the prisoners were left unconscious. Brutus was particularly concerned about the coercion of fellow prisoners by common-law prisoners to secure sexual favours. Such incidents were often instigated by warders as well, he believes, and he claims that common-law prisoners were in fact rewarded for sexual assaults on other prisoners. “If there were prisoners who were not opposed to homosexual intercourse, then the warders didn’t worry about them,” he contends. “People who resisted it, who needed to be broken – they would instruct the criminal prisoners to assault them and reward them with marijuana.”75 Brutus recalls in some detail the experience of a young prisoner who was first deprived of food, then viciously beaten into submission. This prisoner was routinely starved to the point where he begged to be sexually assaulted.76 Brutus recounts this harrowing incident in “Letter 7,” and ponders in the second stanza: To what desperate limits are they driven and what fierce agonies they have endured that this, which they have resisted, should seem to them preferable, even desirable.77 Brutus also cites the example of another young prisoner, who was so terrified of sexual violence that it even affected his mental health. He clearly remembers the inmate as “bespectacled, with the kind

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 182

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

183

of smooth, round, boyish face, almost immature, a schoolboy.”78 Kept alone in a cell, the 18- or 19-year-old prisoner was often beaten mercilessly. Yet, Brutus marvels, the young man always appeared to be extremely calm whenever Brutus passed his cell: “I never could figure out why he seemed so relaxed, so youthful, so untouched by it all.” Then, one day, he saw him being carried out on a stretcher, lying in a pool of blood and faeces. A warder told Brutus that the prisoner was unwell mentally. Brutus then realised that the reason behind the seemingly placid demeanour of the prisoner was that he somehow managed to find refuge in an alternative version of reality: he was completely unaware of what was happening to him in his cell. Greatly moved by the prisoner’s torment, Brutus composed an untitled poem about him, published as “Postscript 6” in Letters to Martha: A studious high schoolboy he looked – as in fact I later found he was – bespectacled, with soft-curved face and withdrawn protected air: and I marvelled, envied him so untouched he seemed to be in that hammering brutal atmosphere. But his safety had a different base and his safely private world was fantasy; from the battering importunities of fists and genitals of sodomites he fled: in a maniac world he was safe.79 Brutus, too, was the focus of sexual attention from some commonlaw prisoners. He became aware of this for the first time when he was admitted to the prison hospital in March 1964. While waiting for medical treatment, completely naked, some prisoners openly expressed a sexual interest in him. During this time, he was also repeatedly made to strip by guards – in the presence of other prisoners – on the pretext that they wanted to inspect the bruises on his body. When he

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 183

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

184

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

was held in the Segregation section, Brutus felt even more vulnerable and was constantly threatened with sexual violence by other prisoners. In December 1964, after he was moved to a more distant part of the maximum security section of the prison, he was again the subject of threats by common-law prisoners. None of these threats were carried out, however.80 Despite their complicity in the everyday violence and cruelty on Robben Island, Brutus still manages to summon up some sympathy and understanding for common-law prisoners. He recognises that they were “very often the victims of injustice in another form, that the racism and oppression which we challenged and which denied us our human freedom was in other ways operating to destroy their human dignity and their freedom.”81 These prisoners, too, were aware of the oppressive and unjust nature of South African society; in fact, Brutus speculates that perhaps they understood the conditions responsible for their predicament even better than the political prisoners. And, however different the routes that ultimately led to their imprisonment, their lot on Robben Island was, in some ways, much the same. Both groups of prisoners were subject to a harsh physical and social environment, in which violence and coercion were ever present. Isolated from the rest of society, they were on Robben Island for just one purpose: retributive punishment, not rehabilitation. “An evil place. A vicious place,” comments Brutus. “Of this one was aware daily, in a thousand ways.”82 Life on Robben Island was often bleak and miserable, weighed down by despair. As Brutus laments in the first two stanzas of his poem “On The Island”: Cement-grey floors and walls cement-grey days cement-grey time and a grey susurration as of seas breaking winds blowing and rains drizzling A barred existence so that one did not need to look

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 184

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

185

at doors or windows to know that they were sundered by bars and one locked in a grey gelid stream of unmoving time.83 *** What made Brutus’s incarceration on Robben Island even more traumatic is that he was held in solitary confinement for several months.84 The exact details are unclear, but he was presumably kept in isolation after Harris – by then banned and a member of the underground African Resistance Movement (ARM) – placed a petrol bomb in the whites-only concourse at Park Station, the main railway station in Johannesburg, on 24 July 1964. Ethel Rhys, a 77-year-old woman, was killed and about two dozen other people seriously injured in the explosion that followed, including her 12-year-old granddaughter Glynnis Burleigh.85 As Brutus remained in contact with Harris while on Robben Island, the security police suspected that he was somehow connected to the bombing. “I was placed in isolation – no contact with other prisoners, even for exercise,” he recalls in a handwritten note.86 Initially Brutus looked forward to the experience: “I was very pleased when I was put in solitary because I thought with my kind of intelligence (this is conceit), I would have no problem dealing with solitary.”87 At first, he did indeed cope quite creatively with his new state of isolation. He divided his day into 18 parts as there were 18 bars in his cell. One part of the day was set aside to recount old films, for example, while another was spent in prayerful meditation or on reflecting on the work of a particular poet (he specifically mentions Browning, Tennyson and Shakespeare). “Then I would spend maybe another part remembering books I had read or things I had done,” he notes.88 It was most likely during this period – as part of his attempt to keep himself constantly occupied – that he began to reflect intensively on the content and form of his own poetry, “going over the themes of my poetry with some bitterness in the empty hours there.”89 As Lindfors, one

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 185

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

186

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

of Brutus’s most regular and astute critics, notes: “Brutus’s first book of poems…contained a variety of lyrical forms invested with many of the standard poetic conventions…There were no loose ends in this poetry, no wasted words, no compromises with the reader’s dull-wittedness.”90 He rightly emphasises: “This was high-brow poetry – tight, mannered, formal and sometimes formidably difficult. Schooled in Shakespeare, Donne, Browning, Hopkins, Eliot and other classic English poets of exceptional intellect, Brutus attempted to write poems which would challenge the mind, poems sufficiently subtle and intricate to interest any well-educated lover of poetry.” *** Most importantly, Brutus was attracted to those described as the Metaphysical poets, who wrote lyric poetry at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Brutus points out that, to him, this was “a very important period in English literature,” which he believes was often underestimated.91 The most obvious reason he was attracted to the work of Donne, in particular, was because of the intellectual complexity of his ideas, especially his ability to bring together seemingly disparate ideas. Donne often draws a link, for instance, between the intellect and the senses in his poetry. One of the English poet’s most authoritative biographers, John Carey, refers to this style as “the characteristically Donnean mixture of thought and feeling.”92 Brutus, who first encountered Donne’s poetry at university (even though, as noted earlier, it was a most unsatisfactory introduction), was also attracted to it because of the way it combines the intellectual and the sensual. These dual features impressed him so much that he singled out Donne as the primary influence on his writing during the early period of his poetry, as is evident in Sirens Knuckles Boots.93 An example of a poem in which Brutus combines these two elements is “No Banyan, Only.” Brutus contemplates the human condition and the nature of love; in doing so, in the same way as Donne, he incorporates images from contemporary science.94 In the first line of the fifth stanza of the poem, written when unmanned rockets were being launched into space and landed on the

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 186

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

187

moon, Brutus declares that humanity is “sublunary no more…” This ability to venture into space means that humanity is no longer earthbound; now it can reach beyond the moon. In the next two lines of the same stanza, Brutus also refers to the US geneticist Alfred Hershey, whose pioneering research during the 1950s provided evidence that DNA was the genetic material of human life: “Our souls, since Hershey, seek the helix of unknowing / Save mine, you-saved, now leafing like a bough.” As the literary critic K.L. Goodwin perceptively comments, the poem suggests that the souls of the man and the woman are intertwined in the same way as the double helix is in the DNA of a human being – an imaginative combination, in the wake of Donne’s influence, of the intellectual and the sensual.95 Besides following his lead in attempting to bring together thought and feeling in the same poem, Brutus’s poetry also resembles the Metaphysical poet’s writing in another distinctive way. As Andrew Hiscock points out, Donne’s poetry can often seem “rather cryptic at first blush, presenting itself as a kind of conundrum and demanding energetic mental gymnastics on the part of the reader.”96 Much the same can be said of some of Brutus’s early poems. A case in point is the poem with the opening line “So, for the moment, sweet, is peace” (quoted in Chapter 2). It contains the intriguing phrase “pelican-peck” in line 6, which appears to be intentionally obscure. Brutus explains this reference as follows in an interview: There is another hymn by Thomas Aquinas in which he compares Christ to the pelican [“Adoro te devote”]. It’s an old medieval image of Christ. Apparently when baby pelicans are dying of thirst, the mother pelican will peck her own breast and they will drink her blood. Christ, you see, shed his blood to keep his baby pelicans alive. I’m using the image in another way by suggesting that the pelican sustains itself, keeps itself alive. Can you keep yourself alive by feeding on your own blood?97 Without the benefit of such an explanation, most readers would probably be unable to unlock the meaning of “pelican-peck.” Over and

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 187

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

188

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

above employing such a self-indulgent expression, Brutus sometimes even introduces unnecessary complications with his deliberate use of obscure allusions in “No Banyan, Only.” He refers, for example, to St Francis of Assisi by his monicker, Poverello (“the poor one”), in the last stanza. In itself, this reference is accessible. But what does result in unnecessary confusion is that he refers in the last stanza to St Francis as “Paduan,” a resident of the city or province of Padua in northern Italy, when Assisi is in fact located in the province of Perugia in central Italy. *** Hopkins is another poet whose writing made a significant impact on Brutus’s early work. Brutus specifically pays tribute to him for his innovative use of words with different sounds, and states that he admires the Victorian poet for “trying to do very complicated things with sound, playing consonants and vowels against each other, creating tensions in sound.”98 Brutus deliberately sets out to create a similar effect in his early poems. His well-known poem with the opening line “The sounds begin again,” which contains the title of his debut collection, is an eloquent example: The sounds begin again; the siren in the night the thunder at the door the shriek of nerves in pain. Then the keening crescendo of faces split by pain the wordless, endless wail only the unfree know. Importune as rain the wraiths exhale their woe over the sirens, knuckles, boots; My sounds begin again.99

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 188

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

189

Ironically, Brutus comes in for criticism precisely for successfully creating a tension in the sounds he uses in some of his early verse. Mphahlele, for instance, describes Sirens Knuckles Boots in a review as “displaying the usual features of a beginner’s work: brash, raw anger wielding the long thundering line and harsh sounds.”100 This is a serious misreading of Brutus’s early poetry. He uses certain shrill sounds quite deliberately in order to achieve a certain effect. Abasiekong recognises this when he points out that Brutus consciously employs words – and, by implication, sounds – to shock his readers.101 The poem with the opening line “The sounds begin again,” in particular, is carefully crafted; it is not, as Mphahlele mistakenly suggests, the result of unrestrained emotion on the part of a novice poet. Brutus also points out that, in the second stanza, he tried to recreate a scene from a work by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya about the execution of a group of soldiers: “I am trying to catch both the defenselessness and the terror of the people whose faces are split by their wide-open mouths so that their eyes and foreheads disappear.”102 While Brutus does not name the painting, his description fits Goya’s The Third of May, which is set in 1808 when France occupied Spain during the Peninsular War. *** However, after Brutus reflected on his poetry while on Robben Island, he reconsidered his use of such obscure or complex images in his poetry: “I reevaluated the poetry I had written before going to prison, influenced by John Donne, T.S. Eliot, Hopkins, and Pound: highly ordered, reasoned, and ornamental. I decided it was contemptible.”103 As a result of this reappraisal of his poetry in solitary confinement, Brutus decided to transform the language, style and techniques that he employed in his poetry. In part, he made this decision because he arrived at the conclusion that the employment of such literary devices is “a kind of pride, of selfdisplay, a glorifying in the intellect for its own sake.”104 Brutus specifically mentions his poem “Erosion: Transkei” as an example of such a work, and

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 189

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

190

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

characterises it as “too elaborate, too fancy, too complex.”105 Yet, perhaps far more important than eliminating such seemingly egotistical gestures, is a pragmatic desire to expand his readership. “The first thing I decided about my future poetry was that there must be no ornament, absolutely none,” Brutus explains. “And the second thing I decided was you oughtn’t to write for poets; you oughtn’t even to write for people who read poetry, not even students.”106 Now he intends to write “for the ordinary person: for the man who drives a bus, or the man who carries the baggage at the airport, and the woman who cleans the ashtrays in the restaurant.” He adds self-reproachfully: “If you can write poetry which makes sense to those people, then there is some justification for writing poetry. Otherwise you have no business writing.” His decision to write more simply and accessibly was an important – even though not complete – break from the traditional English literary canon with which he grew up and which he previously emulated in his writing. His analysis of his poetry while in solitary confinement was therefore, by his own account, a turning point in his writing. “One of the things I did was to say ‘if the poetry is so bad, instead of panicking about it and feeling miserable…I should start thinking about how to write poetry which I would not be ashamed of,’” he recalls. “I began to settle for a much simpler, more direct, more immediate, unornamented poetry, less pretentious, it seemed to me, less guilty of self-display.”107 *** Reflecting on his poetry during this period on Robben Island was no doubt a pleasant and stimulating distraction from the exacting and disorientating experience of being deprived of any social interaction with other prisoners. Nevertheless, his various attempts to keep himself productively occupied ultimately turned out to be in vain. Being deprived of any contact with anyone for a prolonged period, and not even being allowed out his cell for any exercise, eventually took its toll on Brutus. “I couldn’t see anybody, could not speak to anybody,” Brutus recalls plaintively.108 During this time, he did not even see any warders. His food

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 190

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

191

– a dish of porridge – was grudgingly pushed to him on the floor under his door three times a day.109 “I sometimes thought I would get insane, and when I say this, I really mean it,” Brutus observes.110 According to him, he started experiencing hallucinations after being alone for one or two months.111 In a radio interview in 1986, he attributes this largely to the absence of any external stimuli: “Because there was no one that I could talk to, there was no way of testing your perceptions against reality, so there’s no way of realising that you’re slipping into this hallucinatory state.”112 In addition, the fear that he would be kept in prison indefinitely on various pretexts, including his violation of several prison regulations, placed him under additional strain. “Looking back I can see how the series of pressures worked on me simultaneously,” he submits. “All of this combined to create a state of tension, heightened by the kind of spiritual anxieties I was going through.”113 This culminated in a particularly disturbing experience. He developed a notion of himself as “a damned soul, as in fact a demon which simply inhabited human flesh at that particular point and functioned as a devil to precipitate certain actions or engender them in others.”114 This dark image of himself – as some kind of satanic creature habitually engaged in performing evil deeds – appears to suggest a state of severe anxiety and perhaps even depression. “The end of such a line of thinking is to think of oneself as perpetually damned and endlessly inhabiting bodies, and leaving them, and then inhabiting others in an endless series of reincarnations until the end of time, and then to enter an eternity of damnation again.” Almost a decade later, Brutus still struggled to understand this experience. “I sometimes talk of it as a period of hallucination and possibly even insanity,” he states in a tape-recorded interview in October 1974.115 In another tape recording that same year, he qualifies this characterisation and describes it as a phase of near-insanity.116 Whatever its clinical diagnosis, there is no doubt that this experience was an extremely destabilising period in his life. In fact, Brutus suspects that he was vulnerable to severe mental pressure even before his imprisonment. “I have always had a sense of psychotic and schizophrenic tendencies, impulses, forces in my own psyche,’ he declares in the October interview.117

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 191

2020-01-17 03:50:46 PM

192

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

It was solitary confinement, he contends, that brought these latent tendencies to the fore. “It seems to me that [the cause] was my overconfidence in my ability to deal with solitary,” he suggests. “I was too sure I could deal with it, and instead it just got to me without my being aware of what was happening.”118 The torment he experienced culminated in two attempts to commit suicide while in solitary confinement.119 “Suddenly I began to believe that I was so bad, so evil, and my poetry as well, that the only good thing I could do in the world was to kill myself,” he later reflects. “That was the only good thing left for me.”120 With chilling directness, he depicts these suicide attempts in Part V of the poem “Endurance”: twice I breathed death’s hot fetid breath twice I leaned over the chasm, surrendering till some tiny fibre at the base of my brain protested in the name of sanity and dragged me from the precipice of suicide that allured with its own urgent logic121 *** Like Naidoo and Daniels, former Robben Island prisoner Lionel Davis – who began to serve a seven-year sentence for sabotage in April 1964 – believes Brutus was singled out for undue attention by the warders. He believes that Brutus’s association with Harris was a key reason behind the hostile and cruel behaviour directed at him. Not only were both of them active in SANROC, which vigorously campaigned for apartheid South Africa’s exclusion from international sport. In addition, as noted earlier, Brutus was suspected of being connected to Harris’s decision to place a petrol bomb at Park Station. “They pinned the whole thing on Dennis,” claims Davis. “When John was sentenced to death [in October 1964], the prison guards – they were vicious and petty – would walk up to his cell and then harass him, and say to him: ‘You see, what happened to John Harris, this is what is going to happen to you.’”122

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 192

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

193

Davis argues that this unrelenting harassment was an intense form of psychological torture: “They would keep on taunting Dennis…It was not something that happened [for] one day; it was a continuous torturing of Dennis – [without] even touching him.” As a result of these repeated taunts and threats, he believes, Brutus was in constant torment: “We were each…locked up in our own cells, and [yet] you would hear Dennis ranting and raving, and calling to the Virgin Mary and the other deities for help.” Davis recounts a particularly haunting memory of how Brutus once fidgeted with the beads of a large cross: “The only thing that kept him actually alive mentally, I would say, was his spiritual leanings. Without that, he would have crashed.” He adds bitterly: “In that time, they made his life hell…If he had stayed in prison any longer [than 18 months], he would have been a mental wreck. It was really petty – mean, petty, spiteful.” Kathrada also suggests that the warders waged a vendetta against Brutus because of his role in campaigns to exclude apartheid South Africa from participation in international sport, and regards him as one of the founders of non-racial sport in the country. “Already the prison regulations as applied to people who were not white were bad enough,” he states. “But they wanted to make it worse for Dennis…the Afrikaner warders took their revenge on Dennis as the boycott of South African sport was becoming more and more relevant and successful.”123 By then, for example, South Africa was barred from the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, in 1964. Kathrada grimly remembers how the warders’ threats disturbed Brutus: “They kept telling Dennis: ‘You are going to hang, you are going to die.’ In that situation, you can believe anything.” Kathrada suggests that the fear of being hanged severely affected Brutus’s mental health: “Topmost in his mind was death.” At the time, he recalls, Brutus often recited parts of the Bible and appealed to the Virgin Mary to intercede on his behalf. Daniels, too, vividly remembers Brutus’s anguish. What aggravated his plight, he is convinced, is that Brutus was kept in solitary confinement during this period. “Our section was a big block, a big U, with the

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 193

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

194

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

courtyard in between,” he recalls. “So whenever we were in trouble with the authorities, they would put us in a block which had no one there – isolation, you see.”124 Daniels adds that Brutus was deliberately held separately from the other prisoners in order to intensify his suffering: “The Boers hated him because of his objection to the sporting tours.” He points out that, even though Brutus was in an isolated block, they could still hear him crying at night; sometimes during the day, too: “Shouting and calling on Mother Mary to help him.” With the support of fellow political prisoners, Brutus managed to endure this debilitating period. His health improved significantly when he was eventually allowed to rejoin the other prisoners; their assistance and companionship were central to his recovery. “When he eventually joined us, he regained his composure,” says Daniels. “With…Mandela there, Sisulu, Kathrada…He felt at home with us; he felt comforted.”125 Kathrada confirms this: “We tried our best to do whatever we [could] to keep up his spirit. We tried to console people because there were quite a few – at least three or four that come to mind immediately – who were in a similar position.”126 Brutus, in turn, subsequently provided assistance to fellow inmates in any way he could. Due to his background as a teacher, this invariably took the form of educational support for those who were studying. Daniels – who completed matric on Robben Island, and went on to complete two bachelor degrees while incarcerated127 – gratefully acknowledges his help: “Wherever he could, he would help us.”128 And Brutus’s camaraderie with fellow prisoners extended beyond political boundaries – in the same way it did before his imprisonment. “He wasn’t into party political agendas,” recalls Davis respectfully. “He did not get involved [in] political wrangling.”129 His relationships on the island with Daniels (Liberal Party), Kathrada (SACP) and various ANC leaders attest to this. Davis points out that Brutus was especially close to Neville Alexander, founder of the National Liberation Front (NLF), as both were teachers from the eastern Cape (Alexander was born in Cradock in 1936). Brutus’s companionship with fellow prisoners was one

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 194

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

195

of his most treasured memories of Robben Island, as the first two stanzas from “Letter 10” illustrate: It is not all terror and deprivation, you know; one comes to welcome the closer contact and understanding one achieves with one’s fellow-men, fellows, compeers130 Over time, thus, Brutus came to terms with life on Robben Island and its various tribulations. This is evident in some poems in his second collection, Letters to Martha. An example is the opening stanza of “Letter 16”: Quite early one reaches a stage where one resolves to embrace the status of prisoner with all it entails, savouring to the full its bitterness and seeking to escape nothing.131 The literary critic Piniel Viriri Shava characterises this attitude as a “desperate acceptance to which the prisoner succumbs in the face of overwhelming oppression,” and attempts to explain it as follows: “The acceptance Brutus talks of is not yielding to the political oppressor but a positive acceptance of suffering in a cause he deems noble.”132 By September 1964, therefore, he was able to reassure his wife in a letter that his health was “much improved,” even though he still struggled to sleep.133 He rejoices in the last stanza of “Letter 10”: so there are times when the mind is bright and restful

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 195

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

196

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

though alive: rather like the full calm morning sea.134 *** From time to time, though, there were still moments of intense suffering and grief. As mentioned earlier, he chose not to see his sisterin-law, Martha Brutus, when she visited him in November 1964. And, in March 1965, his beloved mother died – from diabetes – while he was on Robben Island.135 He was, cruelly, refused permission to attend her funeral.136 The fact that she died at the relatively advanced age of 74 offered little comfort. The two untitled poems he wrote for her around 1965–1966, after his release from prison, give an indication of his deep love and respect for her. In the one, he urges her: Dear wonderful woman mother and friend and guide rest easy now from all the strain the courageous grasping of our jagged life.137 In the other, he gratefully pays tribute to her love and guidance: Most gracious exemplar weaving your virtues with a modesty that made them seem unpresent and waging with a womanly lack of emphasis tenacious battle with a world of multiple injustice and evil – whoever had the blessing of a dearer guide and yet so little cared-for, little loved?138 To add to Brutus’s despair while on Robben Island, Wilfred was placed under 12-hour house arrest in May 1965 and could not leave his flat in Cape Town between 6 am and 6 pm. During the weekend, he was under 24-hour house arrest, one of the most restrictive measures

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 196

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

197

allowed under the Suppression of Communism Act.139 Brutus turned to his Christian faith to help him cope in such times of anguish on Robben Island. Growing up in a devout Catholic home, and attending Catholic schools as a child, clearly left a lasting impression on him. His study of the work of Aquinas at university, at his own initiative, reflects his continued interest in matters of faith in early adulthood as well. However, this was not a blind, uninterrupted act of devotion. In fact, in the first few years after his graduation, he embarked on an intense process of interrogating, and even fundamentally questioning, his Catholic upbringing. “I deliberately cultivated atheism in order to reestablish the truth of what had been taught to me as a child and what I had unthinkingly accepted as a whole pattern of behaviour and belief,” he notes in an interview. “I wanted to establish for myself how valid it was.”140 He found this period of self-examination and spiritual reflection extremely difficult: “I went through a very, very agonised sort-of period of doubt.” This was, eventually, followed by “a period of formal acceptance of the precepts and doctrines [of the Catholic Church] in a rather casual way, more lip service than a practical or any kind of deeply felt belief.” Despite the absence of absolute faith after this experience, his belief in the core tenets of Christianity, and more specifically of Catholicism, remained intact. In fact, because of his continued devotion to the Catholic Church during this period, Brutus did not immediately join the TLSA after he became a teacher in 1948. He recalls that the leaders of the broader political movement to which the association was aligned – most notably, NEUM – were generally regarded by the community as communists of one kind or another. Even at a time when he was seriously questioning his faith, the perceived allegiance of many local left-wing political activists to communism still ruled out the option for him of any involvement in the TLSA: “And so I spent a period of I should think at least 10 years criticising from the sidelines, but not wanting to join the only worthwhile political group of teachers because I could not accept the ideological commitment.”141 He stresses: “When I failed to make this commitment earlier, it was not lack of courage. It was really fundamentally this conflict

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 197

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

198

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

between the atheism of the left and my own Catholicism. This was the one commitment I could not make.” He only joined the TLSA in 1950 when he felt sufficiently able to reconcile his faith with what he describes as the left-wing politics of the dominant opposition group in Port Elizabeth – “having satisfied my conscience that I was not going to betray my religious principles, that it was possible to be both left and religious.”142 Brutus’s staunch faith at the time was confirmed by his marriage that same year to May in St Patrick’s Catholic Church in Sydenham. All their children later joined the parish and, even though the family then lived in North End, they were all sent to St Monica’s, a Catholic primary school in South End – quite a distance away.143 Brutus insisted that the boys become altar servers – another indication of his enduring belief in the teachings of the Catholic Church at that stage. *** Little information is available on Brutus’s religious sentiments later in life. Yet, even if he was not necessarily a regular churchgoer then, he still appeared to retain his faith. And, when his father died in September 1963 while he was in Swaziland, he experienced an intense renewal of his religious beliefs.144 After he was informed of the grim news by telegram, he attended Mass at a cathedral in Manzini the very next Sunday. His attendance was prompted by a multitude of thoughts and even by what appears to be a mystical experience: “It was partly because of the shock of the news of his death, concern for his soul within the wholly conventional Catholic notion of the holy souls and purgatory, and a kind of spiritual shock in myself at the same time, and an awareness of his presence after death.”145 Brutus’s renewed faith found expression in several events that followed soon afterwards. After his arrest by security police in Mozambique, for instance, he asked to see a priest – “it being a Sunday and they being a Catholic country and I being a good Catholic.”146 His captors, however, were unmoved by this unexpected declaration of faith. Whether in desperation or out of genuine conviction, Brutus entered into an intense

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 198

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

199

period of prayer while being held by the PIDE in Lourenço Marques: its main subject was a plea for divine intervention in his predicament.147 In turn, he pledged to pay whatever price was required. Subsequent events, to his mind, suggested that there was indeed “a providential element” at work in his life.148 So, when he was shot after he tried to escape from police custody in Johannesburg, he naturally asked for a priest – not an ambulance.149 Brutus later elaborates in a newspaper article: “As a Catholic it made sense for me to ask for a priest. I was a baptised and fairly fervent – if liberated – Catholic.”150 And as he lay in a pool of blood in the street, unable to staunch the flow from his wound with a handkerchief, he probably thought he was close to death. Before his operation at Coronation Hospital, he again asked to see a priest. Death was obviously still uppermost in his mind. It was only logical that he would attempt to seek refuge in his faith at a time of such extreme fear and pain; after all, it was previously a source of great comfort to him during a number of other stressful experiences. While an awaiting-trial prisoner at the Fort, he once again – understandably – made several requests to see a priest. Eventually a Catholic chaplain at Wits University came to see him. Brutus remembers the priest with affection and respect for being willing to visit him, supposedly a communist fugitive, and derived much comfort from that single visit.151 After he was sentenced, Brutus made several requests through Ruth Hayman, his lawyer, to see a priest at Leeuwkop prison. On the one hand, he viewed this demand as a political act of self-assertion: “I was adamant about my rights as a prisoner with relation to religion.”152 But, perhaps even more importantly to him, this was also a reaffirmation of his faith. He even became embroiled in religious debates with fellow prisoners (in particular, with PAC members).153 As at the Fort, he was able to secure a visit from a priest at Leeuwkop. Before the clergyman could make a follow-up visit a week later, though, Brutus was moved to Robben Island. It was against this background that his faith came to play such a central role during his time on the island. When an interviewer asked how he survived this period in his life, he explicitly acknowledges: “It…helps to have some religious base, some reservoir of religious strength.”154 He

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 199

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

200

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

subsequently elaborates on this in a tape-recorded reflection in October 1988: You have to remember that I was educated at a Catholic missionary school by nuns; I was also an altar-boy serving mass. I was also a student of religion; the priests and the nuns saw me as a potential seminary candidate. You have to add my fascination with Catholic philosophy. And I mean both theologians and philosophers, someone like Jacques Maritain, who was regarded as the most distinguished Thomistic philosopher of the century.155 And yet, despite his rekindled faith on Robben Island, all Brutus’s requests to see a priest were initially turned down even though there was a special church available to prisoners. The reason he was given at first was that he was in the Segregation section – “the isolation section” – of the prison, where he was held from mid-March to the end of May.156 In a later letter to his wife, dated 9 September 1964, he informed her that he was still waiting to see a priest and asked whether anyone in church in Port Elizabeth remembered him during Holy Communion. In the absence of being able to see a priest on the island, he cheerfully informed her, he conducted a “Spiritual Communion” for himself. His letter gives an insightful glimpse into his religious proclivities at the time: Expect I sound awfully pious, but I’ve time to think – even when working – and have much to regret. How I wish I’d done better for you and our children – brought more love for each other and for God into our home. Pray for me – I’m grateful for the Psalm and Special Rosary – and I commend you all constantly to the maternal love of Our Lady and Infinite Mercy of Our Lord… Thank Helene [Helen] and Doll [Catherine, his sisters] for the wonderful gift of “New Testament Readings” when I was

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 200

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

201

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

under severe strains last month. I pray for them often – and for Ma… Shall I see you soon? Anyway, God be thanked, it has been a year of much thought for me: and of grace. But I shall need lots of prayer, my Dear, and I know you will help me – much of my past seems pretty awful to me now, but I trust to you for prayer and for forgiveness. And my prayers that the Divine Shepherd will watch over our family forever.157 In the same letter, Brutus asks May to inform Martha that she should try to reclaim a crucifix that she sent to him in prison as he was unable to receive it; he suggests that it be given to his son Marc instead. In addition, he requests that pictures of a holy water font be given to the other children. Brutus reminds May that he was still waiting for a rosary from her and for a copy of a book, which he refers to simply as Human Christ, from someone identified only as Sue. He also asks May to convey his gratitude to a Catholic priest, Father John O’Malley, and to his aunt, Lou (presumably Louisa Dolf, with whom they lived for a while at 23 Brock Road in Dowerville after his mother returned from Grahamstown),158 who he was sure was praying for him. Eventually Brutus managed to secure a private session with Father Brendan Long, a Catholic priest who made weekly visits to Robben Island every Sunday to hold interdenominational services for the inmates between 1962 and 1964.159 Brutus was also able to attend Mass – with warders on duty – on the one occasion it took place at the church on the island while he was there. He and a group of other prisoners saw Long again in an office in the block where they were being held but, as before, the priest was only allowed to speak to them in the presence of a warder. Priests from other denominations visited the prisoners in the maximum security section from time to time, too. However, Brutus recalls, they were never allowed to speak to the inmates individually: “The ministers had to deliver an address standing at the end of the corridor and preaching

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 201

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

202

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

down the passage, while people could listen if they wished by standing at the windows of their cells which looked onto the corridor. The doors were kept locked.”160 Brutus attempted to sustain his faith by reading various religious texts on Robben Island. The Imitation of Christ, a spiritual guide by the fifteenthcentury German priest Thomas à Kempis, was especially treasured.161 Brutus often read the religious classic in prison, and was particularly struck by what he regarded as its seemingly contrarian advice that it was necessary to surrender desire precisely in order to obtain the very objective that was desired. As he explains in a tape recording in 1974: “Of course, even now I retain my kind of double-thinking notion that if I surrender the hope of serving South Africa, it is at that point that I am most likely to be of service, because it will not be as a result of my own desire or aspiration, but through the surrender of desire.”162 Brutus drew a comparison between à Kempis’s notions of desire and St Alphonsus Maria de Liguori’s reflections “on the will of God” (presumably with reference to his book Uniformity with God’s Will).163 He points out that he read the work of the eighteenth-century Italian Catholic bishop while on Robben Island. Another text that he closely scrutinised while in prison was British writer and lay theologian G.K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man, in line with his interest in apologetics.164 When Brutus discovered that fellow prisoner Stanley Mogoba did not have any reading material, and was not even allowed a copy of the Bible, he surreptitiously gave him Chesterton’s book when he passed his cell the next time. “He became deeply religious in solitary [confinement] because of this book,” Brutus claims.165 *** Brutus’s reflections on religion are, inevitably, reflected in some of the poetry he conceived while on Robben Island. By his own admission, religious thought is a recurring thread in his writing and its appearance usually corresponds to “particular phases of my life, or arising out of certain circumstances.”166 The traumatic ordeal of imprisonment – especially his time in solitary confinement – is unquestionably

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 202

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

203

one such phase, during which he experienced a compelling need to communicate with a divine being. In “Letter 4” in Letters to Martha, he describes various impulses behind this need. As the extract below illustrates, these range from mere childhood habit and convenience to more self-serving motives: Particularly in a single cell, but even in the sections the religious sense asserts itself; perhaps a childhood habit of nightly prayers the accessibility of Bibles, or awareness of the proximity of death: and, of course, it is a currency – pietistic expressions can purchase favours and it is a way of suggesting reformation (which can procure promotion) … but in the grey silence of the empty afternoons it is not uncommon to find oneself talking to God.167 Religious undertones can be detected as well in “Letter 15,” in which Brutus reflects on human nature. He speculates that it is not predetermined, but that human beings possess the ability to shape their behaviour. This process he describes as extrapolation, and defines it in lines 4 to 9 as the capacity to ennoble or pervert what is otherwise simply animal amoral and instinctual.168

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 203

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

204

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

He suggests that this capacity is the key to “the essential secret of our nature” (line 2), and enables human beings to choose between what he terms “the diabolic / or divinity” (lines 13 and 14). In a poem written a few months after his release, “Christmas 1965,” Brutus professes – far more optimistically – a belief in “man’s inherent divinity.”169 This statement is echoed nearly two decades later in the opening poem of Airs and Tributes, which refers in line 10 to “the divinity within me.”170 Brutus often cites the Colesberg poem, too, as being deeply religious.171 During a discussion with African literature students at the University of Texas in February 1970, for instance, he attributes “a kind of religious overtone, a certain spirituality” to the poem.172 And, in his interview with William Thompson in 1983, he again claims that his reference to the Southern Cross in lines 23 to 25 of the poem was “part of a statement I’m making at a spiritual level in addition to the purely descriptive or objective level.”173 In an autobiographical essay in 1991, he explains more fully the symbolism of the Southern Cross in the Colesberg poem. “The cross is of course operating in more than one way,” he asserts. “It is the familiar constellation in the Southern sky. But it is also the symbol of the cross, of the crucifixion of Christ.”174 He draws another, less obvious, parallel with the crucifixion. When Jesus Christ was dragged before his prosecutors and accused of various crimes, says Brutus, he submitted to their accusations even though he was innocent. In the same way, he contends, those who fight against apartheid are, in fact, the upholders of justice – not those who imprison them: “There is a sense that those who oppose the injustice of the apartheid system are the truly just ones, are the victims.” The real criminals, in other words, are the prison guards and all those who codify and enforce the laws of apartheid. On several occasions, Brutus also explains his employment of the word “awkwardly” at the end of the Colesberg poem: the chains on our ankles and wrists that pair us together

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 204

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

Chapter 5: 1964–1965

205

jangle glitter. We begin to move awkwardly (lines 26 to 31). In these three stanzas, he attempts to link the word “awkwardly” to the spiritual concept of grace by suggesting that, in this particular context, it means “being without grace” or “ungraceful.”175 He goes on to argue that “if someone is without grace, if one is graceless, if one is awkward, couldn’t one also be, if without grace, forsaken by God?” He makes a similar point in the interview with Thompson: I really did feel thoroughly desolated. Literally not only deserted, but bereft, being bereft of Grace. I don’t want to put it too strongly, but recalling the kind of experience that Christ might have had on the cross, where the ultimate pain was not the nails or the lance, but the sense of loss of the presence of God when Christ has to cry out, “my God, why have YOU forsaken me?” – that kind of desertion and total denial of Grace.176 Brutus is obviously close to the Colesberg poem, both politically and aesthetically. He confidently declares in an interview with Wahlman in 1973: “It really functions, and I laid certain limits for myself on vocabulary and on imagery.”177 He emphasises: “I knew exactly what I was going to do, and how to do it, and I did it. Now I may have had the wrong designs, but in terms of the designs I did everything I wanted to do…If I have any good poems, then this is one of them.” He insists that it is “not necessarily a great poem, but a poem that does everything I wanted it to do.” Brutus clearly spent much time on Robben Island reflecting on matters of faith and on his poetry. In fact, Alvarez-Peryere even contends that, in the absence of regular visits and letters, “all he had to preserve him from insanity or suicide were his religion and his poetry.”178 There is no doubt

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 205

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

206

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

that Brutus renewed his faith while in prison. As he acknowledges more than once: “This was a period of some religious deepening for me.”179 And, of his poetry in prison, he declares in an interview: “My poems were to me like a harbour of security in this complete abandonment by the world; at least this was a sure accomplishment, these poems had an existence, and all the rest was not in my power.”180

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 206

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 207

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 208

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

THE SOUTH

DENNIS BRUTUS

Af RICAN YE ARS Chapter 6: 1965-1966

Towards the end of his time in prison on Robben Island, Brutus slowly started making preparations for his release. On 21 February 1965, he applied to the Minister of Justice to change his banning order – which restricted him to Johannesburg until 31 January 1968 – to Port Elizabeth.1 According to his letter to Vorster, he was previously unable to find adequate accommodation in Johannesburg to allow his family to join him. He also pointed out that he was unable to find appropriate employment in Johannesburg to support them, and expressed the hope that “prospects will be more favourable in Port Elizabeth where I have spent most of my life.” His lawyer Ruth Hayman followed this up a few months later with a letter of support on 3 June 1965, in which she asked Vorster to bear in mind the following: (a) That it is important for his seven children that their father should reside with them so as to maintain the family unit and so also enable him to fulfil his obligations as their father. (b) That when our client was living in Johannesburg, he had considerable difficulty in obtaining employment and was on occasion out of work, and at other times earned only a very low wage. It is possible that his chances of obtaining employment and of earning higher wages will be better in Port Elizabeth.2

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 209

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

210

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

The Commissioner of Police informed the Department of Justice on 17 June 1965 that he did not have any objections to transferring Brutus’s restrictions from Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth.3 The police probably carried out an inspection on his North End house beforehand as the letter specifically noted that the property consisted of two bedrooms, a lounge, a kitchen, a bathroom, a lavatory and a pantry. The police letter pointed out as well that “all the usual household conveniences” were available on the premises at 20 Shell Street.4 It also mentioned that Brutus was a Catholic, but added that the police did not recommend that he be allowed to attend church. A few weeks before his release, Brutus was given lighter work as a window cleaner. “Perhaps this was part of the process of rehabilitation and preparing me for normal existence once again,” he observes.5 Brutus was placed under house arrest on 6 July 1965 and then transported from Robben Island to the jail in North End, known as “Rooi Hel” (Red Hell), from where he was released two days later.6 Under the terms of his house arrest, he was restricted to his home during the week from 7 pm to 7 am. On Saturdays, he could only leave home until 2 pm. However, on Sundays and on public holidays, he was compelled to stay at home the whole day and night. In addition, he was required to report to police once a week. No visitors were allowed at Brutus’s home. In particular, he was prevented from communicating with any other banned people (in fact, he could only consult a medical doctor who was not banned). He was also barred from entering any school, college, university or factory. Nor was he allowed to visit any coloured, Indian or “Bantu” residential areas. Harbours and any premises with printing presses were out of bounds. He was prohibited from entering any court premises unless it involved a civil or criminal proceeding in which he was involved either as a plaintiff or as a respondent. Attending any meetings was completely out of the question and, in addition, he was prevented from preparing, publishing or disseminating any publication.7 Brutus’s family was, of course, overjoyed to be reunited with him when he was released at noon on 8 July 1965, a Thursday. “He is looking well and it was good to see him back with the children,” his wife May –

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 210

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

Chapter 6: 1965–1966

211

who was only informed by police of his release the night before – told a newspaper reporter. “They were all terribly excited when I told them he would be home in the afternoon.”8 Brutus spent the rest of that afternoon playing with his seven children. A bowl of soup was his first meal at home. “Dennis is not fussy about food,” May replied in response to an enquiry from a reporter.9 *** Even though Brutus was back at home with his family, the wideranging and extremely punitive set of restrictions imposed on him aggravated the sense of alienation and dislocation he felt as a result of his imprisonment in Mozambique and subsequently in three different prisons in South Africa since 1964. When he was released from Robben Island, even his family’s own house initially seemed strange and almost threatening to him. He poignantly evokes the sense of discomfort he felt at the end of 1965 in a tape-recorded account: The house still seems strange to me: the kitchen crowded and uncomfortable with nothing visually pleasing, much of it grimy. The furniture is too large and projecting awkward corners and edges that make me uncomfortable. Down the passage in the front room the radio is playing. I sit gloomily at a table, my mind taut and prickly with a sense of confinement. A long weekend of house arrest, with only the short morning break I have taken [on Saturday], presses in on me with the knowledge that it is illegal for me to go out by the back door into the small concrete yard or onto the stoop by the front door. All this makes me irritable, the kind of brooding pent-up anger.10 Brutus’s life was further destabilised by arbitrary visits to the house by security police. He and May even developed a code name, Vladimir, to refer to a visit by any security policeman. Brutus recalls in the tape recording: “I prefer to meet them at the front door and keep them there

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 211

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

212

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

and not admit them into the house. I resented their intrusion on my home and on my privacy.”11 Sometimes they would even arrive at 3 am, and force the whole family to get out of bed on the pretext of searching for what they vaguely referred to as “subversive material.”12 During one visit, Brutus was indirectly asked to work for the security police as an informant. Even though the policeman who broached the matter was known to be dangerous and vindictive, Brutus immediately asked him to leave the house. “He mumbles awkwardly and speaks of just exchanging ideas,” recounts Brutus. In a cold rage, Brutus repeated his request to the policeman to leave: “He continues to mumble, apologetically I think, as he gets up and moves towards the door. It is clear that he understands that this is not a subject we can discuss.”13 After the policeman left, Brutus closed the door behind him without a word, still furious. Besides frequent visits by security police, his life was routinely disrupted in other ways. His letters were routinely opened, for example. He claims he was even harassed for defying his banning order by going to church on Sundays.14 A security policeman also parked outside the house occasionally with the intention of intimidating Brutus and to discourage anyone from visiting him. Some former political comrades, much to his distress, meekly complied and did not make any effort to get in touch with him. He disappointedly reflects on their timid response in the poem “It Is Time I Said a Word,” in the following three stanzas: how I am shamed by those who pass me by with just that break in stride which shows a momentary hesitation! And how my heart heels averting itself from anger, hurt, contempt when some slink by pretending ignorance of my presence?

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 212

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

Chapter 6: 1965–1966

213

And those who do not dare to write or send the simplest word of seasonal conventional greeting – hugging close some not-so-wonderfully feathered nest and turning to me only that side of them that has been frozen to obliviousness15 He revisits this topic in an untitled poem also written while under house arrest: Presumably one should pity the frightened ones the old fighters: who now shrink from contact and it is true I feel a measure of sadness – and no contempt – and have no wish to condemn.16 But, he adds stoically in the next stanza, it is best to shutter the mind and heart eyes, mouth and spirit; say nothing, feel nothing and do not let them know that they have cause for shame. Another poem, with the introductory note, “For Daantjie – Written on a New Coin Envelope,” also conveys his sense of despair and frustration during this time:17 On a Saturday afternoon in summer greyly through net curtains I see planes on planes in blocks of concrete masonry where the biscuit factory blanks out the sky18

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 213

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

214

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Cézanne clawing agonisedly at the physical world19 wrested from such super-imposed masses a new and plangent vocabulary evoking tensions, spatial forms and pressures almost tactile on the eyeballs, palpable on the fingertips, and from these screaming tensions wrenched new harmonies, the apple’s equipoise the immobility of deadlocked conflicts – the cramp, paralyses – more rich than any rest, repose. And I, who cannot stir beyond these walls, who shrink the temptation of any open door find hope in thinking that repose can be wrung from these iron-hard rigidities.20 While Brutus’s banning order technically allowed him to be employed during the day, the security police spitefully made sure in practice that he was unable to hold down a job for long by waging a relentless campaign of harassment against him. When he found employment as a factory clerk at an engineering company called Sharp Control,21 the security police paid a visit to the owner of the company. A fellow worker, Ebrahim Bardien, recalls: “The following day, our boss, Mr Sharp, explained to Dennis that he was intimidated to fire [him] immediately. We all were very sad to see him leave under those conditions.”22 Bardien then helped Brutus to find employment at another engineering company, Bel-Essex Engineering.23 “Just as he was about to settle in,” Bardien writes, “the same, the special branch again paid a visit.” As a result, Brutus lost his job. Bardien helped him yet again to find employment, this time at a company called Aberdare Cables.24 But the security police refused to end their vindictive campaign of victimisation; they called on this company as well, and pressurised it to terminate Brutus’s employment.25

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 214

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

Chapter 6: 1965–1966

215

Brutus’s brother was a frequent target of state repression during this period as well. In November 1965, Wilfred was charged under the Suppression of Communism Act in the Cape Town Regional Court. He pleaded guilty to being an office bearer of the CPC while a banned person, but not guilty of attending four meetings between February and May 1965. A security policeman, Sergeant J. van Wyk, informed the court that the CPC’s aims were to lead coloured people “in their fight for democratic rights, to organise them against any attack on their political, economic and social rights, and to support other organisations with the same aim.”26 Wilfred was found guilty on four counts under the Suppression of Communism Act, and received a 15-month sentence on Robben Island.27 *** Brutus refused to wallow in self-pity, and tried to adjust as best he could to the prevailing circumstances. While he was prohibited from entering any black residential areas, for example, his banning order did not bar him from entering white areas. So, one day, he asked his long-time friend Omar Cassem, a Muslim cleric and anti-apartheid activist from South End, to drive him to Dowerville (now part of the white residential area Kensington) – the fulfilment of a desire to visit his childhood home that first emerged when he was in prison.28 As he explains nostalgically in an autobiographical essay: “To ride through the township; to see the streets I had played in; the house I had grown up in; the houses in which my friends had lived; the houses of people who had been names of ‘import’ to me when I was a small boy. This I had promised myself in the long empty hours when I had been in a prison cell.”29 It turned out to be a bitter-sweet encounter with his past. Probably contrary to what he expected, a despondent sight greeted him: neglect and poverty were evident everywhere. “Fences sagged, gates hung askew, torn from their hinges, windows were broken, with rags stuffed in the holes, and lean dogs snuffed among the tufts of grass and debris on the pavements.”30 He found little in the residents now living there to console him: “Bare-arsed children with mucous tendants to their noses stood in doorways and short-sleeved men lay stretched on the grass or sprawled in the sunlight on the doorsteps.”

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 215

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

216

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

The new residents, Brutus noted with little discernible empathy, were white working-class people – they either held positions reserved for white workers on the government-owned railways or occupied unskilled jobs in the nearby car, tyre or glass factories. Some, he observed acerbically, supervised African labourers. “But,” he adds with even more displeasure, “this was a group which as often as not did not work.”31 His scorn was, in part, based on the fact that the former coloured residents were often harangued by the local authorities for not properly maintaining their houses; the sight of decay now facing him exposed this as a feeble and utterly dishonest pretext to hound them out the neighbourhood under the Group Areas Act. He remembers, with much affection and sadness, some of the people who once lived in Dowerville, who were now either relocated or deceased: Bill Johnson, an African-American boxer and sailor who settled in the area with his coloured wife and owned the first gramophone the young Brutus ever saw; Nurse Courtiers, who owned the only telephone in the area; and a Mr Ruiters, who was regarded as special because he was principal of a school. There were, of course, also those who indulged in less savoury behaviour. “But on the whole,” Brutus avers, “we were a respectable community, and tried hard to live respectably.”32 Initially, Dowerville residents tried hard to resist their relocation. “I had heard tales of how the people were stubbornly trying to resist being moved,” he states. But, after many years of futile opposition, the people of Dowerville eventually gave up the fight, and the bulldozers moved in and tore apart their houses – and their lives. South End, too, eventually fell victim to the Group Areas Act. Brutus wrote a poem in tribute to the former residents of his father’s first home in Port Elizabeth, in which he expressed sentiments that no doubt applied equally to the wilful destruction of Dowerville. He uses Burness Street as the focal point of the untitled poem. In the first stanza, he reflects: For them Burness Street is a familiar entity, it lies whole, like a snake, in the landscape of their minds

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 216

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

Chapter 6: 1965–1966

217

with its length and intersections its trees and pavements, corners, shops drains and gutters, curbs and slopes.33 Even though he never lived in South End himself, Brutus recognises the devastating sense of loss experienced by the forcibly removed residents. In the last stanza, he declares movingly: For them, all South End is the familiar map of their existence, all their growth and lives though for me it is mere knowledge, mere report: yet even I can sorrow, knowing their loss their uprooting from their homely paradise and all their yearnings and their sense of loss.34 In 1964, it was estimated that the Group Areas Act proclamations would involve the relocation of 22 035 coloured people in Port Elizabeth.35 The removals from Dowerville – over a period of more than a year – started in March 1964. Residents were moved to Springdale, a new residential area in Gelvandale in the north of the city, which did not even have any street lights.36 The roads, too, were still roughly graded. A week later, 12 families were moved from South End to Springdale as well. Twenty more families in South End were told to be ready to be transported – in municipal trucks – to the new area on 15 December. In addition, another 30 families were earmarked for removal to Springdale the following year.37 *** Brutus was no doubt both saddened and enraged by the brutal implementation of apartheid in Port Elizabeth and elsewhere. So, despite his stringent banning order during this period, he could not resist coming out in opposition to it. As he writes in an untitled poem: And still one battles: while I am pooled in desperation

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 217

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

218

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

stagnant in a ramified marsh of disability: a stick-legged on solitary prop immobilized heron of circumstance.38 One of the ways in which he continued to do battle was to write articles under pseudonyms for various newspapers.39 Brutus probably also wrote anonymous letters to newspapers for publication. The newspaper Evening Post carried a letter on 18 December 1965, under the nom de plume Cicero, which lambasted local playwright Athol Fugard for allowing his play Hello and Goodbye to be performed to whites-only audiences in Cape Town and Johannesburg. “It is sad that this should happen since there are many who regard Mr Fugard as not only our outstanding playwright but the only man of the theatre who has shown that he genuinely cares about artistic integrity,” the letter reads. “But the facts are clear. And to all who are sincere opponents of apartheid it is now evident that Athol has become the ally of apartheid. It marks a further erosion in our defence of human decency.”40 According to Fugard, who played the role of Johnnie Smit in his play alongside Molly Seftel as his sister Hester, the writer behind the pseudonym was Brutus.41 He took issue with the letter-writer’s strident criticism with the retort that it implied that silence was the most effective way to fight apartheid. “This presumably would also put an end to my work with [theatre group] Serpent Players of New Brighton who, like everyone else, have been forced to choose between working on a segregated basis or not working at all,” he responded.42 Instead, Fugard declared, he and the Serpent Players chose “to talk here and now, to those we can, about things that concern us.”43 *** As he did on Robben Island, Brutus turned to poetry in a time of anxiety and distress – among other functions, it provided him with a means of

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 218

2020-01-17 03:50:47 PM

Chapter 6: 1965–1966

219

introspection and self-expression. Through his poems, he reflected on various people and events in his life over the past few years. On 11 November 1965, for example, Brutus pays tribute in a second poem titled “For Bernice” to a fellow law student at Wits University for her support years earlier.44 He intimates in the poem that their relationship was more than a platonic friendship: You were the still oasis in a whirling vortex … and I rested with such content in the thought of you and our relationship … you could make such chords of sensibility sing in me45 Brutus also reflects on the pain that his political involvement, and subsequent imprisonment, caused his family. It meant years of absence from his young children during a period when they probably needed him most in their growth and development. In a letter to May from Robben Island dated 9 September 1964, addressed to “my dearest wife, and my very dear children,” he refers to a birthday party of one of the children and apologises that he was unable to send any gifts.46 To compensate, he offers: “If they want anything, write me c/o Wil[fred] & I can try.” He also asks about a bout of dysentery that Gregory suffered from and teasingly comments that he would really like to see Cornelia’s hairstyles (he refers to her by her nickname Gilla). He then asks: “Are Daddy’s girls still so sweet? Try to spend time with Senta [Jacinta]; she will need your understanding – and remember your own youthful problems. Hope Marcus [Marc], Julio [Julian] and Toggles [Antony] are growing sturdy: they can all make me happy by being good in the home, at school & everywhere.” The concerned father adds: “Do they study? Wish I could help them in work & play & training them.” Apart from his absence as a father, Brutus’s dismissal as a teacher and imprisonment meant severe financial hardship for the family. According to his son Marc, the boys scrounged around for odd jobs after school to

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 219

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

220

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

help support the family when Brutus was in prison: “We didn’t earn much, 36 cents a week, but it helped.”47 At one stage, remembers Marc, the children were separated because their mother could not afford to look after all seven of them on her own: “And so, separately, we drifted from family to family, lost and bewildered.”48 In the poem “For My Sons & Daughters,” Brutus admits: Memory of me will be a process of conscious and unconscious exorcism; not to condemn me you will need forgetfulness of all my derelictions.49 Yet, even then, he does not express any remorse: “I seek no mitigation – / would even welcome some few words of scorn.” He believes that the justness of his cause is sufficient vindication of his actions. The only point he submits in his defence is that “my continental sense of sorrow drove me to work / and at times I hoped to shape your better world.” He does, though, express a wish that later in life, as adults, they will understand his contention that his neglect of them was justifiable in the circumstances. Brutus wrote several poems during his banning order about his incarceration on Robben Island. An example is “Letter 18,” in which he tried to catch a glimpse of the stars from his cell one night, which was written on 20 December 1965 (this poem is cited in Chapter 5).50 In another poem, presumably written amid the celebrations as 1965 ended and a new year began, he reflects on those he left behind in prison “who toss on coir mats and stone-walls / and writhe their restless loneliness.”51 He now also appears to be far more open to accepting sexual relationships between consenting male prisoners. He recalls the genuine concern and anxiousness between two men whom sexual bonds had linked: not all of it was evil it must seem… or some of it had graces that I know not of.52

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 220

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

Chapter 6: 1965–1966

221

In addition to personal reflections on his recent life, writing poetry enabled Brutus to remain engaged in politics, however indirectly. An example is an untitled poem written on the same day as “For Bernice.” It clearly reflects his despair during this frustrating time, and – quite uncharacteristically – calls for a violent response to end apartheid. In the last two stanzas, he urges: And so one comes to a callousness, a savage ruthlessness – voices shouting in the heart ‘Destroy! Destroy!’ or ‘Let them die in thousands!’ – really it is impatience.53 However, in another poem, written just a few weeks later in December 1965, he displays his usual, more forgiving, temperament. In “A Letter to Basil,” he addresses the man who apparently gave evidence in court against his brother Wilfred. Its tone is one of tolerance and understanding, as the first stanza illustrates: How deadly an enemy is fear! How it seeks out the areas of our vulnerability and savages us until we are so rent and battered and desperate that we resort to what revolts us and wallow in the foulest treachery.54 Understanding the power of fear, he submits, makes it easier to forgive such betrayal. In the last stanza, which is equally remarkable for its empathy, he remarks plaintively: And there is even room for pity. For how will you endure

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 221

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

222

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

the occasional accusatory voice in your interior ear, and how will you, being decent, not sorrow? The poem “Their Behaviour,” written on 16 December 1965, adopts a similar tone. It was written in response to an enquiry from a Welsh woman about life in South Africa.55 Although Brutus apologetically concedes in an interview that the result contains propagandistic overtones, the poem remains a thought-provoking and important political statement. It cautions against an overly harsh condemnation of the NP government without a self-reflective examination of human nature: Their guilt is not so very different from ours: – who has not joyed in the arbitrary exercise of power or grasped for himself what might have been another’s and who has not used superior force in the moment when he could, (and who of us has not been tempted to these things?).56 The Singaporean poet and literary scholar Edwin Thumboo submits that this frank – and, to some, bewildering – admission is a result of the fact that Brutus “contends with apartheid not as a politician, but as a poet, a humanist.”57 The result, according to Thumboo, is a generosity based on a vision of love and peace. Ursula A. Barnett makes a similar point: “His understanding of human failings embraces even the enemy.”58 However, she emphasises that Brutus is not attempting to offer excuses for the conduct of those who support and implement apartheid. What he is doing, she rightly argues, is sounding a warning that their conduct is all too human: “In the poem he asserts that joy in an arbitrary exercise of power and the use of superior force is a temptation to which all can succumb.” The poem “Blood River Day, 1965,” written on the same day as “Their Behaviour,” is a commentary on 16 December itself, then a public holiday

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 222

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

Chapter 6: 1965–1966

223

to commemorate the victory of the Voortrekkers over 10 000 amaZulu soldiers at the Ncome River in 1838.59 In the first stanza, Brutus describes the annual celebration of what was then known as the Day of the Covenant with an almost contemptuous indifference: Each year on this day they drum the earth with their boots and growl incantations to evoke the smell of blood for which they hungrily sniff the air.60 The reason he is not intimidated by this brash display of power is that he regards it as an act of guilt, which he believes drives the celebrants “to the lair / of primitiveness / and ferocity.” In the last two stanzas, he concludes in an uplifting tone: but in the dusk it is the all pervasive smell of dust the good smell of the earth as the rain sifts down on the hot sand that comes to me the good smell of the dust that is the same everywhere around the earth. Despite his dire situation – banned and under house arrest, and unable to hold down permanent employment due to constant police harassment – he remains surprisingly hopeful in the poem “Christmas 1965,” too. Brutus himself refers to the poem – written around the same time as “Blood River Day, 1965” – as containing “a redeeming grace theme.”61 Its tenor is, at first, rather sombre; it refers in the first stanza to “the bruises and the spittle / the miasma of invective / and the scaled refractions of our prejudice”, presumably a reference to the

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 223

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

224

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

humiliation that the parents of Jesus suffered before his birth in a stable. However, the poem ends on a hopeful note in the second stanza: Straw, shavings, hay and the mist of the cows’ cloudbreath: and through it flickered the lambence of man’s inherent divinity.62 *** This poem also indicates Brutus’s continued attempts to find solace in religion, as he did in similarly trying circumstances on Robben Island. The last line of “Christmas 1965,” for instance, reaffirms his belief that, despite the many hardships he and his family were forced to endure at the time, there is still something intrinsically noble and altruistic in humanity. It is a remarkable statement of faith, and certainly no coincidence that he makes this observation at such a sacred time of the year for Christians, when the birth of Christ is celebrated. Yet Brutus’s reflections on spiritual matters are not always exercises in humble supplication or reverential worship. Sometimes his prayers are full of accusations, even openly confrontational. An extended meditation on human suffering and the nature of God in Letters to Martha is an example. In the untitled poem, written on 1 March 1966, he begs for a reprieve from his suffering. However, he observes in despair, God is insulated from his pain. “Is He the Infinite Hangman? / Executioner? / Torturer?” he asks in anguish. “Must we be driven to the edge, / racked on the precipice of the world?”63 But there is no reply; as Brutus notes at the beginning of the poem, God does not answer back. A tormented Brutus wonders in one stanza what the purpose could be of so much human suffering: Can we find hope in thinking that our pain refines us of our evil dross, prepares us for a splendid destiny?64

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 224

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

Chapter 6: 1965–1966

225

Or, he ponders in another stanza, is it all part of a plan to repurchase redemption for the world and by our agony pay debts to buy the pardon for the world? The last line of the poem is both a plea for mercy and an emphatic declaration of his humanity: “Ecce homo!”65 Despite the harsh realities of his current situation, Brutus never descends into complete despair. That same year, while working at Sharp Control, he writes the poem “There Are Times” – “a tribute to Mary, Mother of Christ, for the presence of sustenance to endure amidst adversity.”66 Accepting hardship, and humbly expressing gratitude for the ability to endure it, are widely held attributes of a committed Christian. Although the poem conveys a certain tentativeness, its overall tenor is an acknowledgement – and acceptance – of the existence of a higher being with benevolent intentions: There are times when the pattern of events in the physical world falls into such a pleasing design that I dare be convinced that they have been arranged by the tender cajoling hands of a near-divine maternal graciousness.67 Such depth of religious conviction explains why Brutus’s first appearance in public after his release from Robben Island was to attend mass at St Patrick’s Catholic Church in Sydenham on 8 July 1965.68 He subsequently clashed with the security police when they warned him that he was breaking his banning order by attending church on Sundays. Brutus refused to let the matter rest there and asked his parish priest to visit him in an attempt to persuade him to intervene.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 225

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

226

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

The unnamed priest duly visited him – in contravention of Brutus’s banning order – but that was as far as he was prepared to go. He declined to support Brutus’s intention to defy his banning order by going to church, presumably out of fear that he would invite police action against himself. “The Catholic Church, like the other churches in South Africa, is not anxious to come in conflict with the apartheid system and the government,” Brutus notes disapprovingly.69 Despite his reluctance to intervene in any way, however, the priest arranged for Brutus to see Ernest Green, the Bishop of Port Elizabeth. “He is a man with a record of service in the locations [African residential areas] and the reputation for compassion for blacks,” Brutus states.70 Even so, Green declined to give Brutus any advice, and left the decision up to him whether or not to attend mass. Brutus, predictably, decided to ignore his banning order and went to church every Sunday. He was never arrested for doing so. “The state decided, wisely perhaps, that they did not want to be involved in the unpleasant publicity which would follow if I was arrested under the Suppression of Communism Act for attending Sunday mass,” he believes. But that was not the end of the intense war of nerves on Brutus and his family. The security police visited him again, and advised him to seek magisterial permission to attend church. Eventually Brutus met the Chief Magistrate of Port Elizabeth, R.C. Stewart, and informed him of his intention to continue attending mass. The magistrate referred him to the Minister of Justice and warned him not to attend church until he obtained permission from Vorster. Brutus was unsure about subsequent developments, but he continued to go to church whenever he chose to – without any action ever being taken against him.71 *** Even though Brutus was unable to engage directly in overt political activities during this period, he still exercised considerable influence in other ways. In June 1965, for instance, the South African cricket tour of England was the target of protest action – a continuation of SANROC’s earlier campaigns against apartheid in sport. The British

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 226

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

Chapter 6: 1965–1966

227

Anti-Apartheid Movement organised pickets outside every ground throughout the tour.72 “It is not a South African cricket team but a team selected only from those of white skin in South Africa,” its president, UK Labour Party Member of Parliament David Ennals, told more than a thousand demonstrators at a rally outside the South African embassy in London’s Trafalgar Square.73 Anti-apartheid demonstrators intensified their opposition to the cricket tour two weeks later. On 15 July, the South African team was due to play against Minor Counties at the Jesmond ground in Newcastle. The night before, protesters scaled a six-foot fence to gain access to the ground, lifted the covers and painted the words “End Apartheid” in white on the edge of the pitch. A newspaper report described it as “the first bold step by anti-apartheid demonstrators to get at South Africa through her cricketers in England,” and added in alarm: “There have been mild antiapartheid demonstrations at other centres where the Springboks have played, but these have all been quiet.”74 That same year, there was another attempt to suspend South Africa from the IOC at a meeting in Madrid, Spain. On 9 October, IOC president Avery Brundage – who could no longer ignore the mounting opposition to segregated sport, despite his own inclinations – tabled a motion that “reasons should be shown why the South African Olympic Committee should not be suspended” at the international body’s next meeting.75 At the meeting in Rome in April 1966, SANROC conducted a lobby – spearheaded by Chris de Broglio – against SAONGA’s continued membership of the IOC.76 The former Springbok weightlifter, who was a close ally of Brutus before he moved to London in 1964 to escape police harassment, secured interviews with IOC members from the US, Russia, German Democratic Republic, Cuba and various African countries. Twenty-one international sports federations made a public statement against “discrimination of any kind against the free participation of any country in any Olympic sport.”77 However, after a two-hour grilling at the congress, SAONGA chairman Frank Braun managed to persuade the delegates to defer the issue of South Africa’s IOC membership to its next meeting in Teheran, Iran, in 1967.78

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 227

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

228

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

But apartheid South Africa did not always manage to postpone the inevitable indefinitely. FIFA finally suspended South African football from participation in the World Cup in England in July 196679 – the logical outcome of the international organisation’s suspension of FASA, its southern African affiliate in 1961, pending an investigation into its refusal to end racial discrimination. This growing opposition to apartheid in sport, on the back of South Africa’s suspension from the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, motivated Brutus to write an exultant poem. The following stanzas capture his sense of satisfaction, and even pride, in these victories: I have lashed them the marks of my scars lie deep in their psyche and unforgettable inescapable… Amid a million successes – the most valued on fronts where they were under attack – they grimace under the bitter taste of defeat their great New Zealand rivals the Olympic panoply and Wembley roar for them these things are dead are inaccessible unattainable nowhere else does apartheid exact so bitter a price nowhere else does the world so demonstrate its disgust in nothing else are the deprivers so deprived.80 Brutus’s call in January 1963 for a cultural boycott of South Africa was also increasingly beginning to gain support. Local advocate Brian Bradford, who attended an international PEN congress in July 1965 in Bled in what was then Yugoslavia, anxiously told a meeting on his return that the cultural boycott may spread to music and art as well:

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 228

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

Chapter 6: 1965–1966

229

“If I was [UK Labour Party politician and Anti-Apartheid Movement supporter] Barbara Castle I would be elated at the success of the playwrights’ boycott, and would be sitting down writing letters to gramophone record companies asking them to boycott South Africa.”81 A newspaper report on the meeting even grudgingly referred to the cultural boycott as “the only successful boycott against South Africa.” By then, 80 British, French and US playwrights were refusing to allow their work to be performed in South Africa. In April 1966, an attempt was made at Equity’s annual meeting to persuade the British actors’ union to change its policy not to support members who wanted to work in South Africa. The motion was convincingly defeated by 111 votes to 75.82 *** In addition to pressure in sport and culture, there was growing pressure on South Africa during the mid-1960s on a range of other fronts. The United Nations (UN) released a 57-page report in July 1965 that provided details of the measures undertaken by 105 countries to oppose apartheid. Adopted in response to a resolution by the UN’s General Assembly, these included the severance of diplomatic relations with South Africa, the closure of foreign ports to South African ships and planes, and the termination of the sale of arms and ammunition to South Africa.83 In December 1965, the UN unequivocally described apartheid as a threat to international peace and recommended that its Security Council institute mandatory sanctions against South Africa. The main resolution included a renewed request to all countries to end the sale of arms and military strategic material to South Africa, and to refrain from helping the country manufacture and maintain such equipment. In addition, the General Assembly passed a resolution – with Portugal as the only abstention – to establish a trust fund to help those who were adversely affected by their opposition to apartheid.84 Yet, seemingly impervious to the widespread opposition to its racial policies, the South African government continued to strengthen the capacity of its security forces to enforce apartheid and to protect itself from

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 229

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

230

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

external intervention. As a result, South Africa became an increasingly militarised society. The defence budget for the year ending 30 March 1967 was estimated at close to R226 million; in addition, an estimated R3.8 million was set aside for buildings and other work related to the defence force. And, during 1966, the newly appointed Minister of Defence, P.W. Botha, announced that South Africa would spend 15.5 per cent of its national budget on defence that year.85 On 31 May 1966, the military put on a display of its power in Pretoria with a parade featuring 18 000 soldiers. The display – which included tanks and Mirage fighter planes – was described in a newspaper report as “a display of military power without parallel in the country’s history.”86 Brutus despairingly refers to “the impregnation of our air with militarism” in an untitled poem written while under house arrest, and laments: we become a bellicose people living in a land at war a country besieged; the children play with guns and the schoolboys dream of killings and our dreams are full of the birdflight of jets and our men are bloated with bloody thoughts; inflated sacrifices and grim despairing dyings.87 Expenditure on the police force also increased during this time; it rose from around R51.8 million in 1964/1965 to nearly R56.4 million in 1965/1966.88 Crime prevention was, of course, not the only reason for the marked increase in annual police budgets. Enforcing the various laws of apartheid and suppressing any resistance to these laws were among the primary considerations behind the enlarged allocations. In the eastern Cape alone, according to the Port Elizabeth branch of the South African Defence and Aid Fund, 916 people were arrested on political charges over a period of two years – more than in any other part of the country. And, of the 482 people for whom the organisation

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 230

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

Chapter 6: 1965–1966

231

had arranged legal defence since November 1963, 6 were sentenced to death, 448 were jailed for a total of 2 304 years and 28 were acquitted.89 *** The government did not always bother to silence its opponents by resorting to protracted legal processes; sometimes, it simply imposed repressive measures unilaterally. Banning orders were a muchfavoured option. In addition to the 343 people who were banned by the end of 1964, another 82 received banning orders in the period up to 16 November 1965, pushing up the total number to 425. And, of the 82, 15 were placed under house arrest as well – among them, as noted earlier, Brutus. Three other political prisoners were similarly restricted when they were released: Peake, who was on Robben Island with Brutus in 1964, and Congress of Democrats members Harold Strachan and Ben Turok, who both served three-year terms in Pretoria Central Prison between 1962 and 1965 after they were convicted of sabotage.90 The pattern of repression remained much the same in 1966: between January and 1 December, another 327 people were banned; 11 of them were also placed under house arrest.91 For those under house arrest, the home became another prison – with the added burden that they were now forced to police their own confinement. Any lapse invited swift, and harsh, retaliation from the security police. Even the most basic routines of everyday life were closely scrutinised. And not only did the physical restrictions impose severe restrictions on their daily routine – the ongoing campaigns of harassment and intimidation also placed those banned and listed under immense psychological pressure. They were, quite deliberately, deprived of any semblance of a reasonably normal life, even within the bounds of their own homes. A poem Brutus wrote in July 1966 provides a disturbing indication of the agony he was going through at the time: One wishes for death with a kind of defiant defeatism

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 231

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

232

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

wishing that the worst may befall since the nearly-worst has so often befallen: it is not a wish for oblivion but a pugnacious assertion of discontent a disgust at the boundless opprobrium of life a desperation; despair.92 For Brutus, now unable to function meaningfully either as a writer or as a political activist, this situation was unbearable. As a result, he once again began to consider leaving South Africa. “It seems to me simply true that, among other things, I reached a point in South Africa that my usefulness was exhausted,” he explains in a tape recording more than a decade after he left. “As someone who was under house arrest and banned from all organisations, there was not much left I could do, except go to prison again.”93 He emphasises that it was not the prospect of another spell in prison in itself that disturbed him; he points out there was not much point in breaking stones or polishing windows on Robben Island again: “It seemed to me not a particularly useful contribution to the liberation struggle.” Now, three years after he first tried to leave the country, Brutus was again contemplating the usefulness of continuing to live in South Africa. During this period, May became a direct target of intimidation, too. In April 1966, she was called to the office of the Chief Magistrate of Port Elizabeth. On the instructions of Vorster, Stewart warned her to refrain from engaging in any activities “calculated to further one or other of the aims of Communism,” and threatened her with a banning order.94 Soon afterwards, Brutus wrote a poem, dated 20 April 1966, to honour her courage and fortitude. Although its prosaic tone is devoid of any aesthetic appeal, it remains a deeply touching affirmation of his admiration, respect and love for her during this tense and fearful time:95 Well, you have had your accolade and my sincere and comradely congratulation

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 232

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

Chapter 6: 1965–1966

233

and shown yourself of your own choosing a fighter: and so you honour us our cause our name and prove your substance and your worth: for all these things, my thanks and that of others but also now a special thanks for so enlustering our private name and adding fresh dimensions to our love. As a result of the frequent intrusions of the security police in his life, and now in the life of his wife as well, Brutus presumably came to view exile as a less painful alternative, and once again began to consider leaving South Africa. He duly applied for a passport in March 1966. The NP’s emphatic victory in the general election in March 1966 probably further convinced him that this was the right decision. The ruling party won by its biggest margin yet: it won 126 of the 170 seats in parliament – up from 106 of the 160 seats it secured in the previous election. The number of seats held by the opposition parties, by contrast, dropped from 54 to 44.96 At the end of May, however, Brutus was informed that his application for a passport was unsuccessful.97 What further aggravated his situation was that he was facing retrenchment at the end of June from the company where he worked as a clerk.98 In the circumstances, Brutus probably felt that there was little choice but to apply to leave the country permanently on a one-way exit permit – the only way he could now leave the country legally with his wife and children. Permission was swiftly granted on 6 July 1966.99 The government’s decision was not surprising; it increasingly appeared to regard exit permits as an expedient way of getting rid of its opponents. Of those who decided to leave on exit permits during 1966, at least 25 were either banned, listed or part of political trials.100

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 233

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

234

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

In a letter dated 13 July 1966, the Secretary for the Interior issued Brutus with Exit Permit No P.03109, and May with No P.03110.101 The official informed Brutus and his wife that their application to leave South Africa was successful under the Departure from the Union Regulation Act of 1955 – on condition that they never returned to the country. The letter also informed them that, in terms of section 6 of the Act, any person who subsequently returned was deemed “to have left the Union without a valid passport or permit.” It further emphasised that, for all intents and purposes, anyone who left on an exit permit became a “prohibited person” under the Admission of Persons to the Union Regulation Act of 1913. And, if that was still not clear enough, the letter declared that, in terms of the South African Citizenship Act of 1949, “a South African citizen ceases to be a South African citizen should he, for purposes of admission to the Republic of South Africa, become a prohibited person.” After being granted permission to leave the country, Brutus was forced to apply – in a rather Kafkaesque twist – to Stewart for permission to leave the Port Elizabeth Magisterial District. The magistrate, in turn, approached the Secretary of Justice for permission in a telegram on 26 July 1966.102 After he was given the go-ahead, the magistrate wrote a letter to Brutus on the same day, and granted him permission to board an aircraft for Johannesburg at 11.55 am on 29 July in order to get a connecting flight to the UK at 2 pm. The magistrate reminded Brutus sternly: “All the other restrictions imposed upon you remain in force and are to be carefully observed.”103 He was specifically warned not to leave the airport while in transit.104 *** Despite the grim circumstances surrounding his imminent departure, the prospect of permanent exile was not an existential crisis for Brutus. Partly in response to the discriminatory policies of apartheid, he had begun to redefine his sense of self many years earlier. Initially, his whole identity – both personal and political – was integrally tied to South Africa. He had previously explicitly defined himself as a South African patriot – someone with an intense love for his country.105

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 234

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

Chapter 6: 1965–1966

235

Brutus once referred to the powerful impression that Walter Scott’s poem “The Lay of the Last Minstrel” made on him while at school. In particular, he recalls the following lines from the first stanza of canto six: “Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, / Who never to himself hath said, / This is my own, my native land!”106 Brutus comments: “Implicit in those lines is a statement of patriotism taken for granted, and a statement for patriotism which I assumed I was entitled to make; therefore, an assumption that South Africa was and always would be my native land.”107 He also refers affectionately in the same account to the following lines from the first stanza of the eighteenth-century Scottish writer James Montgomery’s poem “Aspirations of Youth,” only slightly misremembering it decades after he first learnt it during his childhood in Dowerville: Higher, higher will we climb Up the mount of glory, That our names may live through time In our country’s story.108 There is ample evidence in Brutus’s early poetry of his deep attachment to South Africa. “On the Road,” written in January 1963, is a striking example. In the second stanza, the poem describes the South African landscape at night with undisguised emotion: “The wide night sighs its sensuous / openness, stirring my mind’s delight / to a transfiguring tenderness.”109 “On the Beach,” with its evocative description of a South African coast is another example: spindrift from sand-dunes tresses down to inlets where rock-fragments shoal, seaspray and statice distil the mood salt-sweet, foamwhite, seaweed-brown.110 These poems express the core sentiments generally associated with patriotism – a close identification with, and affection for, a particular country.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 235

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

236

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Another early indication of Brutus’s attachment to South Africa is the pointedly titled poem “Patriot,” which was first published in July 1963 in the journal Penpoint and later republished as “Patriot I” in the collection Stubborn Hope. However, even though its title is an emphatic declaration of his love for his homeland, the poem clearly signals that he was beginning to feel increasingly ambivalent towards South Africa because of the government’s refusal to grant him full civic and human rights. He refers, in anguish, to “the torturing of unrequitedness” and “frustrated tenderness.”111 And, in another poem published in the same issue of Penpoint, presumably written in Johannesburg before he tried to leave the country for the first time in July 1963, he writes mournfully:112 I am out of love with you for now; cold-sodden in my misery your contours and allurements cannot move me: I murmur old endearments to revive our old familiar glow again – like sapless autumn leaves they rasp in vain. You have asked too much of me: fond-fool, bereft I cling unloving, to remembered love and the spring.113 In other words, Brutus refused to be a South African citizen on the terms prescribed by the government. He recalls in a tape recording in 1974: “In South Africa I tried not to be a South African citizen because being a South African citizen meant such severe limitations on what you could be and what you could do that I used to refer to myself as a citizen of the world.”114 He repeats this sentiment in a later interview with Simon Lewis: “When apartheid South Africa affirmed that I was less than human, only humans could vote, I had to assert I was not part

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 236

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

Chapter 6: 1965–1966

237

of that society. I became a citizen of the world.”115 In direct response to the government’s policies of racial segregation and discrimination, Brutus started to expand his notion of who he was and how he fitted into the rest of the world. This involved reassessing his attachment to South Africa and the beginning of thinking of himself as a citizen of the world: When I was in South Africa, in a very large South African community – and a very narrow one, with a terribly ghettoized mentality – one of the ways I managed not to become ghettoized myself, so that I never became the typical subservient black man or, for that matter, the typical rebellious and frustrated black man, but something in between, was because I said, “In fact, I am a citizen of the world. I can go anywhere and I can meet anybody and I do not accept this kind of limitation on me, either the sub-man or the man confined in a particular locality or location defined for him by the state, with boundaries that he could not go beyond.” I felt I was not localized, I couldn’t be kept in my place. And this meant that one transcended a local patriotism.116 *** But there was probably an even earlier reason behind his redefinition and expansion of his identity – his exposure at high school to various political theories of internationalism that were then gaining traction. This was most likely the first time he became aware of the ideals of international solidarity being advocated by various political movements. At the time, these were largely informed by The Communist Manifesto by the German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in which they stressed the common interests of workers from all over the world. Leon Trotsky, who later developed his own interpretation of Marxism, also emphasised international working-class solidarity, and argued that capitalism could only be destroyed through an international revolution because of the nature of the world economy.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 237

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

238

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

After he became a teacher, Brutus’s participation in the TLSA increased his exposure to the work of such political and economic theorists. Although it was primarily a professional body of teachers, the TLSA was very active in community affairs. For this reason, it became part of the Anti-CAD alliance which, in turn, endorsed the Trotskyist-aligned NEUM at its national conference in January 1944.117 Brutus’s interaction with these organisations provided him with a sophisticated knowledge of internationalism. In addition, he read widely on political theory: “I was not only reading Marx, but also Trotsky’s Revolution Betrayed, Isaac Deutscher’s biography of Trotsky,118 and Mao [Zedong] as well.”119 In addition, Brutus singles out Wendell L. Willkie’s book One World, which was published in 1943, as playing an important role in his early thinking. This is an account of the travels of the US lawyer-turnedbusinessman-turned-politician across 31 000 miles to various parts of the world between August and October 1942, with the intention of assessing the efforts of the Allied forces during the Second World War. Amongst other countries, the former Republican Party presidential candidate’s journey – on a converted plane borrowed from the US Army Air Force – took him to Turkey, Iraq, Iran, China and the Soviet Union. Willkie’s bestselling account of his travels outlines his views on the interdependence of the world. “There are no distant points in the world any longer,” he asserts. “I learned by this trip that the myriad millions of human beings of the Far East are as close to us as Los Angeles is to New York by the fastest trains. I cannot escape the conviction that in the future what concerns them must concern us, almost as much as the problems of the people of California concern the people of New York.”120 Brutus wholeheartedly concurs with this notion: “Our concerns more and more are global. It’s one family; ‘one world,’ in Wendell Willkie’s words…I’ve always accepted it as one world. So we ought to be patriots of the world rather than of a country.”121 Donne – one of the primary influences on the poetry of Brutus – was also instrumental in deepening his awareness of the interconnectedness of human beings. In one of his most memorable meditations, the Anglican priest strongly asserts a common humanity: “No man is an Iland, intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine.”122 He

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 238

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

Chapter 6: 1965–1966

239

goes on to declare: “Any Mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.” Brutus cites this visionary declaration in the draft version of an unpublished introduction to a new edition of his collection, Salutes and Censures: “As John Donne said so memorably, and as I have been quoting for over 30 years of my life, I am involved in all mankind.”123 However, while still in South Africa, Brutus’s allegiance to the rest of the world did not yet possess the features of a clearly delineated cosmopolitanism. At that stage, his views were little more than the tentative, inchoate beginnings of a political empathy and identification with a wider world. Even so, they helped to prepare him for his entry into a wider world when he left the country. For Brutus, then, his departure was not a violent rupture with a particular country; he was merely relocating to another part of the world: I often suspect patriotism of being mere sentimentality, this kind of “my country right or wrong” nonsense, when in fact it’s the world we’re living in and not countries. And it is true that South Africa is in no way unique in the kinds of people that are there, in its climate, in its geography, in its mountains, in what is attractive…It’s got unique political characteristics, but these really don’t affect the quality of the human beings there; they’re pretty much like people elsewhere.124 So, on 30 July 1966, after living for a year under a stifling banning order and house arrest after his release from prison, he left South Africa on an exit permit – one of an estimated 30 000 to 60 000 South Africans who were forced to live outside the country between the late 1950s and 1990 because of their opposition to apartheid.125 His wife, May, joined him in London with their children in September 1966.126 It was to be the beginning of nearly three long and arduous decades in exile.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 239

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 240

2020-01-17 03:50:48 PM

The St Augustine’s Catholic Cathedral on Prospect Hill, Port Elizabeth. Dennis Brutus was baptised there in 1931, along with his brother Wilfred and sisters Helen and Catherine. Photographer: Tyrone August

North End Lake, near Dowerville and Sydenham in Port Elizabeth, in January 1958. Brutus wrote a poem about a full moon over the lake as a teenager while at Paterson High School. Photographer: Unknown (source: The Herald, Arena Holdings)

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 241

2020-01-17 03:50:50 PM

Dennis Brutus (front row, first on left) with members of the Beda Hall cricket team at the South African Native College (now the University of Fort Hare) before a match against Wesley Hostel in 1947. Photographer: Unknown (source: Rama Thumbadoo/Daniel Massey)

Baakens Street, Port Elizabeth, circa 1950. This area was at the heart of the city that Brutus returned to after he graduated from the South African Native College in 1947. Photographer: Unknown (source: Africana Library, Nelson Mandela Bay Library Service)

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 242

2020-01-17 03:50:50 PM

Dennis Brutus lived at 20 Shell Street in North End, Port Elizabeth, until he went into exile in 1966. Photographer: Tyrone August

Dennis Brutus addressing a meeting in Port Elizabeth circa 1961. Photographer: Unknown (source: The Herald, Arena Holdings)

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 243

2020-01-17 03:50:52 PM

(Back row, from left to right) Yusuf Cachalia (second from left, with glasses), Wolfie Kodesh, Dennis Brutus, Zainab Asvat, Molvi Cachalia, G.H.I. Pahad and M. Thandray. (Front row, sitting) J.B. Marks (second from left) and Amy Thornton (partially obscured). Photographer: Eli Weinberg (source: UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives)

A protest meeting against the Group Areas Act in Port Elizabeth in September 1963. Bishop Ernest Green reads part of a corporate prayer at the inter-faith meeting, which was attended by, among others, Imam O. Mallick (left), Sheik J. Jardien (fifth from left), Rev. H. Goldsmith (partially obscured on Green’s right) and Canon R.M. Parker. Photographer: Unknown (source: The Herald, Arena Holdings)

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 244

2020-01-17 03:50:52 PM

Mrs L. Niekerk (spotted blouse) and her three-year-old son Neil during their family’s eviction from Dowerville, Port Elizabeth, under the Group Areas Act in May 1964. Photographer: Unknown (source: The Herald, Arena Holdings)

South End, a long-established residential area near the Port Elizabeth harbour and close to the city centre, was once home to people of all race groups. After the Group Areas Act was passed in 1950, most of South End’s residents were disqualified from remaining in their homes on the basis of their racial classification and forced to move. Photographer: Joe Kruger (source: Africana Library, Nelson Mandela Bay Library Service)

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 245

2020-01-17 03:50:53 PM

Dennis Brutus, circa 1962. He was already banned then under the Suppression of Communism Act, and could not be quoted or attend any meetings. Photographer: Unknown (source: Rand Daily Mail, Arena Holdings)

Dennis Brutus in August 1963, a month after he fled to Swaziland after breaking his banning order. He was subsequently refused a temporary residence permit by the Swaziland government. Photographer: Parks A. Mangena (source: Rand Daily Mail, Arena Holdings)

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 246

2020-01-17 03:50:53 PM

May Brutus, wife of Dennis Brutus, at the Port Elizabeth airport with one of their children, five-yearold Cornelia, in September 1963. She was hoping to visit her husband in hospital in Johannesburg after he was shot by a security branch policeman after trying to escape from police custody. Photographer: Unknown (source: Rand Daily Mail, Arena Holdings)

This is the first public appearance of Dennis Brutus after his release from prison in July 1965. He and six of his children were on their way to attend a holy mass service at the Roman Catholic Church in Sydenham, Port Elizabeth. The children are, from left to right, Justina (8), Cornelia (7), Marc (13), Julian (11), Antony (10) and Gregory (2). Their house in Shell Street, North End, is in the background. Photographer: Unknown (source: The Herald, Arena Holdings)

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 247

2020-01-17 03:50:54 PM

An undated letter from Dennis Brutus to Lionel Abrahams, editor of the literary journal The Purple Renoster, which published some of his earliest poems anonymously after he was banned. (source: Amazwi South African Museum of Literature, Makhanda)

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 248

2020-01-17 03:50:54 PM

DB

THE SOUTH

DENNIS BRUTUS

Af RICAN YE ARS Epilogue

Brutus’s early life in South Africa was a constant flurry of activity. He seldom pursued one course of action at a time; he was, more often than not, engaged in several, often very different, initiatives simultaneously. He was aware that his wide-ranging interests and activities would present a considerable challenge to a biographer. Yet, as he observes sardonically in a tape recording in January 1969, “it is not his [the writer’s] job to live his life in such a way as to make it easy for the biographers – in any case, in my case, what a mess such a biography would be.”1 In addition, there are some details that he preferred to remain undocumented or, at least, not highlighted. He was often vague about some experiences and sometimes even deliberately evasive about certain aspects of his life. As Hal Wylie notes when he tried to collaborate with Brutus on a biography, he declined to provide answers to certain enquiries, and parted ways with other potential biographers over the years for the same reason.2 His anxiety about the intrusive nature of biography contributed significantly to the difficulty, if not impossibility, of constructing a full and coherent account of his life before he went into exile. Even so, two constant preoccupations can be clearly discerned in his life in South Africa: poetry and politics. Initially, he regarded these as entirely separate fields of human endeavour: the one, essentially a creative act of self-reflection by an individual; the other, a collective

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 249

2020-01-17 03:50:54 PM

250

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

activity undertaken in pursuit of a common objective. In fact, at one point in the 1950s after he became active in political campaigns, Brutus stopped writing poetry for about a decade because he regarded these activities as so completely different.3 As noted in Chapter 3, it was his discovery of Auden’s work when he was a teacher at Paterson High that convinced him that it was possible to merge the private and the public in his poetry. From then on – presumably the early 1960s – he often attempted to use the personal voice of the lyric form to make a political statement. No longer did he regard poetry and politics as mutually exclusive; instead, he then argued, to advance such a view was to construct an artificial demarcation. Yet, even though Brutus came to believe that politics and poetry could not, and should not, be separated, he did not believe that poetry ought to be used in a crude fashion as an instrument of political propaganda. Later he articulated these views at some length in an interview,4 and in a tape recording in 1970.5 To employ poetry as propaganda, he suggested, was immoral and displayed a lack of artistic integrity. For the same reason, he resisted being labelled a protest poet – a meaningless, catch-all description simplistically attached by many literary critics to black poets who published work during apartheid.6 In particular, Brutus rejects it as an accurate description of his poetry because “I don’t go around in my poetry saying ‘What a terrible thing racism is’ or ‘What a terrible thing apartheid is’…except by indirection, by implication. By reporting a simple experience I ask people to make up their own minds.”7 He emphasises: “I don’t think I myself would call this protest. I would say it functions as protest; it has the effect of protest. But I think it’s poetry and not protest; it’s not propaganda. The politics is not imported into it.” This view explains why he was hostile – at least initially – to the African-American poetry that emerged as part of the Black Arts Movement in the US in the early 1960s. Much of the African-American writing of this period – up to the mid-1970s – was explicitly political and came close to being employed as little more than political propaganda. The literary scholar Donald B. Gibson virtually characterises it as such in his overview of the African-American writing of that period. “Black poetry is ideological,” he declares unequivocally. “It specifically supports

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 250

2020-01-17 03:50:54 PM

Epilogue

251

black nationalism, black consciousness, black cultural and institutional ideals.”8 Gibson contends that the African-American writing of that time was “consciously and explicitly didactic,” and goes on to confirm Brutus’s view that much African-American poetry during this period was declamatory: Black poetry [in the US] intends always to be as clear, frank, and explicit as possible. It is a poetry of statement, which may engage in puns of an uncomplicated sort, but which intentionally avoids understatement, irony, or complex verbal expression of any subtlety. By being open and explicit, black poetry avoids highly symbolic or complex metaphoric expression, though simple symbols and metaphors may appear. In line with such an assessment, Brutus submits in a lecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1973 that the African-American poetry of that period was generally “the poetry of assertion.”9 On the other hand, he regards English poetry – and, as a result of the colonial legacy of the British education system on the continent, Englishlanguage poetry in Africa in general – as “the poetry of persuasion – the poetry of argument.” He also argues in an interview that African poets were far more interested in the craft of poetry than African-American poets. To him, African-Americans resorted to free verse far too easily and frequently.10 He regards this as a fundamental distinction between the writing of African and African-American poets of that period. Brutus’s early writing certainly goes beyond the poetry of direct statement. His approach to lyric poetry was largely informed by the Romantic poets, especially Wordsworth. It was also rich in symbols and imagery, following in the tradition of the Metaphysical poets. He paid close attention to language, too, influenced in particular by Hopkins. After his release from prison, however, the content and tone of Brutus’s writing began to change noticeably. A key concern of his post-prison writing was to make the lyric form more accessible and politically relevant. As a result, in later years some of his writing became devoid of metaphor and often

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 251

2020-01-17 03:50:54 PM

252

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

employed direct, and sometimes even colloquial, language (ironically, the very attributes for which he initially disparaged African-American writing). As Brutus comments in an interview with Cosmo Pieterse about the change in his style of writing after his release from Robben Island: I had hoped that they [my poems] would ultimately reach a wider audience and this may be one reason why I tried and still try to pare my thought down to a very simple, basic sort of structure. I’m not sure that’s the only reason – I think in prison I also did a lot of rethinking about technique and expression and that is one of the things that persuaded me to seek a simpler idiom.11 However, it is important to note that, even though Brutus’s post-prison writing became more direct and accessible, he continued to retain the essence of the lyric form. His poetry remained the single, contemplative voice of an individual (even though, at times, that individual may speak in a representative capacity on behalf of a broader community). While some South African poets who were active in the anti-apartheid movement turned to the epic form (for example, Mongane Wally Serote and Mazisi Kunene), he continued to use the lyric throughout his writing career. Yet Brutus refused to accept the dictates of those who sought to exclude public concerns completely from the lyric because of its highly personal and reflective nature. As Mark Strand observes, there is always a connection between what he refers to as “privacy” and “universality”, (see Introduction). In his study of the lyric mode, the classical scholar W.R. Johnson also makes the obvious yet important point that human beings have “private emotions and selves” as well as “public emotions and selves.”12 Brutus clearly held a similar view and consistently used the lyric to explore life in all its diversity and complexity. He addresses a wide range of subjects in his poetry – from intensely personal feelings for a loved one to explicitly political concerns such as expressing his opposition to apartheid (and, in later years, calling for the transformation of global institutions of finance and trade).

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 252

2020-01-17 03:50:54 PM

Epilogue

253

The range of forms and styles he employs in his early poetry were equally diverse; these include sonnets and ballads, as well as poems influenced by African oral poetry and even Japanese poetry. While these experiments are not always successful, he is not given sufficient credit for his efforts to extend the range of the lyric form. At his best, Brutus writes some of the most evocative and skilfully crafted lyric poetry in South African literature. A review of Letters to Martha in the Londonbased daily newspaper The Guardian – famously emblazoned on the cover of A Simple Lust – states that some poems in the collection possess “a grace and penetration unmatched even by [then exiled Russian writer] Alexander Solzhenitsyn.” More recently, the entry under Brutus’s name in The Companion to African Literatures refers to his “thoughtful, delicately crafted, sometimes hauntingly lyrical poems.”13 *** Nevertheless, in his public statements Brutus generally tends to foreground the role of politics in his life. This is not surprising in view of the fact that he increasingly became active in anti-apartheid campaigns from the early 1950s. He addressed this issue at some length in an interview with Lindfors in 1971. “In order for me to make a total commitment to poetry, I would have to remake myself,” he declares. “I think it would not be impossible, but I think it would be immoral. This is what really stops me.”14 He further explains: “A total commitment to the craft of poetry, with the kind of integrity which that implies, would do damage to what I now regard as essential to integrity for me. Which means social concern. Specifically, social concern with my own country.” Brutus revisits this subject in his introduction to the unpublished edition of Salutes and Censures. “Clearly, my concern is more ambitious than merely social representation,” he states. “I’m interested in social transformation.”15 He subsequently adds in an autobiographical essay: “The obligation to influence and change society rests on all of us; so far as we are all part of society and involved in all humanity, I firmly believe that it is not sufficient to describe the world, or even to understand the world; we

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 253

2020-01-17 03:50:54 PM

254

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

must seek to transform the world.”16 Brutus clearly subscribes to Marx’s declaration in his Theses on Feuerbach that it was not sufficient to interpret the world, but that it was in fact also necessary to attempt to change it.17 Despite this conviction, Brutus did not attach himself uncritically to any political formation in South Africa. Although he participated in several organisations associated with the Trotskyist NEUM in the 1950s, he cultivated relationships at the same time with individuals across the political spectrum, ranging from Alan Paton (Liberal Party) to Govan Mbeki (ANC/SACP). Even the intervention of I.B. Tabata, as noted previously, did not succeed in ensuring that he adhered to a narrow political sectarianism. As he remarks tersely in response to a newspaper article that refers to him as a Trotskyist, he does not follow any particular individuals, but instead subscribes to ideas.18 His disillusionment with NEUM eventually led to his increasing involvement in the ANC after the police shooting of protesters at Sharpeville in 1960. He felt that the ANC offered him a far more practical alternative to combating apartheid.19 In 1961, he publicly came out in support of the ANC during a talk on South African political organisations to a student society aligned to the Liberal Party at Rhodes University. M.P. Giyose, a teacher at the Nathaniel Nyaluza High School in Grahamstown at the time, attended the meeting. He recalls that Brutus spoke very positively about the ANC – “affirming them a great deal all the way through” – and was scathing about the PAC.20 It was for NEUM, however, that he reserved most of his disdain. According to Giyose, then a member of the NEUM-aligned Society of Young Africa, Brutus remarked that NEUM “seemed to believe that they have their own version of the Ten Commandments” – presumably a reference to its Ten Point Programme of principles and objectives. He concedes that Brutus spoke very eloquently at the meeting, but he nevertheless challenged him and questioned his criticism of some components of the anti-apartheid movement in front of what he deemed to be a liberal audience. Even after Brutus threw in his political lot with the ANC, his involvement in the organisation was not based on an unquestioning loyalty. In 1962, he was involved in a dispute with the ANC over his

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 254

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

Epilogue

255

proposal to incorporate the word “Olympic” into the name of SASA as a tactic to ensure that the IOC responded to its correspondence. The ANC advised him against it on the grounds that SASA, formed four years earlier, was already well known and that a fully fledged campaign would be required to introduce the renamed organisation to the public.21 Despite the ANC’s opposition, SANROC was launched in June 1963. Besides differences over political strategies and tactics, there was arguably another reason for his disputes with the ANC: Brutus was unwilling to surrender his independence either as a political activist or as an intellectual. For the same reason, he declined to become a member of the SACP in 1961. He points out that Mbeki formally approached him to join the party after he became active in the ANC underground, but he decided not to take up the offer. Naphtoli Bennun, then a manager at a Port Elizabeth leather factory, also formally invited Brutus to join the SACP, apparently on the authority of its central committee, but he turned down this approach as well.22 Brutus unapologetically attributes his refusal to become an SACP member to what he refers to as his individualism – a desire to act independently, free of the organisational discipline and centralised decision-making demanded by political formations as a matter of course.23 When he occupied a leadership position in an organisation, as he did in SASA and in SANROC, this did not appear to discomfort him as much because he was then directly involved in planning and decision-making. However, when required to implement decisions uncritically as a loyal rank-and-file member, he found it difficult to comply – especially when he differed with the vision or programme of action of that organisation. “For a long time, I was on a kind of blacklist of both the ANC and the SACP, because I was known as someone who was undisciplined – insubordinate,” he claims. “And I didn’t mind it. I kept doing my thing.”24 His individualism is, most likely, also the primary reason behind his attachment to the lyric mode of poetry. Its highly personal and selfreflective voice appealed to him. The literary academic Dirk Klopper captures this feature well in his description of lyric poetry as “an introspective and self-reflexive form that seeks to give direct voice to individual consciousness.”25 It is precisely for this reason that literary

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 255

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

256

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

scholar William C. Spengemann describes the lyric as “perhaps the most ancient form of self-presentation.”26 *** Even though Brutus’s individualistic temperament and personal beliefs shaped his approach to poetry and politics, it is not an individualism limited by self-centredness; it is located in a broader, outward-looking humanism. Compassion for others is a key aspect of his sense of self. As he explains in an interview, even though he writes “intimate, personal lyrical [poems]…[they] tend not to be wholly egotistical.”27 He elaborates: “They’re not only about me, but they tend to import bits of the South African situation or the South African predicament into my work.” Brutus makes a similar point in an interview decades later: “It [the self] cannot be excluded or ignored, but I think it is not ego-centred; that is, I tend to see myself as one in a community experiencing a communal or community experience.”28 This is a distinctive feature of Brutus’s poetry: the personal pronoun “I” is often employed in a representative capacity. “Tenement Balcony,” a one-stanza poem written before he left South Africa, succinctly captures this: From here I see the shanties and the indomitable trees: and standing on the rubble of a thousand I’s I see these trees and far clear skies.29 The “I” of the lyric poem appealed to Brutus because of its subjective, introspective nature: it enabled him to explore and reveal his personal thoughts and feelings. When it suited him, though, he attempted to bridge the gap between what the literary scholar David Lindley describes as “poetry of the single voice” and “poetry of community.”30 At such times, Brutus strove to transform the “I” in his poetry into a plural voice – the voice of a disenfranchised, marginalised, exploited and oppressed community (“the rubble of a thousand I’s”). This view was the foundation of Brutus’s approach to both poetry and politics. He always saw himself as part of a larger whole, and devoted

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 256

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

Epilogue

257

all his activities to the pursuit of fairness, equality and justice for this broader community. This worldview gave meaning and purpose to his life and writing. When he located himself within this community, his four-line poem suggests, he was able to find sufficient cause for solace and hope. Then, in the distance, he could see clear skies.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 257

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

Notes Introduction 1

2

3

4 5 6

7 8

9

The generic term “black” is employed to refer to anyone who was disenfranchised under apartheid. Conversely, the generic term “white” is used to refer to those who were enfranchised during apartheid. The more specific racial categories “coloured,” “African” and “Indian” are used only as part of a quotation or when relevant in a context that applies exclusively to people classified as such under the Population Registration Act of 1950. When “African” is used as an adjective to refer to someone or something related to the continent, this is generally clear from the context in which it is used. N.C. Manganyi and D. Attwell, eds, Bury Me at the Marketplace: Es’kia Mphahlele and Company, Letters 1943–2006 (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2010), 200. B. Lindfors, ed., The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography (Woodbridge: James Currey, 2011), 123. Brutus makes a similar point, decades later, in an autobiographical essay: “This essay ought to have a theme or a focus; but I have been able to find none. Instead I offer some scattered threads which may combine in the mind of the reader to make a pattern. I have sought for one and have come up with several tentative ones, but they seem inconclusive; and so if I offer them here it must be seen as a partial and incomplete statement.” See D. Brutus, “Dennis Brutus 1924” in Contemporary Authors: Autobiography Series, Vol. 14, ed. J. Nakamura (Detroit: Gale Research, 1991), 53. Letter by Wylie to Brutus, 15 July 1988, in the Dennis Brutus Collection at the Amazwi South African Museum of Literature (1994.4.4.26). Brutus’s handwritten reply on Wylie’s letter (Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26). Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. The draft includes some previously published material, for example extracts from Brutus’s essay “Childhood reminiscences” in The Writer in Modern Africa: African Scandinavian Writers’ Conference, Stockholm 1967, ed. P. Wastberg (New York: Africana Publishing Corporation, and Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1969a), 92–98. Wylie, e-mail to the author, 26 Sep. 2016. Another factor that may have contributed to the dissolution of the project was their disagreement over the promotion of a colleague, Brenda Berrian, at the University of Pittsburgh. Wylie believes that Brutus unfairly vetoed her promotion. See Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. D. Brutus, A Simple Lust: Collected Poems of South African Jail and Exile (Oxford: Heinemann, 1973), 138.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 258

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

Notes

259

10

Brutus initially accepted his legal classification as “coloured.” In 1963, for instance, he describes himself as “a coloured myself – [of] mixed descent.” See D. Brutus, Sirens Knuckles Boots (Ibadan: Mbari Publications, 1963), 18. And for his 1970 collection Thoughts Abroad, he adopts the pseudonym John Bruin. He later explains that he chose this particular name “so that those [who] are interested will know it’s a ‘bruinmens’ [brown person].” See J. van Wyk, “Interview with Dennis Brutus” Alternation 8.2 (2001): 189. In later years, though, he distances himself from such a narrow, racially circumscribed identity. In 1987, for example, he asserts that “the race categories are irrelevant and that one ought to transcend them.” See J. Frederikse, The Unbreakable Thread: Non-Racialism in South Africa (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1990), 39. In an interview in 2000, he says that he is “impatient of categories, especially ‘racial’ ones, with which people in South Africa, and the United States, are often obsessed.” See S. Lewis, “Speaking their wordless woe” in Selves in Question: Interviews on Southern African Auto/biography, ed. J.L. Coullie et al. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006), 154. 11 L. Sustar and A. Karim, eds, Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006), 189. 12 The poems were selected and sent to Mbari by an unnamed woman with whom Brutus says he was having an affair at the time. The title was chosen by the publisher, based on one of the poems in the collection (Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 154–155). Peter Abrahams previously published a slim volume, A Blackman Speaks of Freedom!, in 1940 while H.I.E. Dhlomo published his epic poem Valley of a Thousand Hills in 1941. 13 Mphahlele was probably the first South African literary critic to pay serious attention to Brutus’s poetry. In a letter to a friend, Makhudu Rammopo, on 11 November 1964, he comments that “his [Brutus’s] poetry palpitates with pain. Seldom does protest poetry make literature at the same time like his” (Manganyi and Attwell, Bury Me, 128). 14 Extracts from the 18-letter sequence in the collection were first published in Christian Action, a quarterly London-based religious journal. See D. Brutus, “Letters to Martha” Christian Action (1966): 20–25. 15 S. Gray, “Dennis Brutus” in Indaba: Interviews with African Writers (Pretoria: Protea Book House, 2005), 155. 16 This period is generally regarded as between the 1780s and the early 1830s. See P.J. Kitson, “The Romantic Period, 1780–1832” in English Literature in Context, ed. P. Poplawski (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 327. 17 W. Wordsworth, “Preface” The Lyrical Ballads: 1798–1805, W. Wordsworth and S.T. Coleridge (London: Methuen, 1959 [1940]), 27–28. 18 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 197. 19 B. Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness survives’: Dennis Brutus talks about his life and poetry” The Benin Review 1 (1974): 45.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 259

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

260

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

20 21 22 23 24

Wordsworth, “Preface,” 10. Wordsworth, “Preface,” 33. D. Brutus, personal interview, Johannesburg, 18 June 1998. Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 153. C. Pieterse, “Dennis Brutus” in African Writers Talking, ed. D. Duerden and C. Pieterse (London: Heinemann, 1972), 59–60. 25 Pieterse, “Dennis Brutus,” 60. 26 Clouts later also published work in New Coin and his first collection, One Life, was published in 1966 as part of the New Coin Poetry Series. He won the Olive Schreiner and Ingrid Jonker poetry prizes for the volume in 1968. See S. Clouts, Collected Poems, ed. M. Clouts and C. Clouts (Cape Town: David Philip, 1984), x. 27 As the literary scholar Michael Chapman points out, “it is easy to take issue with Clouts’s poetry in the name of ‘socio-political responsibility’” (“Sydney Clouts: Poet’s poet…and more?” Current Writing 30.1 (2018): 36). Chapman attributes Clouts’s particular thematic focus in his poetry to his insistence on separating the individual and the social: “He wishes to impress upon his readers that, even in a politically intrusive century, individual human beings should not allow themselves to be reduced to the aggregate of social or, indeed, philosophical systems bequeathed on them by tradition or necessity. Rather, individuals must struggle, mentally and emotionally, to be first and foremost themselves and, therefore, potentially free.” Similarly, the literary critic Kevin Goddard places Clouts in a category of poets associated with being “apolitical, and engrossed in self-exploration at the expense of what are regarded by many as all-important social and historical imperatives” (“Sydney Clouts’s poetry,” English in Africa 19.2 (1992): 16). 28 In a letter dated 2 February 1963, for example, Brutus notes that he was still waiting for the second part of Clouts’s letter – containing feedback to a poem – to arrive, and hints that it may have been intercepted by the security police: “Ever? I wonder. Things happen to my mail!” See Amazwi, 1994.1.1.12. 29 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 176. 30 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 205. Brutus stayed in touch with Clouts after he went into exile. By then he no longer addressed him as “Mr Clouts” but as “Sydney.” On 20 November 1968, for instance, Brutus sent him an untitled poem, in which he compares November in the northern and southern hemispheres (Amazwi, 1994.1.1.12). It was later published in Thoughts Abroad (Del Valle: Troubadour Press, 1970), 5. 31 Pieterse, “Dennis Brutus,” 60. 32 M. Strand, “On becoming a poet” in The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms, ed. M. Strand and E. Boland (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000), xxii. 33 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 156.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 260

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

Notes

261

34

B. Lindfors, “Introduction” The Blind Men and the Elephant and Other Essays in Biographical Criticism, ed. B. Lindfors (New Jersey and Asmara: Africa World Press, 1999), vii–viii. 35 Lindfors, “Introduction,” viii. 36 T. Ojaide, “The troubadour: The poet’s persona in the poetry of Dennis Brutus” Ariel 17.1 (1986): 56. This can be viewed as another indication of the formative influence of the Romantic poets on Brutus’s approach to poetry. As the literary critic Eugene Stelzig observes, the speaker in the selfreflexive lyric poetry of Wordsworth and others during the early nineteenth century is not a fictional persona: “The speaking voice clearly is the author.” See E. Stelzig, “‘Lives without narrative’: Romantic lyric as autobiography” The Wordsworth Circle 43.1 (2012): 56. 37 S. Lewis, “Speaking,” 154. Brutus makes a similar point in an earlier autobiographical essay: “All my activities: writing, teaching, organizing, creating, are facets of a single personality, are all directed at helping create a better world” (Brutus, “Dennis Brutus 1924–,” 60–61). 38 O.R. Dathorne, African Literature in the Twentieth Century (London: Heinemann, 1976), 214. 39 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 40. For the poem, see A. Tennyson, Selected Poems, ed. C. Ricks (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 206–214. 40 J. Hyslop, “On biography: A response to Ciraj Rassool” South African Review of Sociology 41.2 (2010): 108. 41 Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences,” 92–98. 42 D. Brutus, “Robben Island,” Christian Action (1967): 14–17. 43 Brutus, “Dennis Brutus 1924–,” 53–64. 44 D. Brutus, “Constellations of exile” in Echoes of the Sunbird: An Anthology of Contemporary African Poetry, comp. D. Burness (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1993), 24–34. 45 Pieterse, “Dennis Brutus,” 53–61. 46 Anon, “Interview with Dennis Brutus” in Palaver: Interviews with Five African Writers in Texas, ed. B. Lindfors et al. (Austin: University of Texas, 1972), 25–36. 47 Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 44–55. 48 M. Wahlman, “Literature” in Contemporary African Arts ed. M. Wahlman (Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1974), 100–107. 49 E.E. Miller, “An interview with Dennis Brutus,” Obsidian 1.2 (1975): 42–55. 50 R. Berger, “Interview with Dennis Brutus,” Genéve Afrique 18 (1980): 73–78. 51 W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus: An interview,” Ufahamu 12.2 (1983): 69–77. 52 K. Goddard, “Dennis Brutus” in Out of Exile: South African Writers Speak, ed. K. Goddard and C. Wessels (Grahamstown: National English Literary Museum, 1992), 66–78. 53 Gray, “Dennis Brutus,” 153–157. 54 G.V. Davis and H.G. Ehling, “On a knife edge: Interview with Dennis Brutus” in Southern African Writing: Voyages and Explorations, ed. G.V. Davis (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994), 101–110.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 261

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

262

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

55

C.W. McLuckie, “A biographical introduction to Dennis Brutus’ art and activism” in Critical Perspectives on Dennis Brutus, ed. C.W. McLuckie and P.J. Colbert (Boulder: Three Continents Press, 1995), 1–40. 56 S. Lewis, “Speaking,” 153–159. 57 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 168–215. 58 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 23–44, 129–144, 153–166. 59 C. Thomas, Times with Dennis Brutus: Conversations, Quotations and Snapshots 2005–2009 (East London: Wendy’s Book Lounge, 2012). 60 Amazwi, 1994.4.1.17. 61 Amazwi, 1994.4.4.3. 62 Baptism certificate, St Augustine’s Catholic Cathedral, Port Elizabeth, 12 Apr. 1931. 63 Amazwi, 2005.44.3.7. 64 A. Martin, comp. Poems of Dennis Brutus: A Checklist, 1945–2004 (Madison: Parallel Press, 2005), 5. 65 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 37, 43. 66 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 48. 67 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 115; Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 41. 68 Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 46. 69 P.R. Backscheider, Reflections on Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 88. 70 B. Yagoda, Memoir: A History (New York, Riverhead Books: 2009), 103. 71 Yagoda, Memoir, 103 (emphasis in the original). 72 See, for example, Brutus’s claim during a discussion on literature at the University of Texas in Austin (Anon., “Interview,” 34). Elsewhere, though, he confirms that he won second prize. See D. Brutus, “Dennis Brutus on banning” in Censorship and Apartheid in South Africa: A Report by the PEN Freedom to Write Committee (New York: PEN American Center, 1981), 62. Also see Anon. “Prize for poem that can’t be read in S. Africa,” Rand Daily Mail, 15 Dec. 1962: 17. The first prize was, in fact, won by a Nigerian poet, J.C. Echeruo, a graduate of University College, Ibadan. Arthur Nortje, a former English pupil of Brutus’s at Paterson High, whom he encouraged to enter, won third prize (Anon. “South African, Nigerian win Mbari literary prizes,” Fighting Talk, Jan. 1963: 4). 73 Brutus, GB 193 BRU: CSAS MF 15 in “Dennis Brutus, papers on sport, antiapartheid activities and literature,” Borthwick Institute, University of York: n.d.; n.p. 74 H. Bernstein, “Transcript of interview with May Brutus,” n.d. TS MCA 7, Hilda Bernstein Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives, Cape Town. 75 R. Holmes, “Biography: Inventing the truth” in The Art of Literary Biography, ed. J. Batchelor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 17. 76 As Brutus was born in what was then Rhodesia, he qualified for a British passport. This was probably a key factor behind his initial decision to go

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 262

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

Notes

77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88

263

to the UK. He later identified his knowledge of the English language as another important consideration (Berger, “Interview,” 76). Miller, “Interview,” 55. Van Wyk, “Interview,” 211. Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 55. Miller, “Interview,” 47. Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 315. Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 291, 342. Van Wyk, “Interview,” 213. M.W. Serote, personal interview, Johannesburg, 25 Sep. 2012. M. Langa, personal interview, Johannesburg, 28 Aug. 2012. N. Ndebele, personal interview, Cape Town, 4 Feb. 2013. A. Nortje, “Native’s letter,” Anatomy of Dark: Collected Poems of Arthur Nortje, ed. D. Klopper (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 2000), 361. D. Brutus, “Preface” in Martin, Checklist, 5.

Chapter 1 1

Even though vague on many points of detail, a tape recording made by Brutus on 15 October 1974 is still the most informative account of the background of his grandparents and parents. See “Family Background” in B. Lindfors, ed., The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography (Woodbridge: James Currey, 2011), 32–46. The full set of tapes are located in the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin, while copies of some transcripts form part of the Bernth Lindfors Collection at the Centre for African Literary Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg. For convenience and consistency, however, reference will be made to the transcripts published in Lindfors’s Dennis Brutus Tapes whenever possible. 2 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 33. 3 According to Philip Hoare, a whale ship’s crew could be at sea for months at a time: “As with everything in whaling, periods of frenetic energy alternated with soporific inaction or numbing drudgery.” He adds that “perhaps they gave up their humanity for the duration, to wallow in whale oil for its own sake; to live and die for the whale.” The plight of whalers was not much better even after a whale was captured; the ship’s deck usually ended up “awash with oil, one great slick sliding rink; men might slip off and into shark-infested waters. Life was tentative: others could be crushed by lumps of whale, or splashed with boiling oil, or sliced by flenshing knives.” See P. Hoare, Leviathian or, The Whale (London: Fourth Estate, 2009), 139, 138, 157. 4 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 33. 5 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 37. 6 D. Brutus, “From the Introduction to Salutes and Censures” in From South Africa: New Writing, Photographs and Art (TriQuarterly 69, Spring/Summer

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 263

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

264

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

1987), ed. D. Bunn and J. Taylor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 366. This introduction was written for a planned new edition of Brutus’s collection of poems, Salutes and Censures, which was scheduled for publication by Africa World Press either in 1987 (Bunn and Taylor, From South Africa, 363) or 1989 (C.W. McLuckie and P.J. Colbert, eds, Critical Perspectives on Dennis Brutus (Boulder: Three Continents Press, 1995), 210). However, in the end this edition was cancelled for undisclosed reasons. A draft of the unpublished introduction provides an extended version of Brutus’s article in From South Africa, and offers some useful additional information (see Amazwi South African Museum of Literature (Amazwi), 1994.4.1.17). 7 Brutus, “Introduction,” 364, 367. 8 H.W. Longfellow, The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (London: Ward, Lock and Co, 18–?), 19. 9 Brutus, “Introduction,” 367. 10 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 37. Brutus’s mother’s surname is spelt “Blometje,” most likely erroneously, on Brutus’s baptism record. 11 D. Brutus, A Simple Lust: Collected Poems of South African Jail and Exile (Oxford: Heinemann, 1973), 107. Brutus often does not give specific titles to his poems because, as he later explains, “I hope that the poem works sufficiently well that it doesn’t need a kind of signpost to it” (W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus: An interview” Ufahamu 12.2 (1983): 69). 12 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 34; also see Brutus, “Introduction,” 367. It is more probable that Brutus’s great-grandmother was a slave rather than his grandmother in view of the fact that slaves were emancipated in the Cape Colony between 1834 and 1838. See L. Thompson, A History of South Africa (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), xvi, 58. According to the South African political scientist Maurice Hommel, 39 000 slaves were emancipated in the Cape colony after a law was passed to this effect by the British parliament in 1833. See M. Hommel Capricorn Blues: The Struggle for Human Rights in South Africa (Toronto: Culturama, 1981), 13. 13 D. Brutus, Leafdrift, ed. L.B. Steptoe (Camden: Whirlwind, 2005), 3. 14 L. Sustar and A. Karim, eds., Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006), 153. Many people emigrated to South Africa from St Helena between the last quarter of the nineteenth century and 1948, when apartheid became government policy. See D.A. Yon, “Race-making/race-mixing: St Helena and the South Atlantic world” Social Dynamics 33.2 (2007): 155. 15 T. Buckley, e-mails to author, 7 June 2017 and 8 Aug. 2017. 16 See BC 636, D1.3 in Zonnebloem Papers, Special Collections, J.W. Jagger Library, University of Cape Town. Brutus’s application for a Zimbabwean passport in 1980 provides the same date of birth for his father (Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9).

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 264

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

Notes

265

17

D. Brutus, Poetry and Human Rights: Poems by Dennis Brutus, ed. K. Gibbs and W. Kamin (Worcester: Worcester State College, 2010), 42. 18 A report in the Johannesburg daily newspaper The Star refers to Brutus’s mother as 75 years old (Anon., “Aged mother questioned,” 18 Sep. 1963: 1). Brutus’s daughter, Jacinta Robertson, remembers that her paternal grandmother was born on 11 January, but cannot recall the year (Robertson, e-mail to author, 7 Aug. 2018). This date is confirmed by his sister Helen’s son, Gregory Yon; he too, though, cannot remember the year (telephonic interview with author, 21 Mar. 2019). 19 Brutus, “Introduction,” 366. Webb is probably the more likely version for an English surname. 20 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 37. 21 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 37. 22 Brutus, “Introduction,” 366. 23 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 34. 24 BC 636, D1.3, Zonnebloem Papers. Zonnebloem was initially established in 1858 as a school to provide education for the sons of African chiefs, but some African girls were admitted, as well as coloured and white pupils. Its focus changed to training coloured teachers after the turn of the century when the number of African and white pupils began to decrease. See M. Horrell, The Education of the Coloured Community in South Africa 1652–1970 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1970), 17. 25 B. Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness survives’: Dennis Brutus talks about his life and poetry” The Benin Review 1 (1974): 44; Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 34. In later interviews, Brutus refers to these missionaries as American (Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 153; J. van Wyk, “Interview with Dennis Brutus” Alternation 8.2 (2001): 170). However, in view of the influence of the London Missionary Society at the college, this is unlikely (see Loerie Ruskamp, http://www.loerieruskamp.co.za/hankey.html). The college in Hankey, established in 1899, was the forerunner to the Dower College of Education, which opened in Uitenhage in 1921 and moved to Port Elizabeth in 1975 (see L-A. Butler, http://www.heraldlive.co.za/ news/2016/03/31/tribute-century-dower-college/). 26 Anon., “College and school notes” Zonnebloem College Magazine 1.3 (1902): 2. The magazine is part of the Zonnebloem Papers. 27 Anon., “Ceres” Zonnebloem College Magazine 1.6 (1903): 3, 4. 28 Anon., “Ceres,” 4. 29 P.E. Raper, L.A. Moller and L.T. du Plessis, Dictionary of Southern African Place Names (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2014), 67. Today it is an important deciduous fruit area. 30 Anon., “Ceres,” 4. 31 Anon., “Ceres,” 3. 32 Anon., “Ceres,” 4. 33 See British 1820 Settlers, www.1820settlers.com/genealogy/ settlerbrowsemarrs.php?name=BRUTUS.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 265

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

266

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

34 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 33. 35 Horrell, Education, 14. 36 M. Adhikari, “Let Us Live for Our Children”: The Teachers’ League of South Africa, 1913–1940 (Cape Town: Buchu Books; University of Cape Town Press, 1993), 22. It was only in 1945 – four decades later – that the Cape Provincial Council passed an ordinance to lay the foundations for the compulsory education of coloured children. It provided for the establishment of coloured public schools and for at least R200 000 a year to be spent on establishing and improving non-denominational school buildings for the period 1944–1955 (Horrell, Education, 34). 37 F.J. Cleophas, “Writing and contextualising local history: A historical narrative of the Wellington Horticultural Society (Coloured),” Yesterday & Today 11 (2014): 25. 38 About 10 per cent of the registered voters for the Cape colonial parliament in 1909 were classified as coloured (L. Thompson, History, 150). Brutus speculates that his father was among those who qualified for what he refers to as the Cape Franchise (Brutus, “Introduction,” 367). 39 Cleophas, “Writing and contextualising,” 32. 40 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 35. Kies, a former teacher at Trafalgar High School in Cape Town, was a leading figure in the Anti-CAD movement and in NEUM during the 1940s. See B. Nasson, History Matters: Selected Writings, 1970–2016 (Cape Town: Penguin Books, 2016), 8. 41 J. Simons and R. Simons, Class and Colour in South Africa 1850–1950 (London: International Defence and Aid Fund, 1983 [1969]), 122. 42 R.L. Leigh, ed., The City of Port Elizabeth (Johannesburg: Felstar Publishers, 1966), 50. 43 J.A. Erwee and W.J. Davies, The Port Elizabeth Metropolitan Area: An Appraisal of Terrain, Land Use and Possible Future Development Patterns (Port Elizabeth: Institute for Planning Research, University of Port Elizabeth, 1973), 25. Port Elizabeth became a city during this period in July 1913 (Raper, Moller and Du Plessis, Dictionary, 419). 44 Adhikari, Let Us Live, 73n25. 45 Adhikari, Let Us Live, 28. 46 Adhikari, Let Us Live, 28. 47 G. Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall: A History of South African “Coloured” Politics (Cape Town: David Philip, 1987), 75. Another study similarly put the average annual salaries of coloured teachers at mission schools at about £48 around the time that the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910 (Adhikari, Let Us Live, 29). 48 G. Lewis, Between the Wire, 75. 49 Y. Agherdien, A.C. George and S. Hendricks, South End: As We Knew It (Port Elizabeth: Western Research Group, 1997), viii, 8. 50 Agherdien, George and Hendricks, South End, 11–20. 51 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 34.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 266

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

Notes

267

52 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 33. 53 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 45, 36. 54 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 32. 55 J. Frederikse, “Dennis Brutus interview transcript,” SAHA Collection AL2460, South African History Archive, Aug. 2009. See http://www.saha.org.za/ nonracialism/transcript_of_interview_with_dennis_brutus.htm 56 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 38. 57 Frederikse, “Dennis Brutus,” 2. 58 Brutus, Leafdrift, 4. 59 Brutus refers to their return in his draft article, “The autobiography of the South African troubadour” (Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26). 60 The names on Catherine’s baptism record at St Augustine’s Catholic Cathedral are given as Mary Elizabeth Catherine. She later became known as Dolly, short for China Doll, because she was “fair with masses of dark hair and large eyes” (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 40). 61 Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. 62 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 38. During an earlier visit to the family, around 1927 or 1928, the youngster did not even recognise his father. When he was told to kiss “a man with a moustache,” Brutus hid in the kitchen instead (Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26). 63 See W. Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001 [1994]), 41. 64 Leigh, The City, 50–51. 65 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 169. 66 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 38. 67 Because of its location near a lake, called variously North End Lake and Salt Lake, Dowerville was also known to residents as Lakeview. See Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 38, and an unpublished manuscript by former resident, Gerald Jeftha, Dowerville/Lakeview (Forced Removals 1964): A Sociological Report. According to a newspaper report, the lake originally covered a total area of 93.5 acres (Anon. “North End Lake site for sale,” Evening Post, 16 July 1965: 3). Brutus later describes the tall bushes that grew near the lake, where he walked around as a child. The view reminds him of the following sad lines from the opening stanza of the poet John Keats’s ballad “La belle dame sans merci”: “The sedge has wither’d from the lake, / And no birds sing” (Keats: Poetical Works, ed. H.W. Garrod (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970 [1956]), 350. See Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26 and Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. 68 See the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry, C. Sanders, http:// www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/45502. Dower (1837–1919) was similarly honoured in 1918 when the Seymour Street School – which he helped to establish – was renamed the Dower School. See M. Harradine, Port Elizabeth: A Social Chronicle to the End of 1945 (Port Elizabeth: E.H. Walton Packaging, 1996), 145. The Dower Memorial College, which Dower founded in Uitenhage in 1919 to train coloured teachers, was named after

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 267

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

268

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

him as well. See A. Kerr, Fort Hare 1915–48: The Evolution of an African College (Pietermaritzburg: Shuter & Shooter, 1968), 70. 69 Brutus refers to Dowerville as a subeconomic housing scheme “for the poorer coloureds” (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 38). However, elsewhere it is described as an economic housing scheme (see, for example, Harradine, Port Elizabeth, 227). 70 G.R. Feldmann-Laschin, Income and Expenditure Patterns of Urban Coloured Households (Port Elizabeth/Uitenhage Survey) (Pretoria: Unisa Bureau of Market Research, 1967), 25. 71 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 43. 72 Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. 73 D. Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences” in The Writer in Modern Africa, African Scandinavian Writers’ Conference, Stockholm 1967’, (New York: Africana Publishing Corporation; Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1969), 93. 74 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 127–128. 75 Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences,” 95. 76 D. Brutus, Stubborn Hope: New Poems and Selected Poems from China Poems and Strains (London: Heinemann, 1978), 31. Brutus revisits these memories from his childhood in a second poem, “Sherds”, as well. He emotively recalls in the first stanza: “Sherds / This is the image that coheres my world / to a single shape, single sharp edge” (Stubborn Hope, 30). 77 Kensington, built in the early 1920s, was the first municipal housing scheme in Port Elizabeth, and comprised 200 semi-detached houses at economic rates (Leigh, The City, 247). 78 Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences,” 96. 79 Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences,” 95–96. Brutus subsequently became involved in violent altercations with white children when he returned to school in 1935. As St Theresa’s Catholic Mission School was situated in North End, then a predominantly white area, he was often assailed with stones or even bottles. When police arrived, they invariably sided with the white children. Such incidents informed Brutus’s awareness of racial prejudice at an early age (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 128). 80 Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26; Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. 81 Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. 82 Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. 83 Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. 84 They even stumbled across parts of a human skeleton during one excursion, leading Brutus to speculate that the area was previously a burial ground for African warriors who died during colonial wars. However, he is unsure whether they made this discovery at the Kampie or at Koppie (Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26). 85 Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences,” 97. Here Brutus gives the impression that he learned to read at a young age. However, he states in an interview in

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 268

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

Notes

269

2000 that he lacked virtually any reading skills when he entered St Theresa’s at the age of 11 (Van Wyk, “Interview,” 169). 86 Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences,” 97–98. 87 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 127, 42. As Brutus was baptised in the Catholic Church two years earlier, it can only be speculated that he attended this school because of its convenient location close to home and because of his mother’s previous association with the Congregational Church. 88 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 44; also see Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. 89 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 169. A major benefit of being at St Theresa’s was that the school did not yet fall under government control at the time. “In some ways that was, of course, an advantage because the missionary approach, I believe, was a less racist one than that of the white administration of the State,” Brutus comments. “I’m fortunate, too, in that I’m not a product of the State indoctrination system. I just escaped it” (E.E. Miller, “An interview with Dennis Brutus” Obsidian 1.2 (1975): 43). 90 Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. 91 According to Longfellow’s version in his poem “The bell of Atri,” Atri was, in fact, part of an ancient Roman town called Abruzzo, and was ruled by a benign and wise king (Longfellow, Poetical Works, 248). 92 Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. While the underlying theme of “The bell of Atri” is about compassion and justice in the accounts by both Brutus and Longfellow, the villain of the story is not an autocratic monarch in the US poet’s version, but a knight who is the neglectful owner of the horse (Longfellow, Poetical Works, 250). 93 Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. 94 Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 45. 95 Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 44. 96 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 153. 97 Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences,” 97; Brutus, “Introduction,” 364. Also see A. Tennyson, Tennyson: Poems and Plays (London: Oxford University Press, 1968 [1953]), 102–103. 98 Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences,” 98. 99 The Victorian period is generally regarded as being from the early 1830s to the end of the nineteenth century. See M. Frawley, “The Victorian age, 1832–1901” in English Literature in Context, ed. P. Poplawski (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 403. 100 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 41. 101 Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences,” 94. 102 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 40. 103 Amazwi, 1994.4.14.19. This early introduction to The English Parnassus gave Brutus an advantage at university, where it was a prescribed text in the English curriculum. Compiled by William Dixon and Herbert Grierson, The English Parnassus was first published in 1911 by Clarendon Press. 104 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 200.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 269

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

270

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

105 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 43. 106 Brutus, Poetry and Human Rights, 63. 107 W.J. Davies, Patterns of Non-White Population Distribution in Port Elizabeth with Special Reference to the Group Areas Act (Port Elizabeth: Institute for Planning Research, University of Port Elizabeth, 1971), 60. 108 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 44. 109 Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences,” 94. 110 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 42. 111 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 43; Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 45. 112 Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences,” 94. 113 Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences,” 94. 114 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 45. 115 In fact, Brutus suggests that his father felt superior to most people in Dowerville: “He was unfortunately a rather isolated and, I think it is not unfair to say, arrogant man who felt himself intellectually perhaps, and educationally certainly, above most of those in the little ghetto” (Brutus, “Introduction,” 365). As a result, observes Brutus, his father’s intellectual gifts won him many admirers, but not many friends. See L. Brimble et al., “It’s 1 967 miles from Port Elizabeth to San Antonio,” The Gar 35 (1988): 13; also see Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. Brutus adds elsewhere that his father studied German, too, as part of his undergraduate studies, and spoke Italian as well. Unless Brutus is misremembering the number of languages his father was familiar with, he possessed a remarkable aptitude for languages. 116 Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. 117 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 44. 118 Because his parents separated permanently when he was still in his early teens, Brutus describes himself as growing up in a single-parent family. D. Brutus, personal interview, Johannesburg, 18 June 1998. 119 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 45. 120 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 45–46. Brutus gives contradictory information about when his parents divorced: in one chronology of his life, he gives the year as 1940 (Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9); in a tape recording, though, he claims it occurred in the late 1950s (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 37). 121 Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences,” 94. 122 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 39–40. 123 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 40. Other children were just as scared of his father. During a visit to St Patrick’s, Brutus discovered that his father was regarded as “a fearful martinet, who beat the kids savagely.” But, he adds in mitigation, this was at a time when a good teacher was associated with strict discipline, and usually enforced with a cane (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 39). Some of his father’s own friends also viewed him with a degree of discomfort, if not anxiety. They gave him the nickname “Cocky,” which, according to a handwritten note, Brutus associates with both “energy and aggressiveness” (Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26).

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 270

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

Notes

271

124 Brutus, A Simple Lust, 108. 125 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 43. 126 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 42. Wilfred showed a particular interest in music during their childhood. When he learnt a new song at school, he would sing it repeatedly at home. Their mother, who also taught music at school, invariably knew the song and would sing along. One of these songs that particularly appealed to Brutus was the nineteenth-century Irish poet Thomas Moore’s ballad “The minstrel boy,” with its veneration of a young minstrel who died in battle (Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26). See The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore, ed. A.D. Godley (London: Milford, 1924), 203. Brutus even composed a melody to the Scottish writer Walter Scott’s epic poem, “The lay of the last minstrel” – much to Wilfred’s annoyance. See the handwritten note next to an extract from the poem in Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. 127 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 45. 128 The two quoted lines are from an anti-slavery ballad, “My old Kentucky home, good-night!” by the nineteenth-century US poet Stephen Foster. In 1939 it featured in the film version of Margaret Mitchell’s novel, Gone with the Wind, which Brutus later retold to fellow inmates in prison (see Chapter 4). 129 Brutus, Leafdrift, 92. 130 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 171. 131 Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 45–46. 132 Brutus recalls with bemused delight: “I always had this emulative drive. It was, perhaps, the thing that kept me striving to be better. It was also the thing that most irritated him about me, I believe. And he expressed his irritation in many ways: in contempt, in sarcasm, in blows.” See draft of the unpublished introduction to a planned new edition of Salutes and Censures (Amazwi, 1994.4.1.17). 133 Draft of the unpublished introduction to a new edition of Salutes and Censures (Amazwi, 1994.4.1.17). Brutus translates this stanza as follows: “The embrace is followed by a groan / O the raw power that storms up / and the blood that thuds through my head / With the approach of your graceful form.” 134 Paterson High was named after John Paterson, who established “the first senior government school” for black children at the Chapel Street Union Church School. Paterson High started life as Paterson Secondary School and was temporarily opened in Russell Road in January 1925, and then moved to Mount Road in June 1929 (Agherdien, George and Hendricks, South End, 35; Harradine, Port Elizabeth, 163, 179). By 1935, Paterson High was one of just four high schools offering matric to coloured pupils in the Cape (Horrell, Education, 35.) Paterson High burnt down during the school holidays in June 1949 (Paterson High School, http://patersonhigh.co.za/ history/). Some believe the fire was started deliberately to force the school to move from Mount Road, which was located in the city centre. See, for

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 271

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

272

135 136 137

138

139

140 141

142 143 144

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

example, a personal interview with Gerald Jeftha, a former pupil, in Cape Town, 30 Mar. 2017. Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 46. Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 47. Matts’s name crops up again subsequently, though this time in a most unfortunate context. Brutus told Thomas that she once slapped a pupil, which led to a petition by fellow pupils in demand of a public apology: “We actually liked Miss Matz, as we called her, but that slap in the face had taken things too far. Justice was more important than liking or offending Miss Matz” (C. Thomas, Times with Dennis Brutus: Conversations, Quotations and Snapshots 2005–2009 (East London: Wendy’s Book Lounge, 2012), 6). He recalls that she was asked by the principal to apologise and later left the school. According to Thomas, Brutus’s outrage was fuelled – at least in part – by his reading of the Victorian writer Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s School Days some time during the late 1930s. The eponymous hero of the novel is portrayed as always taking the side of the weakest. Also see C. Thomas, “Coloureds: A complex history” in A History of South Africa: From the Distant Past to the Present Day, ed. F. Pretorius (Pretoria: Protea Book House, 2014), 553 and T. Hughes, Tom Brown’s Schooldays (London: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1972 [1942]), 297. Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. Brutus does not provide further details about this episode, nor of Matts’s racial classification, but the library in question was presumably restricted to white residents. As late as September 1965, there were still no library facilities for black residents in Port Elizabeth (Anon., “Where non-whites have no library service” Evening Post, 23 Sep. 1965: 6). Van Wyk, “Interview,” 181. Brutus was, of course, not the only pupil at Paterson High who came under the political influence of teachers at the time. Livingstone Mqotsi, who enrolled at the school in 1939 and became friends with Brutus, was no doubt another. See S. Morrow, The Fires Beneath: The Life of Monica Wilson, South African Anthropologist (Cape Town: Penguin Books, 2016), 224. Like Brutus, Mqotsi went on to attend SANC after matriculating, and became joint secretary of the Unity Movement of South Africa in 1959 along with legendary teacher and NEUM founding member, Alie Fataar. Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 28–29. C. Sandwith, World of Letters: Reading Communities and Cultural Debates in Early Apartheid South Africa (Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2014), 89. A.L. Dick, The Hidden History of South Africa’s Book and Reading Cultures (Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 103. J. Frederikse, The Unbreakable Thread: Non-Racialism in South Africa (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1990), 39. Van Wyk, “Interview,” 181. The word “apartheid” is historically inaccurate in this context, however, as it only became government policy after the NP

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 272

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

Notes

273

won the general election in May 1948. Racial segregation was, nevertheless, already practised by then in many spheres of life. Hommel describes this difference of opinion as “the most intense and acrimonious political debate that had yet occurred among the coloured people.” He sums it up as follows: “The debate raged principally over the question of collaboration versus non-collaboration and the boycott of separate institutions perceived by the NEUM as entrenching coloured subordination and inferiority” (Hommel, Capricorn, 105). Despite the sustained campaign of opposition, a 21-member CAC was appointed in 1943 with the Rev. Dr F.H. Gow, the principal of a church school, as the chairperson (Hommel, Capicorn, 188). 145 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 30. 146 Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. 147 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 25. 148 Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. 149 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 26. 150 Horrell, Education, 45. 151 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 16; Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. 152 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 169–170. 153 The first formal urban residential segregation was introduced in South Africa in the wake of the abolition of slavery in 1834. As a result, the London Missionary Society started a geographically separate residential area in Port Elizabeth that same year for those under its stewardship. See A.J. Christopher, The Atlas of Apartheid (London and New York: Routledge; Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 1994), 35. However, a key difference between the Group Areas Act and earlier measures to enforce residential segregation was that the intended result of the 1950 law was “total segregation (apartheid), not the piecemeal results of colonial and Union segregationism. Thus, social contact between the communities would be reduced to a minimum and competition for urban space legally eliminated” (Christopher, Atlas, 105). 154 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 24. 155 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 24. 156 Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. 157 Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 46. In an undated chronology of his life, Brutus refers more specifically – and probably more accurately – to the 14 as fellow pupils in his matric class (Amazwi, 1994.4.1.4.9). 158 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 170. The Catholic Church was prepared to step in to assist the promising youngster to further his studies, too. Brutus suspects he was regarded as “potentially seminary material” (Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 26). 159 SANC was renamed the University College of Fort Hare in 1952 and the University of Fort Hare in 1969. See D. Massey, Under Protest: The Rise of Student Resistance at the University of Fort Hare (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2010), 17, 195.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 273

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

274

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Chapter 2 1

2

3 4 5 6 7

8

9 10 11 12

13

14

In his poem “Abafazi,” Brutus describes the Tyhume River as it “winds through the / Amatola Mountains, blue – / shadowed in their distances / along the banks stand miles / of waving corn, the blade-shaped / leaves flashing as the wind rustles / through them and they throw back like spears / the shafts of light that fall on them” (D. Brutus, Still the Sirens, San Francisco: Pennywhistle Press, 1993, 25). Stewart was a medical doctor from Scotland, who later became principal of the Lovedale Missionary Institution. See C. Higgs, The Ghost of Equality: The Public Lives of D.D.T. Jabavu of South Africa, 1885–1959 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997), 32, 174n68, 207n90. A. Kerr, Fort Hare 1915–48: The Evolution of an African College (Pietermaritzburg: Shuter & Shooter, 1968), 12. J. van Wyk, “Interview with Dennis Brutus” Alternation 8.2 (2001): 175. Van Wyk, “Interview,” 176. L. Sustar and A. Karim, eds, Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006), 172. Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 172. This perfunctory introduction to Donne was Brutus’s first encounter with the work of the English poet, who went on to become a major influence on his writing during the early period of his poetry (C. Pieterse, “Dennis Brutus” in African Writers Talking, ed. D. Duerden and C. Pieterse (London: Heinemann, 1972), 56). Van Wyk, “Interview,” 176. Brutus’s father’s annotated copy of Walter W. Skeat’s The Chaucer Canon, which the youngster read at high school, gave him “a great advantage” at university (Amazwi South African Museum of Literature, (Amazwi), 1994.4.14.9). Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 154. “Dab” is presumably a reference to “Dennis Anthony Brutus.” Le Dab [D. Brutus], “Rendezvous” The SANC (1945): 26. Van Wyk, “Interview,” 200. Groom’s A History of English Literature, published in 1938, first appeared under the title A Literary History of England in 1929, while Lamborn’s The Rudiments of Criticism was published in 1917. Brutus also credits Saintsbury’s A Short History of English Literature, which he received from his father, as being influential in his literary education. He points out that it was particularly useful for helping him to understand and appreciate Donne’s poetry (Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9). Van Wyk, “Interview,” 175. He describes Prof. Darlow elsewhere as “outstanding” and as “my favourite English professor” (Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9). Van Wyk, “Interview,” 175–176. Prof. Stuart was also the local chairperson of the Liberal Party (B. Lindfors, ed., The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography (Woodbridge: James Currey, 2011), 59n11). While the party’s membership was open to everyone, it supported a qualified franchise on the basis of educational and property qualifications.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 274

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

Notes

275

15

B. Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness survives’: Dennis Brutus talks about his life and poetry” The Benin Review 1 (1974): 47. 16 See Unz Review, Horizon Archives, http://www.unz.com/print/Horizon/ Contents/ 17 Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 47. 18 Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 47; see DIP [D. Brutus], “Book review” The Fort Harian, Sep. 1947: 6. In fact, Brutus later even cites Joyce, and Ulysses in particular, as an important influence in his own writing (though he does not provide any supporting evidence). See Pieterse, “Dennis Brutus,” 56. 19 DIP [D. Brutus], “David Copperfield” The Fort Harian, Sep. 1947: 6. 20 Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. 21 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 174–175. 22 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 200. 23 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 16; Amazwi, 2010.146.1. However, elsewhere Brutus states that he received the Chancellor’s Prize in 1947, his final year (Amazwi, 1994.4.4.1). 24 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 130. 25 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 175. 26 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 129. 27 Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 48. 28 F.C. Copleston, Aquinas (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1977 [1955]), 243. 29 Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. In fact, Brutus was so impressed with the thinking of the theologian that later he even gave Aquinas as a second name to his eldest son Marc (Amazwi, 1994.4.4.9). 30 Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. 31 Anon., A Short Pictorial History of the University College of Fort Hare 1916–1959 (Alice: Lovedale Press, 1962), 18, 16. Bishop W.E. Smyth, the first warden of Beda Hall (1921–1932), named the hostel after St Bede, a theologian and scholar during the early history of the Anglican Church. Archdeacon A.M. Hanley was the hostel’s warden from 1944–1947, when Brutus was a resident (Anon. Short Pictorial History, 16, 18, 84). 32 Anon., Short Pictorial History, 18. 33 Anon., Short Pictorial History, 48. The number of coloured students increased to 41 – out of a total of 336 – in Brutus’s final year in 1947. 34 Kerr, Fort Hare, 27. 35 See Anon., University College of Fort Hare: Golden Jubilee 1916–1966 (Alice: Fort Hare University Press, 1966), 11 and Z.K. Matthews, Freedom for My People: The Autobiography of Z.K. Matthews: Southern Africa 1901 to 1968 (London: Rex Collings; Cape Town: David Philip, 1981), 133–135. 36 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 172. 37 Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. 38 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 172–173. 39 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 156.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 275

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

276

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

40

Brutus was president of the university’s drama society, too (Amazwi, 2010.146.1). 41 Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. Here Brutus is, once again, inadvertently conflating pre-1948 racial segregation and the legal introduction of apartheid. 42 Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. 43 D. Massey, Under Protest: The Rise of Student Resistance at the University of Fort Hare (Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2010), 35. 44 Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. Elsewhere, Brutus appears to remember Kerr with more affection and respect. In the draft of his unpublished introduction to Salutes and Censures, he notes: “We would like, all of us, I believe, to be happy, to be free, to live in a just society, and to deal justly. And again all of these take me back to my old professor of education, an old Scott, Alexander Kerr. Some of the values he enunciated would seem to me to be valid in any society” (Amazwi, 1994.4.1.17). Matthews, a former student and acting principal of the renamed University College of Fort Hare, certainly does remember Kerr more fondly. “He came to us, most importantly of all, free of the racial attitudes common to the country,” he recalls. “He treated us as he would have treated any group of students…He dealt with every student as he was and colour did not enter this relationship” (Freedom, 54). Wilson, too, was remembered more favourably by another student. Gaositwe Chiepe, who later became Botswana’s Minister of Mines and Water Affairs, describes her as “firm, a disciplinarian, but very tender…she respected people, and you just felt you loved her” (S. Morrow, The Fires Beneath: The Life of Monica Wilson, South African Anthropologist (Cape Town: Penguin Books, 2016), 223). Wilson, for her part, contends that “the enforcement of any rules (whether by whites or Africans) tends to be regarded as ‘persecution.’” And, whether or not Brutus subsequently modified his views on her, he shared a stage with her at a public meeting in October 1961 in support of a national convention to draw up a new constitution for South Africa (Morrow, Fires Beneath, 295). 45 R. Looby, Still fighting apartheid – South African activist Dennis Brutus, 1 Aug. 2005, http://www.threemonkeysonline.com/still-fighting-apartheid-southafrican-activist-dennis-brutus/1/. Also see Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 27. 46 C. Thomas, Times with Dennis Brutus: Conversations, Quotations and Snapshots 2005–2009 (East London: Wendy’s Book Lounge, 2012), 7. Brutus’s subsequent campaigns against racism in South African sport will be discussed more fully later in this chapter and in the next chapter. 47 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 137. 48 M. Bose, Sporting Colours: Sport and Politics in South Africa (London: Robson, 1994), 50. 49 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 38. Also see Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 136.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 276

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

Notes

277

50 Massey, Under Protest, 105; Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 136. Brutus’s father also played cricket at Zonnebloem College, and featured in its B team (Anon., “Zonnebloem Cricket Club,” Zonnebloem College Magazine 1.3 (1902): 5). 51 Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. 52 Brutus identifies May’s father as Willy Jaggers and her stepmother as Ethel Hudsonberg (Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9). According to Brutus’s daughter Jacinta, May’s maternal grandmother, Jane Butler, died when she was eight years old, and her maternal grandfather, William Jagger, died when she was 16 years old in 1945 or 1946 (J. Robertson, e-mail to author, 7 Aug. 2018). Brutus and May married on 14 May 1950 at St Patrick’s Catholic Church in Sydenham, Port Elizabeth. The marriage register, which records her surname as “Jagers,” gives her address in North End as 45 Shell Street, and Brutus’s address as 20 Shell Street. See the archives of the Catholic Diocese of Port Elizabeth. 53 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 130. 54 Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 47. 55 Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 47. 56 Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 48. 57 Elsewhere, Brutus provides contradictory information about the date. According to a CV that he drew up, he completed the teaching diploma in 1946 (Amazwi, 1994.4.4.1), while he was employed as a teacher in Fort Beaufort. 58 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 131. 59 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 131. 60 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 131. 61 Amazwi, 1994.4.4.1. A six-page CV provides a detailed chronology of his education and employment from 1939 to 1993. However, some of the details are open to question. Brutus states elsewhere that he was a teacher at Paterson High in 1948 (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 16). This is confirmed by former Paterson High pupil Fred Simon, who says Brutus taught him in matric that year as a part-time English teacher for one hour a day (F. Simon, telephonic interview, Port Elizabeth, 8 Feb. 2016). 62 C.W. McLuckie, “A biographical introduction to Dennis Brutus’ art and activism” in Critical Perspectives on Dennis Brutus, ed. C.W. McLuckie and P.J. Colbert (Boulder: Three Continents Press, 1995), 4. Brutus remembers teaching For Your Delight: Anthology for Children, edited by E.L. Fowler, while at St Thomas Aquinas High (though he misremembers the editor as the Anglo-Irish poet Cecil Day-Lewis). See the draft of the unpublished introduction to a new edition of Salutes and Censures (Amazwi, 1994.4.1.17). 63 Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 48. 64 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 131. 65 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 149; also see Anon., “Interview with Dennis Brutus” in Palaver: Interviews with Five African Writers in Texas, ed. B. Lindfors et al. (Austin: University of Texas, 1972), 35.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 277

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

278

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

66

Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 49; also see D. Brutus, “From the Introduction to Salutes and Censures” in From South Africa: New Writing, Photographs and Art (TriQuarterly 69, Spring/Summer 1987), ed. D. Bunn and J. Taylor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 364. 67 Brutus later points out that the poem is, in fact, addressed to Dulcy (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 149). To signal this, he spells the word “sweet” with a capital “S” in a reference to the poem in a letter to The Purple Renoster editor Lionel Abrahams on 25 August 1962 (Amazwi, 1996.4.5.13.5) and in the version of the poem published in D. Brutus, A Simple Lust: Collected Poems of South African Jail and Exile (Oxford: Heinemann, 1973), 33. 68 The word “delf” should, strictly speaking, be written as “delft” to signify the earthenware first made in Delft in the Netherlands, and which usually features a blue decoration. Brutus explains his word choice as follows: “I was writing the poem in a kitchen, I remember, and I looked at the plates on the shelf which were a kind of blue Delft, but I used delf instead. Think of cups and saucers without cracks in them and then think of one being cracked – this nice quiet plate on a quiet shelf. And as it’s cracked, it’s got a fissure, which spoils it” (Anon., “Interview,” 36). 69 D. Brutus, Sirens Knuckles Boots (Ibadan: Mbari Publications, 1963), 32. Even though the poem adopts the structure of a sonnet – two quatrains and a sestet – Brutus concedes that it is not a sonnet (Anon., “Interview,” 34). It does not attempt to employ the rhyme scheme of any traditional sonnet. 70 W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus: An interview,” Ufahamu 12.2 (1983): 69. 71 N. White, Hopkins: A Literary Biography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 281. 72 Anon., “Interview,” 36. 73 Anon., “Interview,” 36. 74 Elsewhere, however, Brutus claims that he accepted an offer to work as a social welfare officer when he could not secure a teaching post (Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26). 75 Brutus also gradually started becoming involved in sport during this period, particularly in weightlifting. He was subsequently approached by G.K. Rangasamy to become secretary of his Port Elizabeth Physical Culture Club. 76 J. Alvarez-Pereyre, The Poetry of Commitment (London: Heinemann, 1984), 132. 77 Bernth Lindfors Collection, C4697 (Side 1), Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas. 78 Lindfors, “’Somehow tenderness,’” 53–54. 79 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 132. 80 D. Brutus, “Dennis Brutus 1924–” in Contemporary Authors: Autobiography Series, Vol. 14, ed. J. Nakamura (Detroit: Gale Research, 1991), 59. Brutus applied his knowledge of astronomy to his poetry, too. “The theme of stars, and the image of Orion, are for me a real element of my thinking,” he observes. 81 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 80.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 278

2020-01-17 03:50:55 PM

Notes

279

82

Simon, interview. See John Donne, The Complete English Poems, ed. A. Smith (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1977 [1971]), 42–43. 83 Simon, interview. 84 Brutus does not clarify whether this is Gardner’s two-volume study, Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Study of Poetic Idiosyncrasy in Relation to Poetic Tradition, which was published in 1944 and 1949, or Gardner’s edited volume, Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins, published in 1953. 85 K. Goddard, “Dennis Brutus” in Out of Exile: South African Writers Speak, ed. K. Goddard and C. Wessels (Grahamstown: National English Literary Museum, 1992), 70. 86 N. Murison, e-mail to author, 2 Mar. 2017. 87 This was apparently not an uncommon sight. Two other former pupils mention this as well: Garnet Prince (“Letter”, The Herald, 8 Jan. 2010: 7) and Lionel Adriaan (personal interview, Cape Town, 29 Mar. 2017). 88 Murison, e-mail to author, 2 Mar. 2017. 89 Murison, e-mail to author, 14 Mar. 2017. 90 Adriaan, interview. 91 See Paterson High School, http://patersonhigh.co.za/history/. Schauderville was established in 1937 and the first 1 500 subeconomic houses were completed by 1943 (G.R. Feldmann-Laschin, Income and Expenditure Patterns of Urban Coloured Households (Port Elizabeth/Uitenhage Survey) (Pretoria: Unisa Bureau of Market Research, 1967), 24). It was named after Adolph Schauder, who was a city councillor for 43 years and served as mayor of Port Elizabeth between 1940 and 1944 (M. Harradine, Port Elizabeth: A Social Chronicle to the End of 1945 (Port Elizabeth: E.H. Walton Packaging, 1996), 277). 92 Adriaan, interview. 93 P. Carelse, personal interview, Cape Town, 29 Mar. 2017. When Brutus later established Africa Network, an information network with its headquarters in the US, Carelse became its Australian representative when he lived in Perth. 94 E.E. Miller, “An interview with Dennis Brutus” Obsidian 1.2 (1975): 44. 95 M. Rousseau, telephonic interview with author, 9 Mar. 2017. 96 Brutus, “Dennis Brutus 1924–,” 61. 97 Even after he was banned and lost his teaching post at Paterson High, Brutus continued to pursue this objective by helping to organise cooperative teams of teachers and parents who conducted what he refers to as underground classes in garages and homes (Brutus, “Dennis Brutus 1924–,” 61). 98 Rousseau, interview. 99 U. Coetzee, telephonic interview with author, 26 Oct. 2017. 100 Nortje wrote a poem for Jeftha in 1961 when his former classmate went to study at the Stevenage College of Technology in the UK, “For Gerald going to England” (A. Nortje, Anatomy of Dark: Collected Poems of Arthur Nortje, ed.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 279

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

280

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

D. Klopper (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 2000), 11). In 1966, Nortje wrote the poem “Autopsy,” in which he describes Brutus as “sensitive precise / he stood with folded arms in a classroom / surveying a sea of galvanised roofs, / transfixed as a chessman, only / with deep inside his lyric brooding, / the flame-soft bitterness of love that recrudesces.” (Nortje, Anatomy of Dark, 196). 101 G. Jeftha, personal interview, Cape Town, 30 Mar. 2017. 102 Coetzee, interview. Copeman was, in fact, a disillusioned former communist. In the introduction to his autobiography, he notes with barely disguised contempt: “Millions still look to Communism to answer the age-old strivings of the human race for all, coupled with all the freedoms of the individual necessary to his happiness. It has failed to answer those strivings, and must always fail, for it to me is the very negation of freedom.” See F. Copeman, Reason in Revolt (London: Blackford Press, 1948), 7. 103 According to a security police memorandum dated 27 September 1961, Brutus addressed the Council of Non-European Trade Unions on 22 May 1954, the Food and Canning Workers’ Union on 29 December 1959 and the South African Congress of Trade Unions on 10 January 1960. See National Archives of South Africa (NARSA), File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice. 104 Adriaan, interview. 105 Rousseau, interview. 106 Rousseau, interview. Pather was convicted under the Suppression of Communism Act of knowingly allowing his premises to be used for a meeting of the then-banned ANC in April 1961. On appeal, the Supreme Court reduced his prison sentence in October 1964 from 30 months to 18 months, of which 9 were suspended. See SAHO, Grey Street Complex timeline 1800–1999, https://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/grey-street-complextimeline-1800-1999 107 The sight that greeted Nortje was probably much the same as that witnessed by the South African writer Mary Benson when she visited Gell in 1957. She describes him as “propped up in bed, his emaciated body just visible above the sheets, his whole being concentrated in a thin amused face and sparkling bespectacled eyes…Nearby was the iron lung to which he had been confined for much of each day.” (M. Benson, A Far Cry: The Making of a South African (London: Penguin Books, 1990 [1989], 109). 108 Thomas, Times, 58. 109 Nortje writes in the second and third stanzas: “Slowly you have won yourself / victories over disease; / sprinted through heats of desire. / Lungs rotting by daily degrees / are nothing, are exchanged with ease / for iron others, resistant of rust, / unable to be dismembered or / blasted artificially to dust” (Nortje, Anatomy of Dark, 2). 110 Morrow, Fires Beneath, 224. 111 Amazwi, 1994.4.1.12.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 280

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

Notes

281

112 While Brutus does not specify when the concert took place, his reference in the letter to the Evening Post to “some twenty years ago” suggests he is referring to Arrau’s visit to South Africa in 1956. 113 Amazwi, 1994.4.1.12. Years later while in exile, Brutus eventually manages to attend an Arrau concert, and marvels: “The magic and the artistry I longed for are here as he unskeins the lyrical strands of the Waldstein Sonata [Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 21 in C Major (Op. 53)], articulates the agonized probings of Beethoven’s E Major Sonata (Op 9) [Piano Sonata No 9 in E Major (Op 14)] and scatters cascades of notes in Liszt’s ‘Jeux d’eau a la Villa d’Este’ [‘Les Jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este’].” 114 Murison, e-mail to author, 14 Mar. 2017. 115 Rousseau, interview. Elroy Schroeder, a medical doctor in Australia who was then a South End High pupil, also recalls visiting Brutus’s home in North End to listen to his music collection. In addition, he credits Brutus with stimulating his interest in jazz through a lecture he gave at the Mariamman Temple hall in South End in 1960 (E. Schroeder, e-mail to Lionel Smith, 10 Feb. 2017). 116 See M. Wahlman, “Literature” in Contemporary African Arts, ed. M. Wahlman (Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1974), 103. Brutus expresses some reservations about Ellington’s music, though, and regards it as “too Westernized really, a tremendous kind of [Claude] Debussy influence…a more French impressionist [influence].” 117 Brutus specifies his height as 175 cm in a passport application in 1976 (Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9). 118 Adriaan, interview. 119 Rousseau, interview. 120 Wahlman, “Literature,” 103. Brutus even recalls dancing virtually until dawn one night and being so inebriated that he ended up sleeping in an ashram – the first convenient place he could find to put his head down. See L. Brimble et al., “It’s 1 967 miles from Port Elizabeth to San Antonio,” The Gar 35 (1988): 12. 121 Rousseau, interview. 122 Brutus describes himself as captain of the Eastern Province table tennis team in a biographical note (Amazwi, 1994.4.4.1). He also mentions this in a summary of his “Vital Statistics” on 10 Aug. 1966 (D. Brutus, GB 193 BRU: CSAS MF 15 in “Dennis Brutus, papers on sport, anti-apartheid activities and literature,” Borthwick Institute, University of York: n.d.; n.p. 123 Adriaan vividly remembers Brutus’s fingers: “Dennis had very big hands and long, thin fingers. And he smoked quite heavily, and I always marvelled at his yellow fingers – smoking fingers” (Adriaan, interview). 124 In fact, according to Coetzee and Rousseau, Brutus was ambidextrous and would sometimes write on the blackboard with his right hand. Hamilton Petersen, the former principal of Jubilee Park Primary School in Uitenhage, also recalls being told that when one hand got tired while Brutus took

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 281

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

282

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

minutes, he would simply switch the pen to his other hand and continue (personal interview, Port Elizabeth, 23 Nov. 2016). 125 Brutus carried on playing club cricket as an adult. Prof. Lionel Smith remembers that his father, Gordon, and Brutus played for South End United at Victoria Park when both of them were already teachers (personal interview, Port Elizabeth, 27 Nov. 2018). Gordon, a South End High teacher who coached tennis, baseball and softball, later became active in SANROC as well. 126 Francis later captained the EPCA between 1973 and 1975, while Abrahams also went on to play in first-class matches for the provincial association (A. Odendaal, The Story of an African Game (Cape Town: David Philip, 2003), 242–243. 127 Jeftha, interview. 128 R. O’Brien, personal interview, Port Elizabeth, 28 Nov. 2018. 129 N. Francis, personal interview, Port Elizabeth, 27 Nov. 2018. 130 Smith, interview. 131 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 28. 132 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 38. 133 Anon. The Olympic Games: Fundamental Principles, Rules and Regulations (Lausanne: International Olympic Committee, 1956), 9. 134 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 38. 135 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 38. 136 Carelse, interview. 137 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 38. 138 D. Brutus, “The blacks and the whites in sport,” Africa Today 17.6 (1970): 4; also see McLuckie, “Biographical introduction,” 8. 139 Thomas, Times, 7, 9. The organisation survived for just two years. 140 B. Murray and C. Merrett, Caught Behind: Race and Politics in Springbok Cricket (Johannesburg: Wits University Press and Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2004), 70. 141 See R.E. Lapchick, The Politics of Race and International Sport: The Case of South Africa (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1975), 24 and C. Russell, Ivor Montague: Communist aristocrat, Soviet spy and activist filmmaker, http:// theconversation.com/ivor-montagu-communist-aristocrat-soviet-spy-andactivist-filmmaker-101600. However, Brutus mistakenly refers to the ITTF as a relatively newly formed organisation at the time. It was, in fact, founded in 1926. 142 M. Horrell, South Africa and the Olympic Games (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1968), 9. 143 Anon., “Kleur en sport: Dönges stel SA beleid” (“Colour and sport: Dönges presents SA policy”), Die Burger, 26 June 1956: 1 (author’s translation). Dönges was, not coincidentally, one of the chief advocates of the Group Areas Act. It was he who tabled the Group Areas Bill in 1950. 144 Anon., “Kleur en sport,” 9 (author’s translation).

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 282

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

Notes

283

145 D. Brutus, “Sport: Threat to the security of the state” Fighting Talk (Dec. 1961/Jan. 1962): 18. 146 Brutus, “Sport: Threat,” 18. 147 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 39. 148 D. Brutus, “Sports test for South Africa” Africa South 3.4 (1959): 36. 149 GB 193 BRU: CSAS BRU 1/3/2, “Dennis Brutus, papers.” 150 J. Frederikse, “Dennis Brutus interview transcript,” SAHA Collection AL2460, South African History Archive, Aug. 2009, 5. See http://www.saha.org.za/ nonracialism/transcript_of_interview_with_dennis_brutus.htm 151 GB 193 BRU: CSAS BRU 1/3/2, “Dennis Brutus, papers.” Brutus outlined the tasks facing SASA in a two-part newspaper article (D. Brutus, “Tasks facing SASA,” The Leader, 9 and 16 Jan. 1959: 3). 152 GB 193 BRU: CSAS BRU 1/3/2, “Dennis Brutus, papers.” 153 Brutus was the international correspondent of the SAAWBF at the time. He claims that he was approached to be president of SASA, but declined because he felt he could perform a more effective role as secretary (Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 9). 154 Brutus, “Sports test,” 35. 155 T. Newnham, Apartheid Is Not a Game: The Inside Story of New Zealand’s Struggle against Apartheid Sport (Auckland: Graphic Publications, 1975), 16. 156 See Brutus’s letter to SACBOC secretary M.R. Varachia on 28 February 1959 and Rangasamy’s letter to the West Indies Cricket Board of Control on 20 March 1959 (GB 193 BRU: CSAS BRU 1/3/2, “Dennis Brutus, papers”). 157 Quoted in P. Oborne, Basil D’Oliveira: Cricket and Conspiracy: The Untold Story (London: Little, Brown, 2004), 58. 158 This threat, by the ANC Youth League, was reportedly engineered by SASA (Murray and Merrett, Caught Behind, 74). Brutus also states elsewhere that Essop Pahad, then a Transvaal Indian Youth Congress activist, threatened to set a stadium on fire if the tour went ahead (Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 130). Basil D’Oliveira, one of South Africa’s most illustrious black cricketers, was opposed to the cancellation of the tour. As captain of the SACBOC team that toured East Africa in 1958, and of the Transvaal NonRacial Invitation XI in December 1958, he was a certainty for inclusion in the team for the West Indies tour. See Krish Reddy, “Appendix A,” in Murray and Merrett, Caught Behind, 256–257. 159 Quoted in Lapchick, Politics of Race, 29. SASA also succeeded in getting a football match cancelled between a Brazilian team and an all-white South African team in Cape Town in 1959. However, this required little more than an appeal by cablegram to the then president of Brazil, Juscelino Kubitschek, to stop the match (Brutus, “Sports test,” 36). It did lead, more significantly, to Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies considering a bill that threatened legal sanctions against any Brazilian “who, in sports competitions abroad, submits himself or makes another submit himself to the rules resulting from race or colour prejudice” – the first time another

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 283

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

284

160 161 162 163

164 165

166 167 168 169

170

171

172 173 174 175

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

country’s government became involved in opposing the extension of apartheid into sport in South Africa (Lapchick, Politics of Race, 30). Also see R. Thompson, Race and Sport (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 32. J. Player [D. Brutus], “The rugby tour and the Maoris,” Fighting Talk, Dec. 1959: 16. R. Thompson, Race and Sport, 47; Newnham, Apartheid, 16–17, 24. Player, “The rugby tour”, 16. See R. Thompson, Race and Sport, 43–45. Despite this intense opposition, Nash and his government refused to intervene. Expedience prevailed over morality, and the tour went ahead in May 1960 after a state reception (Lapchick, Politics of Race, 30, 32–33; also see R. Thompson, Race and Sport, 48). As rugby commentator Paul Dobson notes, “in the end the desire to preserve ties with South Africa triumphed over moral considerations.” See P. Dobson, Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry: South Africa vs New Zealand 1921–1995 (Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 1996), 115. Brutus, GB 193 BRU: CSAS BRU 1/3/2, “Dennis Brutus, papers.” This memorandum is later described as “the founding document in the struggle to isolate the apartheid state” (Anon., Dennis Brutus (obituary), The Telegraph, 5 Mar. 2010; see https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/ sport-obituaries/7377841/Dennis-Brutus.html). TLSA constitution. See R.O. Dudley Papers (BC1522), Special Collections, J.W. Jagger Library, University of Cape Town. Frederikse, “Dennis Brutus,” 6. Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 31. D. Brutus, “Editorial: The flame and the darkness” Educational News X.2 (Nov./Dec. 1953): n.p. The same issue of the journal reports that Brutus was a branch representative of the TLSA at the Anti-CAD conference in Cape Town in January 1954. Y. Agherdien, A.C. George and S. Hendricks, South End: As We Knew It (Port Elizabeth: Western Research Group, 1997), 39, 78. Landman also previously taught for a while at the Henry Kaiser Memorial School (Anon., “Banned teacher: ‘I’m no red’” Evening Post, 17 Oct. 1961: 2). Qualified coloured males were eligible to register as voters on a common roll in the province since 1853. Their voting rights were abolished by the Separate Representation of Voters Act. From then on, coloured voters in the Cape were represented by four white proxies in the House of Assembly. See D. Welsh, The Rise and Fall of Apartheid (Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball, 2010 [2009]), 53–54. See M. Hommel Capricorn Blues: The Struggle for Human Rights in South Africa (Toronto: Culturama, 1981), 135. Group Areas, Act No 40 of 1950, Government Gazette, 407. National Anti-CAD Conference, Minutes, 1954. See R.O. Dudley Papers. A.J. Christopher, “Apartheid planning in South Africa: A case study of Port Elizabeth,” The Geographical Journal 153.2 (1987): 199.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 284

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

Notes

285

176 The playwright Athol Fugard, who grew up in Port Elizabeth, gives a memorable sketch of South End in a journal note in December 1963. He describes the area as a triangle formed by South Union Street at the bottom, with Valley Road and Walmer Road on the sides: “Little semi-detached houses, some derelict some newly-painted; young girls leaning on stoeps chewing bubble-gum; fishermen; dogs; babies – seemingly neglected, crying in doorways; poky, untidy little Indian shops; fish and chips…the harbour down below at one end.” Yet, at the same time, Fugard recognises the vibrance of life in South End. He characterises it as “[a] place where men live – in fact vivid with the stains of birth and death, hoping and just waiting – yet open to the world; full of the moon and the sound and smell of the sea.” (A. Fugard, Notebooks 1960–1977, ed. M. Benson (London: Faber and Faber, 1983), 104–105). 177 Christopher, “Apartheid planning,” 200. 178 Brimble et al., “It’s 1 967 miles,” 12. 179 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 28. 180 Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. 181 Agherdien, George and Hendricks, South End, 79. 182 Brutus, “Introduction,” 367. 183 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 28. 184 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 295. 185 I. Goldin, Making Race: The Politics and Economics of Coloured Identity in South Africa (Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman, 1987), 117. 186 See the full Ten-Point Programme in Hommel, Capricorn, 188–190. 187 B.M. Kies, The Background of Segregation (Cape Town: Anti-CAD Committee, 1943), 14. See R.O. Dudley Papers. 188 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 33. 189 Frederikse, “Dennis Brutus,” 10. 190 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 32. To avoid attracting the attention of the security police, the club discussed topics ranging from music to religion as well. Brutus also describes these discussions in an interview with Rachel Matteau-Matsha. See R. Matteau-Matsha, “‘I read what I like’: Politics of reading and reading politics in apartheid South Africa,” Transformation 83 (2013): 74. 191 Mqota was among the 156 defendents in the treason trial of 1956, and became a national executive committee member of the ANC in 1958. After he was acquitted in late 1958, he launched a monthly isiXhosa journal in Port Elizabeth. See G.M. Gerhart and T. Karis, From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, Vol. 4 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1977), 104. 192 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 32–33. 193 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 32. 194 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 33.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 285

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

286

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

195 McLuckie, “Biographical introduction,” 11. After Gell’s death at the age of 41 in 1958, Brutus helped to arrange a memorial service for him in May 1959, and served as secretary of the Christopher Gell Memorial Award Committee formed in August 1960 under the auspices of the Christopher Gell Memorial Foundation. See GB 193 BRU: CSAS BRU 1/4/1, “Dennis Brutus, papers.” The annual award was intended to honour any individual who “contributed to an outstanding degree to the ideal of a South African nation in which colour, class, race or degree is not significant” (Anon., “In memory of Christopher Gell” Evening Post, 16 Aug. 1960: 5). The first recipient was Albert Luthuli, then already banned and confined to Stanger, in October 1961 (Anon. “A new National Convention,” Evening Post, 20 Oct. 1961: 2; Anon. “Fierce freedom struggle ahead,” Evening Post, 23 Oct. 1961: 5). 196 Brutus appears to hold ambivalent feelings about Paton and his writing. In 1969, he refers to him and his 1948 novel Cry, the Beloved Country in quite cynical terms: “One must not think in colour categories, but it is very difficult to resist thinking of Alan Paton as a white man, a sympathizing white man standing outside South African society with all its complexities and dynamic tensions and reducing it to what is almost a parable, a simple little tale told with a certain lyricism which I think is sometimes false” (D. Brutus, “Protest against apartheid” in Protest and Conflict in African Literature, ed. C. Pieterse and D. Munro (London: Heinemann, 1978 [1969]), 95–96. However, Brutus later states more generously in response to an enquiry about Paton: “We were friends, and he was supportive when I was jailed and banned by the Apartheid government and met a few times – even after it was illegal to meet, he visited me.” See the handwritten reply by Brutus to a letter from S. J. Stedman, director of the Technical Communication Program at Tennessee Technological University, dated 20 September 1991 (Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9). 197 J. Currey, Africa Writes Back: The African Writers Series and the Launch of African Literature (Oxford: James Currey, 2008), 207. Not coincidentally, both Paton and Duncan were invited to be patrons of the Christopher Gell Memorial Award Committee. 198 Frederikse, “Dennis Brutus,” 10.

Chapter 3 1

2 3

See D.M. Scher, “The consolidation of the apartheid state” in A History of South Africa: From the Distant Past to the Present Day, ed. F. Pretorius (Pretoria: Protea Book House, 2014), 328–347. The pass laws governed influx control and were designed to control the movement of African people in urban areas. T. Lodge, Black Politics in South Africa since 1945 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987 [1983]), 46.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 286

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

Notes

287

4

J. Grobler, “Black resistance against apartheid, 1950s–1980s” in A History of South Africa: From the Distant Past to the Present Day, ed. F. Pretorius (Pretoria: Protea Book House, 2014), 376. 5 Lodge, Black Politics, 76. 6 Brutus occasionally worked with Mini on political projects and regarded him as a friend, too – “a great, bluff, jovial man whose hobby was conducting a choir” (B. Lindfors, ed., The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography (Woodbridge: James Currey, 2011), 89). Mini, who became secretary of the Eastern Cape branch of SACTU in 1960, was hanged in November 1964 after being convicted of sabotage and complicity in the murder of a police informer. See G.M. Gerhart and T. Karis, From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, Vol. 4 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1977), 89. 7 G. Jeftha, personal interview, 30 Mar. 2017. 8 It is not clear to which writer Brutus is referring. One author of the same name was a British military writer, while another was a British novelist who published The Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, by One of the Fraternity in 1876. Brutus may, in fact, be referring to Henry Green, a British writer who published several novels on class distinctions, including Living (1929), Party Going (1939) and Loving (1945). 9 R. Matteau-Matsha, “‘I read what I like’: Politics of reading and reading politics in apartheid South Africa,” Transformation 83 (2013): 74–75. Even after Brutus was banned in 1961, he still tried to stay in touch with the study group and keep up with its reading material. One of the papers discussed during this period, he recalls, was on the Negritude movement. Another indication that Brutus remained involved in the study group after his banning was his possession of an extract from the Russian writer Boris Pasternak’s 1957 novel Doctor Zhivago. The extract, dated Easter 1962, features a dialogue on religion and death entitled “Thought for reading or discussion.” See GB 193 BRU: CSAS MF 15, in “Dennis Brutus, papers on sport, anti-apartheid activities and literature,” Borthwick Institute, University of York: n.d.; n.p. 10 A. Ungar, “South Africa” in Resistance against Tyranny: A Symposium Edited by Eugene Heimler (New York and Washington: Frederick A Praeger, 1967 [1966]), 42. 11 His wife May also registered similar acts of defiance. She and Harry Jeftha’s wife, Ruth (née Gordon), a nurse who gave up her work to look after her children when their family relocated to Port Elizabeth from Worcester, relished any casual opportunity to assert themselves politically. Although there were two cinemas for coloured people – the Avalon and Spot B – they chose to frequent the whites-only cinema in the city. But their gestures of defiance were either unnoticed, deliberately ignored or politely tolerated. “They used to go to movies there [in the city] without any problems,” notes Gerald Jeftha. “They were both light of complexion (my mother was of Scottish origin)” (Jeftha, interview).

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 287

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

288

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

12 13

Ungar, “South Africa,” 43. The CPSA was banned in 1950, after which the South African Communist Party (SACP) was launched as an underground organisation in 1953 (D. Welsh, The Rise and Fall of Apartheid (Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball, 2010 [2009]), 131, 45). 14 Suppression of Communism Act No 44 of 1950, Government Gazette, 549. 15 C.W.M. Gell, “Port Elizabeth Diary,” Africa South 1.4 (Jul–Sep. 1957): 69. Benson regards Gell as a uniquely talented essayist: “When he died… there was no one to fill the gap, no writer with quite that combination of authority, precision and passionate irony” (M. Benson, A Far Cry: The Making of a South African (London: Penguin Books, 1990 [1989], 110). 16 S. Gray, “Dennis Brutus” in Indaba: Interviews with African Writers (Pretoria: Protea Book House, 2005), 155. 17 J. van Wyk, “Interview with Dennis Brutus” Alternation 8.2 (2001): 173. This was, of course, the same year Brutus joined the TLSA, which led to his gradual involvement in anti-apartheid organisations. 18 D. Brutus, Letters to Martha and Other Poems from a South African Prison (London: Heinemann, 1978 [1968]), 45. 19 A newspaper report by G. Mbeki on Jebe’s funeral in New Brighton states that he was shot during a clash with police on 23 March 1956, but does not provide any further details (“30 000 at funeral of man who was shot by the police” New Age, 5 Apr. 1956: 1, 3). The report further claims that it was “the greatest funeral ever known in these parts.” 20 D. Brutus, A Simple Lust: Collected Poems of South African Jail and Exile (Oxford: Heinemann, 1973), 34. 21 This figure, usually cited in official reports and media articles at the time, may in fact be higher. According to Philip Frankel, the bodies of another two dozen victims went missing after the shooting. See P. Frankel, An Ordinary Atrocity: Sharpeville and Its Massacre (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 40, 148, 150. 22 Frankel, Ordinary Atrocity, 116, 6. 23 Anon., “State of emergency is over” Evening Post, 31 Aug. 1960: 1. 24 L. Sustar and A. Karim, eds., Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006), 37. By then, Brutus was already disillusioned with the endless and sterile debates of the Trotskyist left and, by comparison to the ANC, its limited success in mobilising broadbased opposition to apartheid. In particular, he believed that the Defiance Campaign and the Freedom Charter campaign were turning points in the ANC’s rise to political ascendancy in South Africa. 25 D. Brutus, Strains, ed. W. Kamin and C. Dameron (Del Valle: Troubadour Press, 1975), 38–39. 26 It is unclear whether Brutus ever joined the ANC-aligned Coloured People’s Congress (CPC), which was originally known as the South African Coloured People’s Organisation (SACPO) when it was formed in 1953. In

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 288

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

Notes

27 28

29

30

31 32 33 34 35 36

289

1974, he says that he “was loosely and I think never officially associated” with it (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 115). However, in 2001 he claims that he was a CPC official in Port Elizabeth (Van Wyk, “Interview,” 182). Either way, Brutus definitely participated in some of its campaigns. On 15 September 1961, for example, he took part in a picket outside the Opera Hall in protest against a performance of US playwright Eugene O’Neill’s play, A Touch of the Poet, to a segregated audience by a touring US company (Anon., “CPC pickets US apartheid producer” New Age, 21 Sep. 1961: 4; also see Anon., “PE against theatre apartheid” New Age, 28 Sep. 1961: 3). And, according to security police records dated 9 May 1961, he previously addressed SACPO meetings in Port Elizabeth on 20 October 1955, 22 October 1957, 29 October 1957 and 20 March 1958. See National Archives of South Africa (NARSA), File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice. Amazwi South African Museum of Literature (Amazwi) 1994.4.4.26. J. Frederikse, “Dennis Brutus interview transcript,” SAHA Collection AL2460, South African History Archive, Aug. 2009, 11. See http://www.saha.org.za/ nonracialism/transcript_of_interview_with_dennis_brutus.htm Brutus first met Mandela during the treason trial in 1956 (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 116). He says ANC member Alfred Hutchinson, a former fellow student at SANC, introduced him to Mandela and other ANC leaders such as Albert Luthuli and Walter Sisulu (Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 34). Jeftha also remembers that his father and Brutus met Mandela and Sisulu at their Dowerville home sometime in the 1950s. During this visit, Jeftha’s father refused to give him money to see a Tarzan movie: “Because I was very naughty that day…my father wouldn’t give me the pocket money, but Mandela said: ‘Don’t be so mean,’ and he gave me a shilling. And I went to the movies” (Jeftha, interview). Later Brutus worked with Sisulu in the National Action Council (NAC), which was formed after the ANC was banned in an attempt to unite the leadership of various antiapartheid organisations, in Johannesburg. Mandela served as secretary of the NAC. See Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 82, 90. Also see Lodge, Black Politics, 196–197. Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 35–36. Brutus recalls this episode as well in Frederikse, “Dennis Brutus,” 11. Also see M. Benson, Nelson Mandela (London: Penguin Books, 1990 [1986]), 99. Marc was born on 13 February 1952, Julian on 17 July 1953 and Antony on 14 April 1955. Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. Van Wyk, “Interview,” 196; also see Anon., “Death ends father’s dream” Evening Post, 6 Aug. 1960: 3. W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus: An interview,” Ufahamu 12.2 (1983): 69. W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus,” 69. W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus,” 70. Brutus elaborates on this line as follows: “The life of the Black [person] begins as a kind of death. From the moment of birth you’re given this Pass

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 289

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

290

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Book, so that you cease to be a human being from the point of birth” (W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus,” 70). 37 Brutus says the phrase “death’s-head tyranny” is based on the skull and crossbones used in the insignia of the German army’s panzer division during the Second World War (W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus,” 71). 38 D. Brutus, Sirens Knuckles Boots (Ibadan: Mbari Publications, 1963), 15. 39 The Johannesburg leadership of the ANC – which was banned by then – convened a Consultative Conference of African Leaders in Soweto, where the call was made to hold a convention. See R. Vigne, Liberals against Apartheid: A History of the Liberal Party of South Africa, 1953–68 (Hampshire and New York: Basingstoke, 1997), 139. The South African Institute of Race Relations president D.B. Molteno was reportedly the first to call for a national convention in 1959. See R. van der Ross, The Rise and Decline of Apartheid: A Study of Political Movements among the Coloured People of South Africa, 1880–1985 (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 1986), 291). 40 C.W. McLuckie, “A biographical introduction to Dennis Brutus’ art and activism” in Critical Perspectives on Dennis Brutus, ed. C.W. McLuckie and P.J. Colbert (Boulder: Three Continents Press, 1995), 9; Frederikse, “Dennis Brutus,” 9. 41 Vigne, Liberals against Apartheid, 139. 42 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 115. Vigne refers to a meeting of a group of 15 coloured people in Cape Town in January 1961 to discuss holding a convention as part of the ANC-initiated Convention movement (Liberals against Apartheid, 148). However, Van der Ross – who attended this meeting – describes it as a response to then prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd’s rejection of direct representation of coloured people in parliament (R. van der Ross, In Our Own Skins: A Political History of the Coloured People (Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball, 2015), 146–147). Lewis also depicts the meeting as an independent initiative. See G. Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall: A History of South African “Coloured” Politics (Cape Town: David Philip, 1987), 271. 43 Anon., Why a ‘Coloured’ National Convention? (Cape Town: South African Coloured National Convention, 1961), 11–12. See MS10 800, Cory Library for Humanities Research, Rhodes University, Makhanda. 44 Anon., Why a ‘Coloured’ National Convention? 3–4. 45 Frederikse, “Dennis Brutus,” 7. 46 Van der Ross, Own Skins, 247. 47 Van der Ross, Rise and Decline, 293. 48 Van der Ross, Rise and Decline, 289. 49 Anon., “PE call for all-race talks” Evening Post, 26 June 1961: 5. Unemployment in Port Elizabeth was already growing steadily by then. A total of 2 156 coloured and white people were reportedly registered as unemployed in June 1960. Mainly as a result of this increase in unemployment, the Port Elizabeth municipality was then owed £12 000

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 290

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

Notes

291

in arrears by tenants. There was also an increase in summonses issued for debt from 7 829 to 8 263 in 1960 compared to the corresponding period the previous year (C. Cubitt, “More summonses for debt,” Evening Post, 2 July 1960: 5). 50 Vigne, Liberals against Apartheid, 148–149. 51 D. Brutus, “In a Cape packing shed” Fighting Talk, Aug. 1961: 14. CPC and underground SACP member Blanche la Guma, who attended the convention, remembers that it was very cold outside that day (B. la Guma, personal interview, Cape Town, 27 Mar. 2013; e-mail to author, 1 Aug. 2018). 52 The 11 were Ronald Naidoo, Cardiff Marney, Said Galant, Norman Daniels, Margaret Castle, Cassiem Sadan and Andrew Goddard (from Cape Town), William Mangalie (Worcester), Edward Bydell (Durban), Donald Mateman (Johannesburg) and Lilian Diedericks (Port Elizabeth). See “Anon., “Coloured talks: 11 charged” Evening Post, 11 July 1961: 2. After several court hearings, they were eventually found not guilty and discharged. See R. van der Ross, A Blow to the Hoop: The Story of My Life and Times (Cape Town: Ampersand Press, 2010), 94. 53 Vigne, Liberals against Apartheid, 149. 54 McLuckie, “Biographical introduction,” 10. Eddie Daniels, one of the delegates, gives a slightly different account in his autobiography. In his version, Brutus stopped speaking when police entered the venue. David van der Ross, who chaired the meeting, turned around to look at the police, then calmly requested Brutus to continue: “We scored a big moral victory, through the impeccable behaviour of our chairperson, over the security police who had hoped to intimidate us by their presence at our meeting.” See E. Daniels, There and Back: Robben Island 1964–1979 (Cape Town: Mayibuye Books, 1998), 103. Richard van der Ross gives yet another account in his autobiography. According to him, he was called out of the meeting and confronted by a uniformed policeman who demanded to enter the barn. He refused, but then informed his father of the police threat to arrest delegates when they left. After consulting with some delegates, says Van der Ross, they decided to allow the police to enter as the meeting was close to ending anyway (Blow to the Hoop, 93). A news report by Alex la Guma also confirms that the meeting was close to ending when the police eventually found the location, and, in the circumstances, did not bother to interfere with the rest of the proceedings (A. la Guma, “Coloured convention outwits the government” New Age, 13 July 1961: 1, 7). As his wife Blanche attended the convention, it can reasonably be assumed that his report was based on first-hand information. 55 Brutus, “Cape packing shed,” 14. 56 Anon.,“Resolutions of the Malmesbury convention” Fighting Talk, Aug. 1961: 15–16. 57 D. Brutus, “The Malmesbury convention: A preliminary report,” Contact, 10 Aug. 1961: 7. Decades later, he still held a similar view. In an interview,

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 291

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

292

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

he describes the Malmesbury meeting as “perhaps the most broadly based assembly ever of the coloured section of the population” (McLuckie, “Biographical introduction,” 11). 58 Van der Ross, Blow to the Hoop, 94. 59 Van der Ross, Rise and Decline, 291. 60 Anon., “X [illegible word] talks report back” Evening Post, 19 July 1961: 5. 61 Anon., “Erasmus move: A coloured view” Evening Post, 25 July 1961: 2. Landman also addressed the Uitenhage meeting. 62 Anon., “Boycott coloured elections” New Age, 7 Sep. 1961: 3. 63 Anon., “Renewed pleas for national convention” Evening Post, 14 Oct. 1961: 3. 64 Anon., “National convention ‘a matter of life and death’” New Age, 19 Oct. 1961: 3; Anon., “Big step taken towards national conference” Contact, 19 Oct. 1961: 5. 65 Brutus was convinced that his banning was directly related to his involvement in the CNC (McLuckie, “Biographical introduction,” 12). His banning will be discussed more fully later in this chapter. 66 Landman was served with a banning order at South End High by two policemen on 16 October 1961, prohibiting him from attending any meetings for the next five years (Anon., “Banned teacher: ‘I’m no red’” Evening Post, 17 Oct. 1961, 2). 67 A lack of funds was another major reason for the disintegration of the CNC. Eddie Daniels, who succeeded fellow Liberal Party member Joe Daniels as secretary when he fell ill, recounts how he struggled to pay off a debt of around £400, without much support from members (Daniels, There and Back, 104). 68 Van der Ross, Rise and Decline, 295. 69 Daniels, There and Back, 104. 70 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 115. 71 Only one English player, David Sheppard, refused to play against the South African team – see B. Murray and C. Merrett, Caught Behind: Race and Politics in Springbok Cricket (Johannesburg: Wits University Press and Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2004), 75. 72 Murray and Merrett, Caught Behind, 74–75. 73 Brutus describes Rangasamy as “quiet, dignified and kept us together,” while Lutchman – a teacher at St Mark’s, an Anglican school in North End – is lauded as an outstanding administrator who “made sure we operated as a proper organisation.” The trio would often hold meetings in a car in case their homes were bugged by security police. Even in such trying circumstances, Brutus marvels, Lutchman still produced accurate minutes of their discussions (C. Thomas, Times with Dennis Brutus: Conversations, Quotations and Snapshots 2005–2009 (East London: Wendy’s Book Lounge, 2012), 7). 74 D. Brutus, “Sport: Threat to the security of the state,” Fighting Talk (Dec. 1961/Jan. 1962): 18.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 292

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

Notes

293

75

See Anon., “Passport to the Games refused” Evening Post, 30 July 1960: 11 and Anon., “Passport to Olympics delayed” Evening Post, 26 Aug. 1960: 3. The refusal to grant Brutus a passport elicited a letter to the editor of Evening Post by Anon. [Puzzled schoolboy] (“By merit – or colour?” 2 Aug. 1960: 4). It would not be unreasonable to assume that this was a Paterson High pupil, if not a pupil of Brutus’s. 76 D. Brutus, “South Africa and the next Olympic Games,” Contact, 17 Dec. 1960: 9; M. Bose, Sporting Colours: Sport and Politics in South Africa (London: Robson, 1994), 55. Richard Thompson, a former University of Canterbury lecturer who campaigned against sport exchanges with South Africa in the 1960s, suggests that the composition of the IOC executive at the meeting in Rome did not assist SASA’s cause. “It consisted of a Chicago millionaire, a New Zealand knight, a West German baron, an English marquess, and Herr Otto Mayer, Chancellor of the Committee – all of them white,” he notes in R. Thompson, Race and Sport (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 72. 77 Bose, Sporting Colours, 55. The Durban-based newspaper The Leader published a preview of the meeting, “SASA to discuss future of white and non-white sportsman,” with details of some of the resolutions scheduled for discussion (Anon., 6 Jan. 1961: 12). It refers to Brutus as “the main man behind this all-powerful organisation.” In an earlier article, the newspaper’s sports columnist, Ronnie Govender, describes Brutus as the “zestful, encyclopaedic secretary of the country’s guardian of sport, the South African Sports Association.” See R. Govender, “It was a flight into the sun for Brutus” The Leader, 29 Jan. 1960: 12. 78 D. Brutus, “Mr Honey concedes” Contact, 9 Mar. 1961: 6. 79 Bose, Sporting Colours, 56. 80 Brutus, “Mr Honey,” 6. 81 GB 193 BRU: CSAS BRU 1/3/2, “Dennis Brutus, papers.” 82 GB 193 BRU: CSAS BRU 1/3/2, “Dennis Brutus, papers.” The Leader published a report on Brutus’s letters under the headline, “SASA fires new salvo” (Anon., 28 July 1961: 12). 83 Anon., “SASA plans new campaign” Contact, 27 July 1961: 8. 84 H.M. Magnus, letter to author, 30 Sep. 1998. However, according to Lapchick, Operation Sonreis never really got off the ground. He suggests that its scope – to end participation in and attendance at all sports events organised along racial lines – was perhaps far too wide: “Since all sporting events in South Africa were organized on racial lines, whether by choice or tradition, this would have meant an end to nonwhite sport in South Africa if it was followed absolutely” (R.E. Lapchick, The Politics of Race and International Sport: The Case of South Africa (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1975), 39). 85 Reproduced as D. Brutus, “’Whites only’ SA teams out of world soccer” Contact, 5 Oct. 1961: 8.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 293

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

294

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

86

Brutus, “‘Whites only’ SA teams” 8. He also paid tribute to International Table Tennis Federation president Ivor Montagu, who represented the SASF at many FIFA congresses. 87 Brutus wrote a letter on behalf of SASA to the British Empire and Commonwealth Games Federation, in which he protested against attempts to include an all-white South African team in the Games even though the country withdrew from the Commonwealth in March 1961 (Anon., “South Africans out of Perth Games” Contact, 21 Sep. 1961: 4). 88 Brutus reviewed SASA’s achievements since its formation in an article in the weekly newspaper Golden City Post (D. Brutus, “Let’s keep on battling” 19 Nov. 1961: 21). 89 Anon., “SASA plans new campaign.” 90 M. Brutus, “South Africa: ‘A land of broken spirits,’” publication unknown, 1984: n.p. 91 M. Brutus, “South Africa,” n.p. 92 Letter, 9 May 1961, NARSA, File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice. 93 See NARSA, File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice (author’s translation). 94 See NARSA, File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice (author’s translation). 95 Anon., “Five police calls on vanished teacher” Evening Post, 18 Oct. 1961:2. 96 McLuckie, “Biographical introduction,” 11. 97 GB 193 BRU: CSAS MF 15, “Dennis Brutus, papers.” The banning also meant that, even though he was secretary of the Christopher Gell Memorial Award Committee, Brutus could not attend the ceremony to hand over the award to Luthuli, the first recipient, on 21 October 1961. Ever a stickler for protocol, he sent a letter of apology to the committee beforehand, which was duly read out (Anon., “Fierce freedom struggle ahead” Evening Post, 23 Oct. 1961, 5). 98 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 48. 99 D. Brutus, “When they deprive me of the evenings” Penpoint 15 (1963): 15; D. Brutus, Stubborn Hope: New Poems and Selected Poems from China Poems and Strains (London: Heinemann, 1978), 8. 100 McLuckie, “Biographical introduction,” 14. Brutus states in a tape recording that he was suspended as a teacher around June and dismissed in September (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 17). However, according to a newspaper report, he was suspended in September pending an enquiry into his conduct by the school board (Anon., “Dennis Brutus suspended” New Age, 21 Sep. 1961: 2). The basis for his suspension was that he allegedly arrived late for school one day and that he disobeyed an order by the principal on another day. 101 Anon., “‘We want Brutus’” New Age, 2 Nov. 1961: 6. This report erroneously states that Brutus was suspended in October.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 294

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

Notes

295

102 D. Brutus, “Climates of love and continents” in Seven South African Poets: Poems of Exile, ed. C. Pieterse (London: Heinemann, 1979 [1971]), 15. 103 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 208. 104 Bernth Lindfors Archive: Transcriptions. ALS 4/28/2. 2 Dec. 1967, Centre for African Literary Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal. 105 In fact, May Brutus read the poem on behalf of her husband at a celebration in honour of Luthuli’s Nobel Prize as he was unable to attend due to his banning (Van Wyk, “Interview,” 208). 106 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 205. Also see Bernth Lindfors Collection, C4698 (Side 1), Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas. 107 Brutus, Sirens Knuckles Boots, 28. 108 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 205. 109 See the Immorality Amendment Act No 21 of 1950, Government Gazette, 217 and the Immorality Act No 23 of 1957, Government Gazette, 284, 286. 110 B. Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness survives’: Dennis Brutus talks about his life and poetry” The Benin Review 1 (1974): 49. Wylie suggests that Brutus and Ruth First, then editor of Fighting Talk and a leading member of the SACP, were involved in a romantic relationship at one stage. When he worked with Brutus on a planned biography/autobiography, he claims, Brutus declined to cooperate further when they reached the period of his early adolescence and his adulthood: “I was especially asking about his relation to Ruth First” (H. Wylie, e-mail to author, 26 Sep. 2016). Despite his reticence on that occasion, Brutus is later on record as stating that the untitled poem with the opening line “The beauty of my land peers warily” was written for First after they were out driving one night near her house in Johannesburg. See H. Wylie, “Ruth First’s resistance activities and non-fiction,” African Literature Association (ALA) paper (1990): 9; also see Van Wyk, “Interview,” 202. On one level, the poem is clearly about Brutus’s intense love for South Africa (Stubborn Hope, 52). However, he also cryptically describes the poem as follows: “It’s about caution in the sexual encounter. How you are both willing and unwilling” (Van Wyk, “Interview,” 202). While there is no evidence to confirm there was indeed an affair between Brutus and First, this intriguing comment – along with loaded references in the poem to “beauty fearing ravishment’s delight” (line 8) and “my unwearying ardour” (line 11) – does invite speculation. In addition, in an earlier interview in 1970 he refers to a former lover as a white woman who worked on a newspaper, and who subsequently went into exile (Bernth Lindfors Collection, C4699 (Side 1), Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas). While this is by no means definitive proof that Brutus was involved in an intimate relationship with First, the description certainly does apply to her. 111 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 177. May Brutus was not unaware of her husband’s extramarital affairs. In an unpublished interview with Hilda Bernstein, she states: “Dennis of course is the world’s worst womaniser. Of course,

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 295

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

296

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

everybody knows, it’s in his poetry and I was always terribly hurt” (H. Bernstein, “Transcript of interview with May Brutus,” n.d. TS MCA 7, Hilda Bernstein Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives, Cape Town). Brutus appeared to hold ambiguous feelings about May. In the first stanza of the poem “For my wife, in separation,” he writes: “It is your flesh that I remember best; / its impulse to surrender and possess / obscurely, in the nexus of my flesh / inchoate stirrings, patterns of response / re-act the postures of our tenderness” (Sirens Knuckles Boots, 19). During a discussion on the poem, he describes it as very honest about his relationship with May, and asserts – with callous indifference, if not blatant cruelty – that “the essential element of our relationship was a carnal one” (Van Wyk, “Interview,” 198). However, when he is an awaiting-trial prisoner at the Fort, he addresses her very lovingly in some of his letters. In a letter dated 14 June 1963, for example, he addresses May as “My dear” and signs off with “Much Love. Yours. Den.” In another letter, dated 16 August 1963, he addresses her affectionately as “My dearest” and urges her: “Write soon. Much love. Ever yours. Den.” See GB 193 BRU: CSAS MF 15, “Dennis Brutus, papers.” To further complicate an understanding of his true feelings for May, Brutus makes a cryptic comment about marriage in a tape recording around April 1979: “There are really two moral standards in the society from which I come. The one is rather rigid and correct, of the man who is loyal to a single wife. That was the conventional wisdom. But parallel to this there was the wide-spread acceptance that the way to have fun was to go to bed, or make love to lots of women.” See Amazwi, 1994. 4.4.26. 112 D. Brutus, “Preface” in Poems of Dennis Brutus: A Checklist, 1945–2004, comp. A. Martin (Madison: Parallel Press, 2005), 5. Brutus also mentions Auden’s influence on his writing in Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 49; K. Goddard, “Dennis Brutus” in Out of Exile: South African Writers Speak, ed. K. Goddard and C. Wessels (Grahamstown: National English Literary Museum, 1992), 70–72; Van Wyk, “Interview,” 173; Gray, “Dennis Brutus,” 56; and Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 15. 113 W.H. Auden, Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957 (London: Faber and Faber, 1984 [1966]), 107. 114 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 176. 115 Brutus, Sirens Knuckles Boots, 16. 116 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 195. 117 Brutus, Sirens Knuckles Boots, 14. 118 U. Beier, “Three Mbari poets,” Black Orpheus 12 (1963): 49. 119 B. Lindfors, “Dialectical development in the poetry of Dennis Brutus” in The Commonwealth Writer Overseas: Themes of Exile and Expatriation, ed. A. Niven (Liege: Revue des Langues Vivantes, 1976), 220. 120 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 176.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 296

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

Notes

297

121 W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus,” 74–75. Brutus attributes this approach to a statement often quoted in Latin by Kerr during his education lectures at SANC (see Amazwi, 1994.4.1.17). 122 W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus,” 74. 123 Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 53. 124 Anon., “Interview with Dennis Brutus” in Palaver: Interviews with Five African Writers in Texas, ed. B. Lindfors et al. (Austin: University of Texas, 1972), 32. 125 Examples are: Brutus, “Sport: Threat,” 18; L.N. Terry [D. Brutus], “Time for an all-out attack on the colour bar stage” Fighting Talk, May 1962: 16; J.B. Booth [D. Brutus], “‘Fighting Talk’ is silenced” The New African, 4 May 1962: 76–77; D. Brutus, “Sports racialists in tight corner” New Age, 14 June 1962: 8; D. Brutus, “Where do we go from here?” New Age, 21 June 1962: 8; and J. Player [D. Brutus], “Bringing down the apartheid curtain: Sport” Fighting Talk, Dec. 1962: 4. 126 Jabavu was, incidentally, the granddaughter of John Tengo Jabavu, a key figure in the establishment of SANC, and the daughter of D.D.T. Jabavu, who joined Kerr at SANC in 1916 as the only other staff member, and initially taught several indigenous languages, history and Latin (C. Higgs, The Ghost of Equality: The Public Lives of D.D.T. Jabavu of South Africa, 1885– 1959 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997), 32–35). In a book review, Brutus makes a gratuitous reference to the latter as exhibiting “just the faintest hint of ‘Uncle Tom.’” See D. Brutus, “The new un-African,” The New African, Mar. 1962: 15. 127 Brutus, “New un-African” 15–16. 128 DAB [D. Brutus], “Racism in reverse is still racism” Fighting Talk, June 1962: 8–9. Mphahlele was then based in Paris as director of African Programmes of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, which sponsored the competition. It was later discovered that the organisation was part of a secret propaganda campaign launched by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1950. See E. Mphahlele, Afrika My Music: An Autobiography 1957–1983 (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1984), 30–31, 33, 90. The organisation also funded the journal, Transition. See F.S. Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters (New York: The New Press, 2000 [1999]), 334. 129 D. Brutus, “Some exciting finds” Contact, 25 Jan. 1962: 2. 130 D. Brutus, “Cattle” The New African, Jan. 1962: 15. 131 P.D. McDonald, The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and Its Cultural Consequences (Oxford: Oxford ‘University Press, 2009), 33. This law, gazetted on 27 June 1962, gave the Minister of Justice sweeping powers: “Whenever the Minister is satisfied that any person engages in activities which are furthering or are calculated to further the achievement of any of the objects of communism, he may…prohibit him from attending…any gathering” (see General Law Amendment Act No 76 of 1962, Government Gazette,

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 297

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

298

132

133 134

135 136 137 138

139

140 141 142 143

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

59, 61). Restrictions on South African writers were indirectly extended in March 1963 through the Publications and Entertainments Act. This new law explicitly declared its intention “to provide for the control of publications” and made provision for the appointment of a Publications Control Board (see Publications and Entertainments Act No 26 of 1963, Government Gazette, 276, 278–284). “Through this Act, publications control became stricter and tighter,” notes Matteau-Matsha. “With its literary experts and readers, the board of the Publications and Entertainments Act of 1963 mainly targeted potentially undesirable South African publications in English” (“‘I read,’” 60–61). Amazwi, 1996.4.5.13.5. Abrahams eventually decided to publish some of Brutus’s poems anonymously. In a letter dated 10 December 1962, Brutus welcomes the news: “Very glad about your decision for P.R. [Purple Renoster]. It is worth doing even if only because you refuse to have censorship imposed on you” (Amazwi, 1996.4.5.13.6). The Purple Renoster published five of his poems, including “So, for the moment, sweet, is peace” and “A troubadour, I traverse all my land,” in 1963, and a sixth poem, “Penelope,” in 1966 under the pseudonym Julius Friend (presumably a tonguein-cheek reference to Marcus Brutus in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar). J.B. Booth [D. Brutus], “Silent poets, strangled writers” Fighting Talk, Jan. 1963: 7. The acronym PEN originally stood for Poets, Essayists, Novelists, and was later broadened to Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, Novelists. This non-government organisation was established in London in 1921, and was renamed PEN International in 2010. See PEN International, https://peninternational.org/who-we-are/history Booth [Brutus], “Silent poets,” 7. J.B. Booth [D. Brutus], “Theatre: Second act” Fighting Talk, Sep. 1962: 11. J.B. Booth [D. Brutus], “Bringing down the apartheid curtain: Theatre” Fighting Talk, Dec. 1962: 4. According to Brutus, he met Menuhin and helped to arrange a concert in front of an unsegregated audience at the Muslim Educational Institute in Kempston Road (handwritten note in Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26). Brutus was nominated as organiser of ATAC in Port Elizabeth at a meeting on 14 February 1962, while May Brutus – then a teacher at a crèche – was acting secretary at the time. See GB 193 BRU: CSAS BRU 1/4/1, “Dennis Brutus, papers.” J.B. Booth [D. Brutus], “Coloured education: Retreat from opposition?” Fighting Talk, Nov 1962: 10. J.B. Booth [D. Brutus], “Negritude, literature and nationalism” Fighting Talk, Oct. 1962: 13. Booth [Brutus], “Negritude,” 14. However, at the African Scandinavian Writers’ Conference in Stockholm in February 1967, Brutus repudiates Negritude. During a discussion after

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 298

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

Notes

299

Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka’s paper on “The Writer in a modern African state,” he contends that all individuals – not only writers, let alone African writers – need to make a certain commitment: “Not to African personality; I believe it is to human personality that he must commit himself. And so, whether we are Finns or Swedes or Norwegians or whether we come from any part of Africa, we are all committed, at least to one value, the assertion of human value, of human dignity, and that is why we have a special function when we see human dignity betrayed” (D. Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences” in The Writer in Modern Africa: African Scandinavian Writers’ Conference, Stockholm 1967, ed. P. Wastberg (New York: Africana Publishing Corporation; Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies 1969), 34; emphasis in the original). 144 According to Brutus, he borrowed these initials from Kaplan – see A. Martin comp., Poems of Dennis Brutus: A Checklist, 1945–2004, (Madison: Parallel Press, 2005), 5. He also wrote two poems for her, both titled “For Bernice” (Sirens Knuckles Boots, 28; Letters to Martha, 25). Also see the reference to her in Chapter 6. 145 Brutus, Sirens Knuckles Boots, 3. 146 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 176. 147 According to Wylie, Brutus claimed he did not remain in romantic relationships for long periods out of political considerations: “He used to say that having loved ones is to give hostages to the enemy. The result was that he refused to continue an affair for more than a year, or maybe two” (e-mail to author, 27 Sep. 2016). Wylie adds: “He broadly hinted that he had many girlfriends in South Africa, starting early in his adolescence; but made a point of not ‘kissing and telling,’ as he said. I’m sure this had something to do with the strain in his marriage.” Brutus attempts to offer an explanation for his extramarital affairs in an interview with Lindfors in August 1970. He states that Browning’s dramatic monologues cultivated a belief in him as a youth that certain artistic values transcend moral values – “that art will justify almost anything” (Bernth Lindfors Collection, C4696 (Side 1), Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas). As an example, he refers to the extramarital affair of the nineteenth-century German composer Richard Wagner with the wife of the conductor Hans von Bulow, Cosima, from which a child was born. On the basis of Wagner’s achievements as a composer, Brutus suggests, his conduct can be condoned or, at least, understood. “This is a very strong strand in my own intellectual make-up,” he declares. “I don’t think I can say much more except to hint at this kind of intermediate factor which could at times take over and become a dominant element in my own judgment of my own behaviour, [that] for artistic reasons things which were immoral could become moral.” 148 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 176. Another poem, with the opening line “I might be a better lover I believe,” employs a similar fusion in adelphi literary review. It was later republished in D. Brutus, Thoughts Abroad (Del Valle: Troubadour Press, 1970), 25.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 299

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

300

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

149 Brutus, Sirens Knuckles Boots, 7. 150 Lindors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 176. 151 Brutus, Sirens Knuckles Boots, 31. 152 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 176. 153 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 205. 154 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 205. 155 Brutus, Sirens Knuckles Boots, 29. 156 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 177. 157 D. Brutus “Dennis Brutus on banning” in Censorship and Apartheid in South Africa: A Report by the PEN Freedom to Write Committee (New York: PEN American Center, 1981), 61. An earlier version of the article, “Notes for essay on banning in South Africa: A personal experience,” can be found in Amazwi, 1994.4.14.19. 158 Brutus, “On banning,” 62. 159 Brutus, “On banning,” 62. Brutus makes a similar point in an autobiographical note, dated October 1962, in his debut poetry collection: “Banned and gagged by the Minister of Justice, so that no words of mine can be quoted or printed. This is maybe why I have now thought of getting my work published” (Brutus, Sirens Knuckles Boots, n.p.).

Chapter 4 1

2

3

Hutchinson, who taught English at Central Indian High, describes the school as “the only one of its kind in the country – composed of Indians, coloureds, Africans and Europeans. Some of the teachers, like the principal [Harmel] himself…were banned leaders of the liberatory organizations” (A. Hutchinson, Road to Ghana (Johannesburg: Penguin, 2006 [1960]), 13). Aziz Pahad, who attended the school along with his brothers Essop, Nassim and Juned, notes that the school was commonly known as the “Congress School”: “Much of the lessons in history, geography, English and Afrikaans were given in a political context, which meant that we were receiving different interpretations of standard textbooks compared to students at government schools” (A. Pahad, Insurgent Diplomat: Civil Talks or Civil War? (Johannesburg: Penguin, 2014, 19). Another former pupil, Amin Cajee, similarly recalls that the school was “like a who’s who of the Congress movement,” and declares: “It was the experience of my years at the ‘Congress school’ that I think had the most profound influence on my political development and strengthened my resolve to make a contribution to the struggle for liberation” (A. Cajee, Fordsburg Fighter: The Journey of an MK Volunteer), Cape Town: Face2Face, 2016, 16, 17). Leeds University students subsequently raised £360 in 1963 to help Brutus continue his law studies at Wits University (Anon, “Arrest stopped Brutus going to Olympic meeting” Rand Daily Mail, 20 Sep. 1963: 3). Bernth Lindfors Collection, C4699 (Side 1), Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 300

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

Notes

301

4

Bernth Lindfors Collection, C4698 (Side 1), Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas. 5 Nor can the possibility be discounted that Brutus developed an interest in the law during high school when Zini occasionally arranged for him to sit at the back of a court room to attend a trial (Amazwi South African Museum of Literature (Amazwi), 1994.4.4.26). 6 Bernth Lindfors Collection, C4698 (Side 1), Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas. 7 Jacinta was born on 18 August 1950, Justina on 4 August 1956 and Cornelia on 29 March 1958. Gregory was born on 3 September 1962, while Paula was born in the UK on 1 March 1968. 8 Brutus’s father only lived briefly with the family in North End in 1951 (Amazwi, 1994.4.1.4.9). 9 Kathrada was secretary of the Central Indian High School Parents’ Association from 1954 until his arrest in December 1956 as one of the 156 political activists charged with treason (A. Kathrada, Memoirs (Cape Town: Zebra Press, 2004), 117, 119). 10 Kathrada, Memoirs, 146. 11 A. Kathrada, personal interview, Cape Town, 23 Dec. 2016. 12 Brutus similarly entertained Rangasamy, a driver in his family’s transport company, when he sometimes accompanied him during weekends on crosscountry trips by truck through South Africa: “When we weren’t discussing politics I’d be telling obscene stories. And he’d be laughing his head off.” See L. Brimble et al., “It’s 1 967 miles from Port Elizabeth to San Antonio” The Gar 35 (1988): 19. 13 A. Chinyemba (Manager: Central Records Office, Wits University), e-mail to author, 26 May 2016. 14 Former Wits University law student and retired judge Ivor Schwartzman, who once defended Brutus as an advocate, describes Hahlo as “a German Jewish refugee who denied his Jewishness, and was as right wing as possible, and he’s the one who told (Nelson) Mandela: don’t even try to get an LLB because no black can make it.” See LRC Oral History Project, AG3298 -1-178, Wits University, http://www.historicalpapers.wits.ac.za/ inventories/inv_pdft/AG3298/AG3298-1-178-text.pdf . Bob Hepple, who studied law under Hahlo, corroborates this claim in his memoir: “[Hahlo] believes that blacks and women are not disciplined and experienced enough to master the intricacies of law, and had told Mandela he should not be studying at Wits.” See B. Hepple, Young Man with a Red Tie: A Memoir of Mandela and the Failed Revolution, 1960–1963 (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2013), 142. George Bizos, who was a law student at the same time as Mandela, makes the same point in his memoir: “[Hahlo] had drunk deep of the cup of apartheid and was outspoken in his belief that the law was a discipline for which Africans – and women – were not suited.” At best, Hahlo advised Mandela, he should aim to be an attorney rather than an advocate (G. Bizos,

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 301

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

302

15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23

24 25 26

27 28

29 30

31 32

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

65 Years of Friendship: A Memoir of and My Friendship with Mandela (Cape Town: Umuzi, 2017), 32. Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. “Off the campus” was first published anonymously in the journal The Purple Renoster, 5 (1963): 8. D. Brutus (1963) Sirens Knuckles Boots (Ibadan: Mbari Publications, 1963), 10. Letter, 14 and 16 April 1962, National Archives of South Africa (NARSA), File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice. Brutus later confirmed that he worked illegally as a teacher at the school (B. Lindfors, ed., The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography (Woodbridge: James Currey, 2011), 51). Letter, 2 July 1962, NARSA, File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice. Anon., “Dennis Brutus elected to Wits SRC” New Age, 6 Sep. 1962: 8; Anon., “Radicals on students’ councils” Contact, 6 Sep. 1962: 4. Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. Letter, 25 Oct. 1962, NARSA, File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice. In fact, in an accompanying note, the departmental secretary notes ominously: “It is the intention of the Department to approach the Minister in the near future to withdraw the present restriction in force against Brutus and to replace it with a notice containing more stringent conditions.” M. Bose, Sporting Colours: Sport and Politics in South Africa (London: Robson, 1994), 46. Quoted in R. Thompson, Race and Sport (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 59. B. Murray and C. Merrett, Caught Behind: Race and Politics in Springbok Cricket (Johannesburg: Wits University Press and Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2004), 83–84. Quoted in R. Thompson, Race and Sport, 59. Newnham offers an amusing footnote many years later: “After their hour-long discussion, Brutus went away, typed out his account of the conversation and then returned and showed it to Leggat with the object of obtaining his agreement to a joint version for release to the press. When Leggat looked at what Brutus had to show him he was flabbergasted, and immediately accused Brutus of having concealed a tape-recorder at the interview, so accurate was the record” (T. Newnham, Apartheid Is not a Game: The Inside Story of New Zealand’s Struggle against Apartheid Sport (Auckland: Graphic Publications, 1975), 28–29). D. Brutus, “Sport and politics” New Age, 10 May 1962: 8. G.K. Rangasamy, A. Paton and D. Brutus, “Open letter to the ‘Lions’” Contact, 31 May 1962: 3. Also see Anon., “British Lions: Envoys for apartheid” New Age, 24 May 1962: 8. Anon., “Sports assn writes to British Lions” The Leader, 11 May 1962: 11. D. Brutus, “Sports racialists in tight corner” New Age, 14 June 1962, 8. On the same page is the full text of an appeal by Luthuli and SA Indian Congress

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 302

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

Notes

33 34

35

36 37 38 39

40

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

303

president G.M. Naicker for a boycott of racially segregated sports events, “Don’t support apartheid” New Age, 14 June 1962. It is cross-referenced on the front page as “Luthuli’s call to sportsmen.” D. Brutus, “Where do we go from here?” New Age, 21 June 1962: 8. IOC president Avery Brundage, a US businessman based in Chicago, previously refused to respond to correspondence from SASA on the grounds that it communicated only with Olympic committees (L. Sustar and A. Karim, eds, Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006), 40). When the IOC threatened to sue SANROC for illegally using the registered name “Olympic,” the organisation cleverly renamed itself the South African Non-Racial Open Committee and retained the acronym (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 1n1). Anon., “The inside story about SASA” New Age, 30 Aug. 1962: 8. Letter, 18 Sep. 1962, NARSA, File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice. Memorandum, “Restrictions: Dennis Vincent Brutus.” See NARSA, File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice. Despite being refused permission, Brutus defied the ban that restricted him to Johannesburg, and was reportedly seen outside the venue during the meeting in Durban (Anon., “Delegates’ day flit” Golden City Post, 14 Oct. 1962: 7). Other SANROC officials elected include Rev. B.L.E. Sigamoney as chairman, Reggie Feldman as vice-chairman, Reg Hlongwane as secretary and N.H. Solanki as treasurer (Anon., “Non-racial Olympics committee formed” New Age, 11 Oct. 1962: 8; Anon., “Who’s who in SANROC” New Age, 29 Nov. 1962: 8). However, a SANROC letterhead names its officials as follows in May 1963: Rathinasamy as chairman, Sigamoney as vicechairman, Hlongwane as secretary and Solanki as treasurer. It appears that Rathinasamy replaced Sigamoney as chairman after the October conference; in turn, Sigamoney replaced Feldman as vice-chairman. Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 41. Anon., “SANROC calls for sportsman’s convention” New Age, 29 Nov. 1962: 8. J. Player [D. Brutus], “Bringing down the apartheid curtain: Sport” Fighting Talk, Dec. 1962, 4. G. Yon, telephonic interview with author, 21 Mar. 2019. B.K. [D. Brutus], “Tourist guide” Fighting Talk, Jan. 1963. See W.H. Gardner, “Introduction” in Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins ed. W.H. Gardner (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958 [1953]), xxiii. D. Abasiekong, “Poetry pure and applied: Rabearivelo and Brutus,” Transition 23 (1965): 47. Another example also written in January 1963 is an untitled poem in which Brutus writes in the second stanza: “spindrift from sanddunes tresses down / to inlets where rock-fragments shoal / seaspray and statice distill the mood / salt-sweet, foamwhite, seaweed-brown” (Amazwi, 1996.4.6.18.5).

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 303

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

304

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

This poem was later published with minor changes in punctuation under the title “On the beach” in D. Brutus, Letters to Martha and Other Poems from a South African Prison (London: Heinemann, 1978 [1968]), 41. 49 D. Brutus, Sirens Knuckles Boots (Ibadan: Mbari Publications, 1963), 11. 50 Brutus describes the 14-line poem as a sonnet and, more specifically, as a Petrarchan sonnet. However, even though the rhyme scheme of the two quatrains (abba / abba) is the same as in the Petrarchan sonnet, the rhyme scheme of the sestet (aba / aba) makes a significant departure from the original form (cde / cde), which disqualifies Brutus’s poem from strictly fitting into this category. He explains the rationale behind the structure of the poem as follows: “I was writing a lot of terribly loose, very bad free verse at the time, most or nearly all of which I threw away, and it seemed to me that I needed the discipline of a very tight poetic form. The tightest form I could think of was the sonnet, which is a very demanding form. And of all the sonnets – the Shakespearean variation, the Spenserian, Hopkins’s variations and so on – it seemed to me that the Petrarchan was the most difficult…So I made up my mind that the next poem I was going to write would be a hell of a tight one and would have this kind of structure. I didn’t know what it was going to be about, but I resolved that I needed some discipline” (Anon., “Interview with Dennis Brutus” in Palaver: Interviews with Five African Writers in Texas, ed. B. Lindfors et al. (Austin: University of Texas, 1972), 27). 51 Brutus wrote the poem, “For my wife, in separation,” during this period. Besides yearning for her physical presence, he also intensely misses her for “the shy expressive gestures of your eyes / your patient, penetrative, patient mind” (Sirens Knuckles Boots, 19). 52 Anon., “Interview,” 27. 53 P. Zumthor, “An overview: Why the troubadours?” in A Handbook of the Troubadours, ed. F.R.P. Akehurst and J.M. Davis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 16. 54 R. Harvey, “Courtly love in medieval Occitania” in The Troubadours: An Introduction, ed. S. Gaunt and S. Kay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 16. 55 C.J. Tabor, “The troubadours” Folklore 40.4 (1929): 350. 56 Harvey, “Courtly love,” 16. There were relatively few trobairitz (female troubadours). According to one estimate, there were a total of just 21 (M.T. Bruckner,“The trobairitz” in A Handbook of the Troubadours, ed. F.R.P. Akehurst and J.M. Davis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 204. 57 Brutus, Sirens Knuckles Boots, 1. 58 See C. Pieterse, “Dennis Brutus” in African Writers Talking, ed. D. Duerden and C. Pieterse (London: Heinemann, 1972), 55 and J. Alvarez-Pereyre, The Poetry of Commitment (London: Heinemann, 1984), 137. 59 Pieterse, “Dennis Brutus,” 58.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 304

2020-01-17 03:50:56 PM

Notes

305

60

A.J. Cascardi, “Introduction” in The Cambridge Companion to Cervantes ed. A.J. Cascardi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 1. 61 Pieterse, “Dennis Brutus,” 55. 62 L.B. Steptoe, “Interview: The poetic aesthetic of Dennis Brutus” in Leafdrift, by D. Brutus and ed. L.B. Steptoe (Camden: Whirlwind, 2005), 212. 63 Pieterse, “Dennis Brutus,” 55. 64 I. Watt, Myths of Modern Individualism: Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Robinson Crusoe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997 [1996]), 224. 65 W. Wordsworth, The Collected Poems of William Wordsworth (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 2006 [1994]), 791. 66 C. Fuentes, “Foreword” in The Adventures of Don Quixote de La Mancha, M. de Cervantes, trans. T. Smollett (London: André Deutsch, 1986), xxvi. 67 Cervantes, Don Quixote, 80. 68 Pieterse, “Dennis Brutus,” 55. 69 Further evidence of the validity of such an interpretation is provided in a later poem, “Quixote,” published in The Gar 35 (1988): 16. While Brutus still views Quixote as “vaguely absurd,” at the same time he recognises that he is “faintly heroic” (line 3). In fact, he declares that Cervantes’s character “will always stand as my ideogram / for self-awareness” (lines 4–5). 70 Appendix L, Court case D 478/63, Regional Court, Johannesburg, 9 Dec. 1963. 71 NARSA, File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice (author’s translation). 72 The other SANROC officials with Brutus were Rathinasamy, Hlongwane, Solanki and John Harris, accompanied by an unnamed interpreter. See Court case D 478/63, Regional Court, Johannesburg, 9 Dec. 1963. 73 SANROC suspects that Braun alerted the police to Brutus’s presence. Braun, in turn, blames Harris, and claims that he wanted “to create a disturbance and a martyr” (Bose, Sporting Colours, 59). During the court case that followed, the prosecutor prevented Sergeant Jacobus de Klerk from disclosing the name of the person who informed police of the meeting (Court case D 478/63, Regional Court, Johannesburg, 9 Dec. 1963). 74 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 48; Anon., “S. African sports leader on bail” The Times, 31 May 1963: 12. Before he was released on bail, Brutus spent the night “on a dirty mat of some composite material, part felt, part rubber, stained with semen, crawling with bugs, and a couple of extremely musty gray blankets, prison-regulation, dirty and smelly” (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 65). 75 See General Law Amendment Act No 37 of 1963, Government Gazette, 10, 12. Bizos describes the law as a form of legalised torture, and blames it for the death of Looksmart Ngudle, an ANC member and SACTU leader in the Western Cape who reportedly hanged himself in his cell in the Pretoria North police station on 5 September 1963 (Bizos, 65 Years, 106). Ngudle was the first person to die in detention during the apartheid era.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 305

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

306

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

76

See Hepple, Young Man, 81. Another 2 811 people were detained under other legislation in 1963. 77 Brutus describes Harris affectionately in an interview in March 1973 as “a very charming, gentle, intelligent young man” – quoted in R.E. Lapchick, The Politics of Race and International Sport: The Case of South Africa (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1975), 64. 78 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 49. 79 NARSA, File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice. 80 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 51. 81 In another account by Brutus, Harris and his wife are not identified, and a young man named only as Ibrahim was reportedly in the vehicle as well (Bose, Sporting Colours, 60). 82 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 52, 53. 83 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 55. 84 The dateline is later extended to “Jbg/Mbabane/Jbg” in D. Brutus’s collection, A Simple Lust: Collected Poems of South African Jail and Exile (Oxford: Heinemann, 1973), 42. According to Brutus, he completed the poem while he was in prison at the Fort, Johannesburg (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 60). 85 D. Brutus, Thoughts Abroad (Del Valle: Troubadour Press, 1970), 3. 86 By his own admission, Brutus entered Swaziland without any travel documents. He was already in Mbabane when Harris and fellow SANROC activist Robin Farquharson, a mathematics lecturer at Wits University, arranged a passport for him from the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 60). 87 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 56. Brutus even wrote a letter to his wife on 16 August 1963, in which he shares his delight: “It’s so pleasant, was beginning to think of asking you to move up here – we shall see” (GB 193 BRU: CSAS MF 15, in “Dennis Brutus, papers on sport, anti-apartheid activities and literature,” Borthwick Institute, University of York: n.d.; n.p.). 88 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 52, 56; Anon., “Nairobi is Brutus’s goal” Eastern Province Herald, 10 Aug. 1963: 9. Ngubane attended the Consultative Conference of African Leaders in December 1960, where he was chosen to head the Continuation Committee to plan a national convention. See SAHO, Jordan Kush Ngubane, http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jordan-kushngubane. 89 Nxumalo was a student at SANC during the same period as Brutus, and graduated with a BSc degree in 1948. After studying medicine at Wits University, he practised as a doctor at Baragwanath Provincial Hospital for a year before returning home to work at the Swaziland Government Hospital in Mbabane as a medical officer. In May 1963, Nxumalo joined the Swaziland Democratic Party and was elected president. He later served as a member of the Swazi National Council and, at Swaziland’s independence in September 1968, he was appointed the country’s first Minister of

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 306

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

Notes

307

Health. He held this position until the government was reshuffled after the May 1972 election. See Prabook (World Biographical Encyclopedia) Allen Mkaulo Malabane Nxumalo, https://prabook.com:8443/web/allen. nxumalo/1719333 90 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 84; 191. “I am out of love with you for now” first appeared with minor differences in punctuation in Penpoint 15 (1963): 43. 91 Brutus, A Simple Lust, 41. 92 Anon., “Swaziland refuses Brutus” Eastern Province Herald, 17 Aug. 1963: 2. 93 The IOC meeting was shifted to Baden-Baden in the Federal Republic of Germany after Kenya’s minister of home affairs, Oginga Odinga, threatened to refuse visas to South Africa’s representatives if they were not racially inclusive. While the meeting did not immediately suspend South Africa’s membership of the IOC, it passed a resolution to inform SAONGA that “it must make a firm declaration of its acceptance of the spirit of the Olympic Code…and must get from its Government by 31 December 1963 a change in sports and competitions in its country, failing which the South African National Olympic Committee will be debarred from entering its teams in the Olympic Games.” This deadline was subsequently shifted to August 1964, but eventually the IOC suspended South Africa’s membership and barred the country from participating in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in October 1964 (Lapchick, Politics of Race, 59, 52, 62–63). 94 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 59. 95 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 59, 61, 66. 96 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 62. 97 According to Brutus, he was told years later by Stuart, his former English lecturer at SANC, that he overheard Msibi boast in public that he handed Brutus over to the security police in Mozambique (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 59). Brutus makes a similar allegation about Msibi’s role in his arrest in Bose, Sporting Colours, 60–61. However, Msibi gives a different account of events in a newspaper report. According to his version, he tried to intervene when Brutus was arrested, and claims he himself was arrested when he followed the PIDE to their headquarters, where he was then held for seven days (J. Imrie, “Holding of Brutus” Rand Daily Mail, 23 Sep. 1963: 1). Msibi even called for an official enquiry into whether Swazi border police collaborated with the PIDE in Brutus’s arrest. Swaziland’s deputy police commissioner, V.T. Smithyman, immediately denied any involvement (A. Sparks, “Swazi official tipped police – Msibi” Rand Daily Mail, 27 Sep. 1963: 1). Later, there was yet another curious footnote to the tale. SANROC approached a civil court in Manzini to instruct Msibi to return R250 to the organisation which Brutus had left with him after his arrest (Anon., “R250 to be returned to Sanroc” Rand Daily Mail, 7 April 1964: 2). 98 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 68, 69. 99 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 69.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 307

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

308

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

100 While in Pretoria, Brutus was briefly presented to General Hendrik van der Bergh, the head of the Security Branch of the South African Police, who later became the founder and head of the Bureau of State Security (BOSS). “He was not your regular police,” Brutus recalls. “He was right at the top, the boss of bosses.” See Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 43. 101 N. Allen, “Anti-apartheid sports campaigner,” The Times, 29 Jan. 1968: 4. 102 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 73. Helberg told the court that Brutus ran past him like a rugby player (Court case D 478/63, Regional Court, Johannesburg, 9 Dec. 1963). 103 D. Brutus, “Reflections on a return to the land of sirens, knuckles, boots” In These Times, 6–12 Nov. 1991: 9. Pitje, who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from SANC in 1944, helped to establish a branch of the ANC Youth League at the university. In 1948 he joined the university staff as an anthropology lecturer, but later embarked on a law career and qualified as an attorney in 1959. He was served with successive banning orders between 1963 and 1975. See G.M. Gerhart and T. Karis, From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, Vol. 4 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1977), 126. 104 The Johannesburg-based newspaper Rand Daily Mail carried a report on the incident by A. Cavill and D. Blow, “Fugitive Brutus shot” (18 Sep. 1963: 1). The Eastern Province Herald, part of the same newspaper group, reproduced the report (Anon., “Fugitive Brutus shot on Rand” Eastern Province Herald, 18 Sep. 1963: 1). According to Brutus, his wife learnt that he was shot when their son Julian saw the report in the local newspaper (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 78). However, according to May, a friend telephoned her after hearing a radio report about Brutus’s arrest. She then sent one of her sons to buy a copy of the newspaper, who returned in tears after seeing a poster about his father’s arrest. See Anon., “Brutus makes dramatic sickbed protest” Golden City Post, 22 Sep. 1963: 1. Their eldest son, Marc, provides yet another version of events. According to him, he and his brothers Julian and Antony, who were all altar servers, returned from Mass one morning and saw the newspaper poster announcing that their father was shot: “We rushed home to tell Ma. The grief of that news was beyond utter helplessness. Ma burst into tears and my grandmother [Brutus’s mother] had a stroke from which she never recovered.” See M. Brutus, “South Africa: ‘A land of broken spirits,’” publication unknown, 1984: n.p. 105 Neither the Rand Daily Mail (Anon., “Fugitive Brutus shot” 18 Sep. 1963: 1) nor the Johannesburg newspaper The Star (Anon., “Brutus was shot in freedom dash” 18 Sep. 1963: 1) makes any reference to an ambulance being turned away and the arrival of a second one. 106 Allen, “Anti-apartheid,” 4. 107 However, according to a report by the Rand Daily Mail, two policemen in surgical masks stood guard in the operating theatre throughout the operation (“Fugitive Brutus shot,” 1).

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 308

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

Notes

309

108 Anon., “Police take no chances with Brutus” Rand Daily Mail, 19 Sep. 1963: 1. Elliot subsequently disclosed that Brutus contracted a mild case of pneumonia a week after he was admitted to Coronation Hospital. See Anon., “Brutus has contracted slight pneumonia” Eastern Province Herald, 25 Sep. 1963: 1. 109 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 78–79. 110 Anon., “Brutus makes dramatic sickbed protest” Golden City Post, 22 Sept. 1963: 1. 111 See Anon., “UN to take up Brutus case?” Golden City Post, 29 Sep. 1963: 24. 112 Anon., “Strict guard on Brutus’s ward” Eastern Province Herald, 19 Sep. 1963: 1. 113 Bijoux, letter dated 15 Jan. 1995 (Amazwi, 2012.361.2). 114 Asvat, a political activist who participated in the Passive Resistance Campaign of 1946 and later became an executive committee member of the Transvaal Indian Congress, was refused permission to see Brutus a second time. A policeman who guarded Brutus even threatened to arrest or to shoot her (“Fugitive Brutus shot,” 1). Asvat and her husband Aziz Kazi, also a medical doctor and political activist, were later banned and eventually left on exit permits to live in England. See the autobiography of Asvat’s sister, A. Cachalia, When Hope and History Rhyme (Johannesburg: Picador Africa, 2013), 189, 221. 115 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 78. 116 Anon., “Brutus has bigger guard” Eastern Province Herald, 28 Sep. 1963: 9. 117 The plan involved concealing Brutus in a coffin and driving him off in an ambulance (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 80.) 118 Bijoux, letter dated 15 Jan. 1995 (Amazwi, 2012.361.2). 119 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 82. 120 D. Brutus, “Climates of love and continents” in Seven South African Poets: Poems of Exile, ed. C. Pieterse (London: Heinemann, 1979 [1971]), 25. 121 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 83. Brutus was allowed to write the second part of his first-year law exam during this period (Amazwi, 1994. 4.4.3; also see Anon., “Exams in jail for 2 students” Rand Daily Mail, 5 Nov. 1963: 4). In a letter to his wife on 9 October 1963, he even strikes a note of bravado and casually informs May: “Am writing exams – bore!” See GB 193 BRU: CSAS MF 15, “Dennis Brutus, papers.” Brutus’s various political activities and subsequent injuries during his arrest may have affected his performance in the exam, however. He passed Roman law and public international law – a remarkable achievement, in the circumstances – but failed legal Latin (Anon., “Brutus case adjourned” Rand Daily Mail, 11 Dec. 1963: 16). 122 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 90. May also tried to find ways to convey her affection for Brutus while he was held at the Fort. “I tried to hold his hand,” she told a newspaper. “They would not allow me.” See Anon., “Poetical – but cops thought it might be political!” Golden City Post, 6 Oct. 1965: 8. 123 M. Brutus, “South Africa,” n.p.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 309

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

310

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

124 Brutus wrote the poem “The sibyl” as a tribute to Marcus, an English and political science student (Sirens Knuckles Boots, 5). The title, which is obviously a play on her first name, is simultaneously a reference to the oracles in ancient Greece and Rome. As he comments: “I’m really talking in the poem...about the politics of South Africa and that inevitable bloody kind of destruction that must come there” (Anon. “Interview,” 25). Decades later, Marcus affectionately recalls her friendship with Brutus in a magazine article: “We would sit on the lawn at the university, exchanging views on poetry, art, love, religion, and – naturally – politics. The combination of poet and political activist intrigued me” (“Poet laureate in exile” The Progressive, Aug. 1984: 18). More recently, she recalls some of his other qualities that made an impact on her as well: “He spoke with a slow, clear drawl. He had an easy smile and of course he was extremely articulate, as you’d expect of a poet/lawyer. He had a quick sense of humour. I always enjoyed being in his company…He was always very dignified and projected serenity” (S. Marcus, e-mail to author, 27 Aug. 2018). Besides Brutus, Marcus visited several other anti-apartheid activists in detention or under arrest, including Harris, Raymond Eisenstein and Beverley Trewhela (later Naidoo). She left South Africa in March 1965, along with Trewhela, while still an honours student in politics. “It was a very tense time indeed,” she remembers. “I had a widowed mother and was afraid that she wouldn’t survive my possible arrest” (S. Marcus, e-mail to author, 24 Feb. 2018). 125 GB 193 BRU: CSAS MF 15, “Dennis Brutus, papers.” 126 S. Marcus, telephonic interview with author, 26 Apr. 2019. 127 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 84. Hepple, a former Congress of Democrats member who was held at the Fort after his arrest at Rivonia in July 1963, describes the prison as “notorious…a place where violent criminals, pass offenders and political prisoners are held and brutally treated in disgusting conditions” (Hepple, Young Man, 59). 128 The exact circumstances of Lorca’s death are still unclear. However, it is known that the left-wing poet was arrested on 16 August 1936 by Spain’s Civil Government and presumably shot dead two days later. See I. Gibson, Federico Garcia Lorca: A Life (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), 455, 464–466. 129 Besides merely referencing Lorca, the literary critic K.L. Goodwin suggests that the poem “is infused with typical Garcia Lorca images.” See K.L Goodwin, Understanding African Poetry: A Study of Ten Poets (London: Heinemann, 1982), 23. 130 D. Brutus, Stubborn Hope: New Poems and Selected Poems from China Poems and Strains (London: Heinemann, 1978), 9. 131 D. Brutus, Still the Sirens, San Francisco: Pennywhistle Press, 1993, 16. Brutus’s time at the Fort also resulted in the poem “Remembering the Fort Prison, Johannesburg.” The three-line poem was published in the journal The Black Scholar in 1986 (17.4:51): “High White Mountains of / cumulus cloud, your Fellows / kept me company.” He refers to the prison as well

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 310

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

Notes

311

in the poem “For the Prisoners in South Africa” – see D. Brutus, Airs and Tributes, ed. G. Ott (Camden: Whirlwind Press, 1990 [1989]), 3. 132 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 90. According to May, when she took Brutus an anthology of Tennyson’s poetry, Poetical Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson, the police confused “Poetical” for “Political,” and carefully scrutinised the book for about 45 minutes before they handed it over. See Anon., “Poetical,” 8. 133 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 91. 134 Court case D 478/63, Regional Court, Johannesburg, 9 Dec. 1963. 135 Also see Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 85. 136 Court case D 478/63, Regional Court, Johannesburg, 9 Dec. 1963. 137 To supplement Brutus’s income, Farquharson contrived to employ him as a “tea-boy” in Wits University’s mathematics department. However, this came to an abrupt end when the head of the department discovered the appointment. Apparently, he regarded Brutus as a security risk and feared that he might poison the tea (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 58). 138 Court case D 478/63, Regional Court, Johannesburg, 9 Dec. 1963. Brutus believes that the presence of international jurists and United Nations representatives at his trial helped to ensure such a lenient sentence. He recalls with amusement the outraged outburst of a prison clerk to the sentence: “Goddamn. It should have been eighteen years.” See Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 86–87. 139 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 2. 140 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 88. 141 Amazwi, 1994.4.14.13. 142 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 64. 143 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 64. Brutus states elsewhere: “All the time I was there I wore nothing other than the khaki shorts and shirt.” See D. Brutus, “Untitled,” IDAF Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives, n.d., 5. 144 Despite Brutus later developing a persistent cough, the chief warder denied his request for shoes or boots (Brutus, “Untitled,” 5). 145 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 65. 146 IDAF, South African Prisons and the Red Cross Investigation: An Examination by International Defence and Aid Fund, with Prisoners’ Testimony (London: Christian Action Publications, 1967), 1–63. 147 IDAF, South African Prisons, 10. According to an ICRC report dated 13 May 1964, the organisation found 32 prisoners housed in a cell that measured 32 ft x 40 ft x 20 ft high (IDAF, South African Prisons, 10). 148 IDAF, South African prisons, 15. 149 Brutus, Still the Sirens, 26. 150 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 68–69. 151 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 69. 152 Brutus gives contradictory accounts of whether or not the doctor recommended that he be excluded from excessive exercising (Sustar and

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 311

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

312

153 154 155

156 157

158 159 160 161

162

163

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Karim, Poetry and Protest, 69; IDAF, “South African prisons,” 17). Either way, he was not forced to participate in overly strenuous exercises after his examination by the doctor. D. Brutus, “Robben Island,” Christian Action (1967): 14–15. Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 65. The character Ivan declares: “Who does not desire the death of his father?” He refers disparagingly to those in the public gallery in court: “They give themselves airs before one another. Liars! They all desire the deaths of their fathers.” See F. Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. and intro. D. McDuff (London: Penguin Books, 2003 [1880]), 875. Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 67. Brutus was, of course, very familiar with Mitchell’s novel from discussions in a monthly study group run by political activists in Port Elizabeth (R. Matteau-Matsha, “‘I read what I like’: Politics of reading and reading politics in apartheid South Africa,” Transformation (83) 2013: 75. Amazwi, 1994.4.14.9. Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 66. Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 70. Some of the short-term prisoners were left behind in Kroonstad; others only followed to Robben Island later when convicted on further charges, so only 60 of the 120 Leeuwkop prisoners who initially left together ended up on the island the following day. See Brutus, “Robben Island,” 15. Brutus recalls in the draft of an article that years later he met one of his fellow passengers in London. “He reminded me of the storytelling and of how much pleasure it had given him,” he writes. “He had also complained that I had not told the story as well the second time.” An amused Brutus wryly adds: “I think there was some excuse for that.” See Amazwi, 1994.4.14.13. Brutus, “Robben Island,” 14.

Chapter 5 1

2 3 4 5

P.E. Raper, L.A. Moller and L.T. du Plessis, Dictionary of Southern African Place Names (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2014), 437. The Dutch word “robben” means seal, hence Robben Island literally means Seal Island. D. Brutus, “Climates of love and continents” in Seven South African Poets: Poems of Exile, ed. C. Pieterse (London: Heinemann, 1979 [1971]), 24. D. Brutus, Strains, ed. W. Kamin and C. Dameron (Del Valle: Troubadour Press, 1975), 9. D. Brutus, A Simple Lust: Collected Poems of South African Jail and Exile (Oxford: Heinemann, 1973), 53. D. Brutus, Letters to Martha and Other Poems from a South African Prison (London: Heinemann, 1978 [1968]), 48.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 312

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

Notes

313

6

L. Sustar and A. Karim, eds, Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006), 71. 7 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 71. Ironically, Hayman wrote a letter to May Brutus on 10 April 1964, in which the lawyer naively assures her: “I have no doubt that he will be happier there than he was at Leeuwkop.” See GB 193 BRU: CSAS MF 15, in “Dennis Brutus, papers on sport, antiapartheid activities and literature,” Borthwick Institute, University of York: n.d.; n.p. 8 W. de la Mare, The Complete Poems of Walter de la Mare (London: Faber and Faber, 1969), 218. 9 The literary critic Michael Sharp suggests that the 18 letters represent each month of Brutus’s prison sentence. See M. Sharp, “‘All a prisoner’s predicament’: The enduring essence of Dennis Brutus’ Letters to Martha” in Migrations and Creative Expressions in Africa and the African Diaspora, ed. T. Falola, N. Afolabi and A.A. Adesanya (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2008), 361. 10 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 14. The last two lines of Brutus’s poem intentionally echo the following two lines in Ariel’s song in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest (Act I, Scene 2, Lines 400–401): “Nothing of him that doth fade, / But doth suffer a sea-change.” See W. Shakespeare, The Tempest, ed. A. Barton (London: Penguin Books, 1996), 78. 11 See D. Brutus, “The Poetry of Suffering: The Black Experience” Ba Shiru 4.2 (1973): 7. Brutus was classified as a Group D prisoner on Robben Island, the category into which all political prisoners were usually placed. This classification determines the benefits to which prisoners were entitled (IDAF, South African Prisons and the Red Cross Investigation: An Examination by International Defence and Aid Fund, with Prisoners’ Testimony (London: Christian Action Publications, 1967), 29). According to Benson, there were 1 500 prisoners on Robben Island in August 1964: 1 000 political prisoners and 500 common-law prisoners. She estimates that 300 political prisoners were convicted under the General Law Amendment Act (the Sabotage Act), and the rest under the Suppression of Communism Act, Public Safety Act, Criminal Law Amendment Act, Riotous Assemblies Act and Unlawful Organisations Act. See M. Benson, “The men on Robben Island,” The Guardian, 10 Aug. 1964: 8. 12 IDAF, South African Prisons, 22. IDAF calculates that if 63 men lie down in The Sections in two rows to sleep, with two feet separating each row, each prisoner has a sleeping area of just three and a half feet (IDAF, South African Prisons, 23). On 25 March 1964, Brutus was transferred to the Segregation section of the prison, where he was kept in a single cell until the end of May. In June, he was moved to a newly constructed segregated section that was also made up of single cells (IDAF, South African Prisons, 28, 22). 13 D. Brutus, “Robben Island,” Christian Action (1967): 15. This remark was not unfounded. The ICRC notes after its investigation in May 1964 that Robben

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 313

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

314

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Island can be considered a hard labour prison, and adds pointedly: “As to the morale of the prisoners, the outward expression appears to be rather grim; no one seems to smile.” Quoted in IDAF, South African Prisons, 31. 14 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 73. 15 Masondo, a mathematics lecturer at the University College of Fort Hare, was one of the first members of MK, the ANC’s military wing, to be imprisoned on Robben Island. See SAHO, Andrew Mandla Lekoto Masondo, http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/andrew-masondo. Masondo sued the Minister of Justice for assault, and received compensation after the case was settled out of court. A warder involved in the attack, one of the two notorious Kleynhans brothers, was subsequently convicted of assault (IDAF, South African Prisons, 31). 16 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 75. Brutus describes this scene in the first stanza of the poem “Robben Island Sequence” (D. Brutus, Stubborn Hope: New Poems and Selected Poems from China Poems and Strains (London: Heinemann, 1978), 58–59). 17 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 75–76. The guards who beat Brutus included the Kleynhans brothers (IDAF, South African Prisons, 32). The brothers were also involved in the now-infamous incident in which PAC member Johnson Mlambo was buried up to his neck on Robben Island and then gleefully urinated on. See B. Pogrund, Sobukwe and Apartheid (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1990), 214. 18 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 76. 19 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 77–78. 20 Brutus, Stubborn Hope, 59 21 Despite submitting several applications to study while on Robben Island, and making various representations through lawyers, Brutus did not receive a single law lecture (IDAF, South African Prisons, 27). 22 See IDAF, South African Prisons, 30. Brutus notes on 10 August 1966 that all the prisoner got as a reward for his callous act of violence was a packet of tobacco (GB 193 BRU: CSAS MF 1, “Dennis Brutus, papers”). Nortje, his former pupil, wrote about this assault in a stanza in the poem “Autopsy” (though he erroneously refers to the assailant as a warder): “36 000 feet above the Atlantic / I heard an account of how they had shot / a running man in the stomach. But what isn’t told / is how a warder kicked the stitches open / on a little-known island prison which used to be / a guano rock in a sea of diamond blue” (A. Nortje, Anatomy of Dark: Collected Poems of Arthur Nortje, ed. D. Klopper (Pretoria: University of South Africa, 2000), 196). 23 Brutus, “Robben Island,” 15; also see IDAF, South African Prisons, 31. 24 I. Naidoo, Island in Chains: Ten Years on Robben Island (Johannesburg: Penguin Books, 2000 [1982]), 87. 25 Naidoo, Island, 88. 26 IDAF, South African Prisons, 25.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 314

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

Notes

315

27

Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 88. Brutus later wrote an untitled poem about this experience, in which he describes himself in the first line as “the tattooed lady of the prison” (Stubborn Hope, 28). 28 E. Daniels, There and Back: Robben Island 1964–1979 (Cape Town: Mayibuye Books, 1998), 150. 29 Brutus, Stubborn Hope, 28. 30 IDAF, South African Prisons, 23–24. 31 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 79–80. Zackon was banned in March 1965 and left for England on an exit permit in mid-1966. See R. Vigne, Barney Zackon: Lawyer and Activist Who Fought against Apartheid, http:// www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/barney-zackon-lawyer-andactivist-who-fought-against-apartheid-1699433.html 32 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 80. 33 D. Brutus, “Letter”, The Times, 6 Dec. 1966: 13. Brutus was then director of IDAF’s Campaign for the Release of Political Prisoners in Southern Africa. It was not the only time that prison authorities resorted to deception. Brutus mentions an incident in which he and other maximum security prisoners were given prison uniforms to mend, and then photographed while busy with the needlework. However, the needles and uniforms were removed the very next day, and the prisoners were once again given stones to break (IDAF, South African Prisons, 28). 34 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 79. 35 IDAF, South African Prisons, 3. 36 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 80. 37 ICRC letter quoted in IDAF, South African Prisons, 6. 38 As director of IDAF’s Campaign for the Release of Political Prisoners in Southern Africa, Brutus played a leading role in this exposé. 39 IDAF, South African Prisons, 25. 40 Brutus remembers the date because 24 June is revered in the Catholic Church as the feast of St John the Baptist in honour of his birth, and because he was allowed a missal that day (Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 83). This was probably the missal that Marcus sent to him at May’s request. “I know that his Catholicism was a source of great comfort to him and perhaps helped him stay serene in the face of so much hardship,” she observes (S. Marcus, e-mail to author, 27 Aug. 2018). Even so, Marcus is still amused all these years later about why May approached her to send the missal to Brutus. As a member of the Jewish faith, she did not even know what it was before then (Marcus, interview). 41 Incarceration in these single cells in the new segregated section should not be confused with solitary confinement. As former Robben Island prisoner Lionel Davis explains: “We were kept in single cells but we worked together during the day and communication between the single cells was possible” (e-mail to author, 9 July 2018). 42 See Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 90.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 315

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

316

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

43

Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 91. Mandela was first sent to Robben Island to serve a five-year sentence after he was convicted in November 1962 of incitement and leaving South Africa without valid travel documents. After another trial from October 1963 to June 1964, in which he was convicted on charges of sabotage, he was sentenced to life imprisonment and returned to Robben Island. See N. Mandela, Nelson Mandela: The Struggle Is My Life (London: IDAF Publications, 1990 [1978]), 160–161, 181. 44 IDAF, South African Prisons, 22. 45 Brutus, “Poetry of suffering,” 5. 46 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 83–85. 47 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 89. 48 Brutus, Strains, 7. 49 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 39. 50 Brutus, Strains, 7. 51 D. Brutus, “Dennis Brutus 1924–,” in Contemporary Authors: Autobiography Series, Vol. 14, ed. J. Nakamura (Detroit: Gale Research, 1991), 59. After reading a translation of Dante’s The Divine Comedy by British writer D.L. Sayers, published between 1949 and 1962, Brutus notes that the three volumes are unified by the image of the stars. However, he is unsure whether the Italian’s poem influenced his use of this image in his own poetry, and suspects that it may instead be the result of an unconscious decision. 52 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 89. 53 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 19. 54 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 18. 55 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 18. 56 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 13. 57 Brutus refers to this song in “Constellations of exile” in Echoes of the Sunbird: An Anthology of Contemporary African Poetry, comp. D. Burness (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1993), 34. Also see M. Mercouri, I Was Born Greek (New York: Doubleday, 1971), 160. Brutus later met Mercouri when she chaired a symposium in Athens in her capacity as Greece’s Minister of Culture. He wrote an untitled poem to commemorate this meeting, in which he wistfully repeats the first stanza several times: “Our hands meet / in the blue Athenian dusk / and the years roll away” – see D. Brutus, Airs and Tributes, ed. G. Ott (Camden: Whirlwind Press, 1990 [1989]), 11. 58 D. Brutus, Still the Sirens, San Francisco: Pennywhistle Press, 1993, 12. 59 Benson also recounts this anecdote by Brutus in M. Benson, Nelson Mandela (London: Penguin Books, 1990 [1986]), 173. 60 IDAF, South African Prisons, 29. 61 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 83, 88–89. 62 IDAF, South African Prisons, 29. 63 Brutus, “Poetry of suffering,” 6.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 316

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

Notes

317

64 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 39. 65 IDAF, South African Prisons, 30. 66 Brutus, “Robben Island,” 16. 67 Brutus, “Robben Island,” 16. 68 Brutus, “Poetry of suffering,” 7. 69 See Brutus, “Robben Island,” 15 and IDAF, South African Prisons, 30–31. 70 See G.M. Gerhart and T. Karis, From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, Vol. 4 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1977), 126. Peake was also a former Cape Town city councillor and a leading participant in the CNC movement (Anon., “Peake will speak in PE” Evening Post, 22 June 1961: 7). 71 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 86; also see Brutus, “Robben Island,” 16. 72 IDAF, South African Prisons, 24. 73 IDAF, South African Prisons, 23. 74 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 81. 75 Brutus, “Poetry of suffering,” 7. 76 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 87–88. 77 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 8. 78 Brutus, “Poetry of suffering,” 8. 79 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 22. 80 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 88. 81 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 108. 82 Brutus, “Robben Island,” 16. 83 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 38. 84 Brutus provides conflicting information on when and for how long he was kept in solitary confinement. In one interview, for example, he says it was two months (N. Allen, “Anti-apartheid sports campaigner,” The Times, 29 Jan. 1968: 4); elsewhere he says it was almost five months (W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus: An interview,” Ufahamu 12.2 (1983): 73; B. Lindfors, ed., The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography (Woodbridge: James Currey, 2011), 137). In some interviews, Brutus also conflates being held in a single cell and being held in solitary confinement. As Davis points out, prisoners in the single cells worked together during the day and were able to communicate with each other from their cells – a very different scenario from that described by Brutus when he was in solitary confinement. 85 See Gerhart and Karis, Protest to Challenge, 37; also see H. Lewin, Bandiet: Seven Years in a South African Prison (London: Heinemann, 1981 [1974]), 16. Brutus speculates sympathetically in an interview in March 1973: “There may have been some instability. He [Harris] may have been frustrated with the kind of effete liberalism of the official Liberal Party” – R.E. Lapchick, The Politics of Race and International Sport: The Case of South Africa (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1975), 64. A few years later, in an untitled poem which is presumably about Harris who was hanged on 1 April 1965 at the age of

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 317

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

318

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

27, Brutus writes in lines 6–11: “Now he is dead: and I dare not think / of the anguish that drove him to where he was / or the pain at their hands he must have faced / or how much he was racked by my distress: / now, it is still easiest to say, they hanged him, / dismissively” (Stubborn Hope, 41). 86 Amazwi South African Museum of Literature (Amazwi), 1994.4.14.13. The one-page overview of Brutus’s imprisonment appears to be dated 22 December 1967. 87 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 137; also see W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus,” 73. 88 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 138. 89 D. Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences” in The Writer in Modern Africa: African Scandinavian Writers’ Conference, Stockholm 1967, ed. P. Wastberg (New York: Africana Publishing Corporation; Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studie 1969), 98. 90 B. Lindfors, “Dialectical development in the poetry of Dennis Brutus” in The Commonwealth Writer Overseas: Themes of Exile and Expatriation, ed. A. Niven (Liege: Revue des Langues Vivantes, 1976), 220. 91 D. Brutus, personal interview, Johannesburg, 18 June 1998. 92 J. Carey, John Donne: Life, Mind and Art (London: Faber and Faber, 1990 [1981]), 144. 93 C. Pieterse, “Dennis Brutus” in African Writers Talking, ed. D. Duerden and C. Pieterse (London: Heinemann, 1972), 56. 94 As Richard Willmott notes in his introduction to an anthology of work by the Metaphysical poets, the period in which they were writing – the seventeenth century – was marked by many new discoveries in areas such as astronomy and anatomy. See R. Willmott, “Introduction” in Four Metaphysical Poets: An Anthology of Poetry by Donne, Herbert, Marvell and Vaughan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 3. 95 K.L Goodwin, Understanding African Poetry: A Study of Ten Poets (London: Heinemann, 1982), 7. 96 A. Hiscock, “The Renaissance, 1485–1660” in English Literature in Context, ed. P. Poplawski (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 203. 97 Anon., “Interview with Dennis Brutus” in Palaver: Interviews with Five African Writers in Texas, ed. B. Lindfors et al. (Austin: University of Texas, 1972), 35. 98 W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus,” 70. Brutus adds that the “clash of consonants” in Hopkins’s poetry appealed to him as well (S. Gray, “Dennis Brutus” in Indaba: Interviews with African Writers (Pretoria: Protea Book House, 2005), 155). 99 D. Brutus (1963) Sirens Knuckles Boots (Ibadan: Mbari Publications, 1963), 17. 100 E. Mphahlele, “Voices in the Whirlwind: Poetry and Conflict” in Voices in the Whirlwind and Other Essays, E. Mphahlele (New York: Hill & Wang, 1972), 91. 101 D. Abasiekong, “Poetry pure and applied: Rabearivelo and Brutus” Transition 23 (1965): 47.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 318

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

Notes

319

102 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 189. 103 J. Katz, “For the unsung brave: Dennis Brutus, poet from South Africa (1973)” in Artists in Exile, J. Katz, ed. (New York: Stein and Day, 1983), 38. The influence of Donne, Hopkins and Pound on Brutus’s poetry is quite evident; the impact of Eliot’s writing on his work, though, is far less visible. 104 Anon., “Interview,” 29. 105 W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus,” 73. 106 Anon., “Interview,” 29. 107 W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus,” 73 (emphasis in the original). The first poems Brutus wrote after making this decision were included in his second collection, Letters to Martha. As Lindfors observes: “The change in idiom was immediately apparent. The diction was far simpler; rigid poetic devices such as end-rhyme, metrical regularity and symmetrical stanza structure had all but been abandoned; conceits, tortuously logical paradoxes, and tantalizingly ambiguous image-clusters could no longer be found; ornament – ornament of virtually every kind – had vanished almost entirely. The result was a flat, conversational mode of poetry which surprised and in some cases alarmed readers who had admired the technical complexity of the poems in his first volume and had expected more of the same in his second. Now, instead of saying three things at once, Brutus was saying one thing at a time and saying it very directly. He was creating a poetry of plain statement, a poetry which bus drivers, porters and cleaning women could understand and presumably appreciate.” See Lindfors, “Dialectical development,” 222. Brutus’s new objective of shifting towards a more minimalist style of writing inevitably invites comparisons with the later poetry of Yeats. Although the Irish poet’s writing was initially strongly influenced by Greek mythology and mysticism, he later argues vigorously in favour of writing in a more accessible style. See, for example, R. Ellmann, Yeats: The Man and the Masks (London: Faber and Faber, 1973 [1949]), 185 and A.N. Jeffares, W.B. Yeats: A New Biography (London: Arena, 1990 [1988]), 278–279. As Brutus declares in an interview: “Some of Yeats is wonderfully direct and simple” (B. Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness survives’: Dennis Brutus talks about his life and poetry” The Benin Review 1 (1974): 50). He often read the Irishman’s work before he went to prison, and even remembers doing so once when the security police raided his home. He also recalls receiving a copy of Yeats’s collected works as an awaiting-trial prisoner at the Fort (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 91, 115). Later Brutus acknowledges that he incorporates aspects of Yeats’s writing style into his own poetry, and characterises the poems he wrote in this mode after his release from prison as “a kind of colloquial, conversational, unadorned poetry” (Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 50). 108 R. Berger, “Interview with Dennis Brutus,s” Genéve Afrique 18 (1980): 77. 109 Anon., “Interview,” 28–29.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 319

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

320

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

110 Berger, “Interview,” 77. 111 W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus,” 73. 112 This interview was conducted in Philadelphia by Terry Gross on her popular talk-show, “Fresh Air,” which is broadcast in the US by National Public Radio. See Bernth Lindfors Collection, C4688 (Side 1), Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas. A partial transcript of the interview is available on https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript. php?storyId=122020269 113 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 87. 114 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 124. 115 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 124. 116 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 87. 117 Brutus further states in the interview that these symptoms became more acute while he was a visiting professor at the University of Texas in Austin during the 1974–1975 academic year (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 195). In response, he wrote a cycle of poems, provisionally titled Autumn Schizophrenic Chronicle, as a form of therapy. However, it appears that these were never published for commercial and literary reasons. See the letters from publisher A.W. Wang of Hill & Wang to Brutus and James Currey, then at Heinemann Educational Books, on 13 March 1975 (James Currey Archives, African Literary Studies, 10/7/1, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg). 118 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 138. 119 Brutus gives differing accounts of these suicide attempts. In one newspaper interview, he claims he used a razor blade (Allen, “Anti-apartheid,” 4). In another, he says he used sharp stones (K. Klose, “Rebel without a country,” The Washington Post (Style), 16 Aug. 1983: B6). 120 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 138. 121 Brutus, Still the Sirens, 12. 122 L. Davis, personal interview with author, Cape Town, 14 Feb. 2017. 123 A. Kathrada, personal interview, Cape Town, 23 Dec. 2016. Brutus wrote about the success of international campaigns against segregated sport in an untitled poem, in which he declares proudly in one stanza: “I have deprived them / that which they hold most dear / a prestige which they purchased with sweat / and for which they yearn unassuagedly / – their sporting prowess and esteem / this I have attacked and / blasted / unforgettably” (Letters to Martha, 50–51). 124 E. Daniels, personal interview, Cape Town, 21 Dec. 2016. 125 Daniels, interview. At one stage, Brutus was allowed to see a psychiatrist. It is unclear how beneficial this intervention was. Brutus notes dismissively that the psychiatrist “interrogated” him in the presence of a concealed tape recorder (Amazwi, 1994.4.14.13). This intrusive measure suggests that the psychiatrist was more intent on serving the interests of prison and police authorities rather than being primarily concerned with the wellbeing of the

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 320

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

Notes

321

prisoner. 126 Kathrada, interview. 127 Daniels, There and Back, 158. 128 Daniels, interview. 129 Davis, interview. The South African writers Colin and Margaret Legum also draw attention to this quality in an early profile of Brutus: “In the inevitably faction-ridden atmosphere of resistance politics he has been almost universally respected, and his political effect has therefore been unifying. As a personality he is a conciliator rather than a partisan within the liberation movement.” They attribute this, in part, to his intellectual honesty. See “Dennis Brutus: Poet and sportsman” in The Bitter Choice: Eight South Africans’ Resistance to Tyranny (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1968), 159. 130 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 11. 131 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 17. 132 P.V. Shava, A People’s Voice: Black South African Writing in the Twentieth Century (London: Zed Books; Athens: Ohio University Press, 1989), 41. 133 GB 193 BRU: CSAS MF 15,”Dennis Brutus, papers.” 134 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 11. 135 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 37. 136 Amazwi, 1994.4.1.4.9. 137 Brutus, Stubborn Hope, 15. 138 Brutus, Stubborn Hope, 15. 139 Gordon Winter devotes a whole chapter to Wilfred Brutus in his controversial book on his activities as a BOSS agent (G. Winter, Inside Boss: South Africa’s Secret Police (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1981), 190–202). 140 Bernth Lindfors Collection, C4696 (Side 1), Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas. 141 Bernth Lindfors Collection, C4697 (Side 2), Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas. Brutus qualifies this same statement in the interview and notes that the period in question was probably not as long as a decade. This revised time frame is supported by his editorship of the local TLSA journal in 1953 and his attendance of the Anti-CAD Conference in Cape Town in January 1954. 142 Bernth Lindfors Collection, C4697 (Side 2), Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas. 143 Perhaps an additional reason was that both Brutus’s mother and his sister Helen were teachers at St Monica’s Primary School, in Upper Pier Street, at one stage. Theresa Laing, who was a teacher at the school for 20 years from 1958, taught some of Brutus’s children. According to Laing – the granddaughter of Brutus’s Shell Street landlord Anthony Sam – St Monica’s was run by Dominican nuns (T. Laing, telephonic interview with author, 23 Oct. 2017). 144 Brutus last saw his father during a visit to Wellington in 1962 (Amazwi, 1994.4.1.4.9).

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 321

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

322

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

145 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 66. 146 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 66. Perhaps an additional reason for Brutus’s public affirmation of his faith is that he wanted to win the goodwill of the PIDE in order to secure access to the British consul. While in their custody, he even produced a rosary as evidence of his Catholicism (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 68). In the third stanza of “Letter 4,” Brutus admits that he sometimes used religion as a means of exchange on Robben Island: “and, of course, it is a currency / – pietistic expressions can purchase favours / and it is a way of suggesting reformation / (which can procure promotion)” (Letters to Martha, 5). 147 An undated and untitled poem published in 1978 expresses similar sentiments, as the following extract from the first stanza illustrates: “Dear God / get me out of here: … / Oh I know / I have asked for this before / in other predicaments / But if it be possible / and conformable to your will / dear God, / get me out of here” (Stubborn Hope, 67). 148 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 67. 149 Court case D 478/63, Regional Court, Johannesburg, 9 Dec. 1963. 150 D. Brutus, “Reflections on a return to the land of sirens, knuckles, boots,” In These Times, 6–12 Nov. 1991: 9. However, Brutus admits in the article: “But it is also true that it seemed to me that this was one way to ensure that I would receive medical attention. And that, in this way, I would achieve what it was that I’d been attempting anyway – in the escape attempt – to ensure the knowledge that I was back in South Africa, having been virtually kidnapped from Mozambique. Also, I think, it seems to me that it is reasonable to assume that whatever else Afrikaners might be – and they pretty much ran the secret police – they claimed to be a God-fearing, church-going people for whom a request for a priest would be something very difficult to refuse.” 151 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 88. 152 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 67. 153 Naidoo recalls in his prison memoir that some PAC members were particularly belligerent at the time: “The PAC was then at its peak and most of these prisoners had been arrogant and hostile to us in every way, making life miserable for us on every occasion, some even calling us Communist agents and threatening to kill us.” See Naidoo, Island, 32. 154 Bernth Lindfors Collection, C4688 (Side 1), Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas. 155 Amazwi, 1994.4.4.26. Maritain wrote prolifically on Aquinas, and describes Thomism as “par excellence the philosophy of the mind, the philosophy of common sense.” See J. Maritain, St Thomas Aquinas: Angel of the Schools (London: Sheed & Ward, 1931), 165). Brutus also admired the French Catholic philosopher for his aesthetic theory, which he outlined in his classic work Art and Scholasticism published in 1920, and which draws extensively on the ideas of Aquinas.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 322

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

Notes

323

156 IDAF, South African Prisons, 26. 157 GB 193 BRU: CSAS MF 15, “Dennis Brutus, papers.” 158 Amazwi, 4.14.9. 159 See Anon., The Man with the Very Warm Handshake, https://mg.co.za/ article/2003-07-15-the-man-with-very-warm-handshake 160 IDAF, South African Prisons, 26. 161 According to Long, who came to know Mandela well during his Sunday visits to Robben Island, the ANC leader was so impressed by The Imitation of Christ that he read it twice and was very familiar with its contents. See Anon., Man with the Very Warm Handshake https://mg.co.za/article/200307-15-the-man-with-very-warm-handshake 162 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 125. 163 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 125. 164 No doubt another reason why Chesterton appealed to Brutus was because he, too, embraced the ideas of Aquinas. In fact, in an essay published on 27 Feb. 1932 in the British magazine The Spectator, Chesterton proclaims that “there was certainly never a greater theologian, and probably never a greater saint.” See G.K. Chesterton, St Thomas Aquinas, https://www. chesterton.org/st-thomas-aquinas/ 165 J. van Wyk, “Interview with Dennis Brutus” Alternation 8.2 (2001): 190–191. Later, Mogoba became the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church of South Africa (1988–1996) and president of the PAC (1997–2003). See SAHO, Bishop Mmutlanyane Stanley Mogoba, http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/ bishop-mmutlanyane-stanley-mogoba 166 Brutus, “Dennis Brutus 1924–,” 59. 167 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 5. 168 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 16. 169 Brutus, “Climates of love,” 28. 170 Brutus, Airs and Tributes, 1. 171 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 48–49. 172 Anon., “Interview,” 31. 173 W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus,” 75. 174 Brutus, “Dennis Brutus 1924–,” 64. 175 Anon., “Interview,” 31; also see Brutus, “Dennis Brutus 1924–,” 63. 176 W. Thompson, “Dennis Brutus,” 76 (emphasis in the original); also see Brutus, “Dennis Brutus 1924–,” 64. 177 M. Wahlman, “Literature” in Contemporary African Arts: ed. M. Wahlman (Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History, 1974), 107. 178 J. Alvarez-Pereyre, The Poetry of Commitment (London: Heinemann, 1984), 140. 179 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 67. 180 Berger, “Interview,” 77.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 323

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

324

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Chapter 6 1

Letter, 21 Feb. 1965, National Archives of South Africa (NARSA), File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice. 2 Letter, 3 June 1965, NARSA, File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice. Hayman, a Liberal Party member, was placed under 12-hour house arrest in 1966. In addition, she was prohibited from leaving Johannesburg and communicating with any banned or listed people. See M. Horrell, A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1966 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1967), 67. Hayman’s name crops up several times in Paton’s second autobiography. He describes her as one of the bravest people he knew: “She took her duties as a lawyer very seriously and would confront any person or any authority in the pursuit of justice.” He also regards her as a major asset to the Liberal Party (though expressed in terms which would be disapproved of today): “She was one of the brightest ornaments of the party.” See A. Paton, Journey Continued: An Autobiography (Cape Town: David Philip, 1988), 137. 3 Letter, 17 June 1965, NARSA, File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice (author’s translation). 4 A South African Institute of Race Relations study around this time refers to North End as “a less prosperous area, with shops and light industries, and old cottages.” See M. Horrell, Port Elizabeth: Report on Plans for Group Areas and Beach Zoning (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1967), 3. 5 L. Sustar and A. Karim, eds, Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006), 84. It was probably also during this period that Brutus cleaned and polished the floors of the prison (J. van Wyk, “Interview with Dennis Brutus” Alternation 8.2 (2001): 190). 6 According to former political prisoner Harold Strachan, every single brick of the North End jail was individually painted red – “an identical earth red; a lurid burnt sienna like the planet Mars.” See H. Strachan, Make a Skyf, Man! (Johannesburg: Jacana, 2004), 88. The widely held association of the colour with hell presumably made the name of the jail even more apt for inmates. 7 Anon., “Brutus out: House arrest now” Evening Post, 8 July 1965:1–2; Anon., “Brutus rejoins his family” Eastern Province Herald, 9 July 1965: 5. 8 Anon., “Brutus rejoins,” 5. 9 Brutus later expresses a particular fondness for what he describes as Indian food, which he especially enjoyed at certain parties in South Africa (L. Brimble et al., “It’s 1 967 miles from Port Elizabeth to San Antonio,” The Gar 35 (1988): 12. 10 B. Lindfors, ed., The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography (Woodbridge: James Currey, 2011), 110. 11 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 110.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 324

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

Notes

325

12

J. Katz, “For the unsung brave: Dennis Brutus, poet from South Africa (1973)” in Artists in Exile, ed. J. Katz (New York: Stein and Day, 1983), 35. 13 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 112. 14 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 111. 15 D. Brutus, Stubborn Hope: New Poems and Selected Poems from China Poems and Strains (London: Heinemann, 1978), 14–15. 16 D. Brutus, Letters to Martha and Other Poems from a South African Prison (London: Heinemann, 1978 [1968]), 24. 17 The poem is addressed to Daantjie Oosthuizen who, according to Brutus, then edited the literary journal New Coin, established in January 1965 by Guy Butler (Van Wyk, “Interview,” 178). However, Prof. Butler, who was then head of the Department of English at Rhodes University in Makhanda, was editor of the journal at the time. Oosthuizen was, in fact, a philosophy professor at Rhodes University from January 1958 until his death in April 1969, and was a highly critical opponent of apartheid. See J.J. Degenaar’s entry in Dictionary of South African Biography (Vol. 4), ed. C.J. Beyers (Pretoria: HSRC), 427–429. 18 This is presumably a reference to the nearby Pyott Ltd biscuit factory in North End. Brutus’s nephew Gregory Yon, who grew up in Durban, vividly recalls seeing the factory from the Shell Street house during two visits as a young child (G. Yon, telephonic interview with author, 21 Mar. 2019). 19 A large watercolour painting by the French painter – “one of my special private joys or affectations” – hung on the wall of Brutus’s lounge (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 114). 20 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 30. 21 D. Brutus, “Dennis Brutus 1924–” in Contemporary Authors: Autobiography Series, Vol. 14, ed. J. Nakamura (Detroit: Gale Research, 1991), 60; GB 193 BRU: CSAS MF 15, in “Dennis Brutus, papers on sport, anti-apartheid activities and literature,” Borthwick Institute, University of York: n.d.; n.p. 22 E. Bardien, undated letter to the author, stamped 25 Sep. 1998. 23 Bel-Essex Engineering, established in 1960 through the merger of two companies, was initially engaged in sheet metal fabrications and caravan building operations. It entered the automotive component industry in 1975 and was acquired in 1981 by the Bel-Essex Corporation. See Bel-Essex Corporation, www.bel-essex.com/be-engineering.htm 24 Aberdare Cables, a cable manufacturing company founded in Port Elizabeth in 1946, was acquired by the Chinese cable manufacturer Hengtong in 2016. See Abedare Cables, https://www.aberdare.co.za/ 25 Bardien, who later signed Brutus’s application for an exit permit, believes his dismissal from Aberdare Cables was the final reason behind his decision to leave South Africa. 26 See Anon., “Coloured People’s Congress trials” Contact, Dec. 1965, 4–5. Also see Prison Register 807/64-118/66, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives, Cape Town.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 325

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

326

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

27

After serving his sentence, Wilfred was convicted again in August 1967 on a trumped-up charge of breaking his banning order. According to Winter, police rushed into their flat while his wife Martha met a fellow nurse for tea, and charged Wilfred with receiving a visitor at home. Wilfred eventually fled into exile that same year while out on bail pending an appeal against his three-year prison sentence. In Winter’s view, “Brutus may be a tough political warrior but physically he has long been in bad shape. He suffers from a chronically weak chest and failing eyesight. He knew he could not survive three years on Robben Island, so he decided to flee from South Africa” (G. Winter, Inside Boss: South Africa’s Secret Police (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1981), 198). Both Wilfred and Martha were listed under the Suppression of Communism Act in August 1970 when they were living in London. See Government Gazette, 7 Aug. 1970, 19. 28 D. Brutus, “From the Introduction to Salutes and Censures” in From South Africa: New Writing, Photographs and Art (TriQuarterly 69, Spring/Summer 1987), ed. D. Bunn and J. Taylor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 365. According to B. la Guma, Cassem served on the planning committee of the CNC (personal interview, Cape Town, 27 Mar. 2013). He was also active in campaigns against the Group Areas Act and in SANROC. See http://www.heraldlive.co.za/news/top-news/2016/03/07/fightfreedom-recalled-family/. In 1966, Cassem left South Africa on an exit permit and went to live in exile in London, where he became one of the main campaigners for non-racial sport in South Africa alongside Brutus, De Broglio and Peter Hain. See R.E. Lapchick, The Politics of Race and International Sport: The Case of South Africa (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1975), 5. 29 D. Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences” in The Writer in Modern Africa: African Scandinavian Writers’ Conference, Stockholm 1967, ed. P. Wastberg (New York: Africana Publishing Corporation; Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1969), 93. 30 Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences,” 92. 31 Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences,” 92. Two decades later, in an unpublished introduction to a new edition of Salutes and Censures, Brutus strikes a more empathetic – and insightful – tone. He describes Dowerville as “taken over by an extremely poor working-class section of the white population, many of them rural workers coming into the city for the first time and adapting slowly to the industrialized environment around them” (Brutus, “Introduction,” 365). 32 Brutus, “Childhood reminiscences,” 94. 33 Brutus, Stubborn Hope, 23. 34 Brutus, Stubborn Hope, 24. 35 See M. Horrell, A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1964 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1965), 216. In June 1965, it was estimated that 8 742 people were affected by removals from South End

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 326

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

Notes

36

37

38 39 40

41 42

327

(Anon., “Plans for South End welcomed – Botha” Eastern Province Herald, 3 June 1965: 1). According to a newspaper report, 730 people from 100 families were relocated from Dowerville between May 1964 and November 1965. The last 18 families were scheduled to be moved to Gelvandale on 26 November 1965 (Anon., “Coloured families move out” Evening Post, 26 Nov. 1965: 3). Anon., “Clearance move in South End section starts” Evening Post, 1 Dec. 1965: 3; also see Anon., “Moving day for South End coloureds” Eastern Province Herald, 15 Dec. 1965:17. The sheer intensity of the racism behind the summary removal of coloured people from South End is suggested by the fact that, while 12 400 people lived there in 1960, only 1 200 people were housed in the neighbourhood 20 years later. South End was only redeveloped again in the early 1980s, which then led to an increase in the number of white residents (A.J. Christopher “Apartheid planning in South Africa: A case study of Port Elizabeth” The Geographical Journal 153.2 (1987): 202). It is also worth noting that the removal of coloured people from South End took place in the midst of a severe housing shortage. In March 1966, the manager of the City Housing Department, D.J. Cleary, told a conference that a combination of resettlement and normal population growth resulted in what a newspaper report described as “dangerous overcrowding in existing coloured townships” (Anon., “Coloured housing plight spotlighted” Eastern Province Herald, 24 Mar. 1966: 14). D. Brutus, Strains, ed. W. Kamin and C. Dameron (Del Valle: Troubadour Press, 1975), 5. Brutus, “Dennis Brutus 1924–,” 58. Cicero [Brutus?], “Whites only” Evening Post, 18 Dec. 1965: 12. Brutus was certainly opposed to Fugard’s decision to allow his plays to be performed to racially segregated audiences. In an undated tape recording, he makes a scathing reference to him: “Above all, he’s a playwright for whom putting on the play is more important than anything else…And for that reason he would compromise with the state” (Bernth Lindfors Collection, C4691 (Side 2), Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin). According to Brutus, Fugard’s earlier play The Blood Knot was also performed to segregated audiences in 1961: “I was then invited to go to one of the ‘white’ nights and sit with the man who worked the lights. This was a concession which was made to me, and which I rejected” (D. Brutus, “Protest against apartheid” in in Protest and Conflict in African Literature, ed. C. Pieterse and D. Munro (London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1978 [1969]), 98). A. Fugard, Notebooks 1960–1977, ed. M. Benson (London: Faber and Faber, 1983), 128. The Serpent Players were formed in 1963 and took their name from the snake pit on the Port Elizabeth campus of Rhodes University where they first chose to perform. According to Fugard, the group’s founding members were “a clerk, two teachers, a bus driver and the women domestic servants

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 327

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

328

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

or doing cleaning jobs.” John Kani and Winston Ntshona, who later won international acclaim for their acting, only joined in 1968 (Fugard, Notebooks, 91–92, 158). 43 A. Fugard, “Letter”, Evening Post, 23 Dec. 1965: 6. Ironically, white audiences were unable to see Fugard’s production of the Greek tragedy Antigone, which featured an all-African cast, earlier that year. Even a private performance hosted by the South African Institute for Race Relations was cancelled, according to Fugard, “for various reasons, apparently involving permits” (Anon., “Greek play not for whites” Eastern Province Herald, 23 May 1965: 3). 44 Van Wyk, “Interview,” 205. This is presumably a reference to Bernice Kaplan. 45 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 25. However, despite what Brutus later confirms is “a kind of tentative sexual impetus” in the poem, he explains that at the time they were unsure about the direction of their friendship. Ultimately, though, it did not develop into a romantic relationship because both of them were content with their then partners (see Bernth Lindfors Collection, C4698 (Side 1), Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas). 46 GB 193 BRU: CSAS MF 15, “Dennis Brutus, papers.” 47 M. Brutus, “South Africa: ‘A land of broken spirits,’” publication unknown, 1984, n.p. 48 It was probably during this period that Brutus’s mother lived with his sister Helen Yon (née Brutus) and her family in a flat in Gale Street in Durban’s city centre. Both Helen’s sons, Paul and Gregory Yon, recall that his mother lived with them for a while around 1963, and slept in the bedroom of the two boys (P. Yon, personal interview, Johannesburg, 12 Mar. 2019; G. Yon, interview). 49 Brutus, Stubborn Hope, 4. 50 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 19. 51 Brutus, Stubborn Hope, 16. 52 Brutus, Stubborn Hope, 22. 53 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 12. 54 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 23. 55 Anon., “Interview with Dennis Brutus” in Palaver: Interviews with Five African Writers in Texas, ed. B. Lindfors et al. (Austin: University of Texas, 1972), 33. 56 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 28. 57 E. Thumboo, “Dennis Brutus: Apartheid and the troubadour” Joliso 2.2 (1974): 32. 58 U. Barnett, A Vision of Order: A Study of Black South African Literature in English (1914–1980) (London: Sinclair Browne, 1983), 93. 59 J. Visagie, “The emigration of the Voortrekkers into the interior” in A History of South Africa: From the Distant Past to the Present Day, ed. F. Pretorius (Pretoria: Protea Book House, 2014), 146–147.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 328

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

Notes

329

60 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 26. 61 Brutus, “Dennis Brutus 1924–,” 60. 62 D. Brutus, ”Climates of love and continents” in Seven South African Poets: Poems of Exile, ed. C. Pieterse (London: Heinemann, 1979 [1971]), 28. 63 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 56. 64 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 57. 65 This is the Latin translation of “Behold the man!”– the words uttered by Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, when he presented Jesus to the crowd before His crucifixion. See John 19:5 in the Bible. 66 Brutus, “Dennis Brutus 1924–,” 60. 67 Brutus, Stubborn Hope, 13. 68 Anon., (Untitled), Evening Post, 9 July 1965: 1. 69 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 112. As an example, Brutus refers to an unsuccessful attempt to enrol two of his sons at St Augustine Boys’ School in Port Elizabeth. In a letter to May dated 22 June 1966, Sister Maria Goretti McCartan informed her that the school could not accommodate the boys as it fell under the government’s Department of Education and was classified as a white school: “As you know, we would not be permitted, much as we would like to, to admit your sons to our school.” See GB 193 BRU: CSAS MF 15, “Dennis Brutus, papers”; also see e-mail of 31 Jan. 2019 forwarded to the author by the Archives of the Catholic Diocese of Port Elizabeth. Brutus, however, was not convinced of the sincerity of the school, and contends that it chose to comply with the government’s pro-segregation regulations far too readily: “In a sense my action had been no more than a probe of the willingness of the church to stand up against the apartheid educational system, I was not surprised when it failed” (Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 113). 70 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 113. 71 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 113. 72 P. Hain, Sing the Beloved Country: The Struggle for the New South Africa (London and Chicago: Pluto Press, 1996), 46. 73 Anon., “Call to boycott cricket tour” Eastern Province Herald, 28 June 1965: 2. Messages in support of the call for a boycott of the cricket tour were read from Tanzania’s president, Julius Nyerere, and India’s prime minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri. 74 H. Butler, “Anti-SA slogan greets Boks” Eastern Province Herald, 16 July 1965: 2. 75 Anon., “Grave concern over sports future” Evening Post, 11 Oct. 1965: 2. Two previous attempts at the IOC meeting in Baden-Baden in October 1963 were defeated: first by 30 votes to 21, and then by 30 votes to 23. 76 Brutus and De Broglio first came into contact through Brutus’s involvement in the SAAWBF. They subsequently met in Johannesburg in 1961, when Brutus came to print documents at De Broglio’s office at the French airline UAT before the IOC meeting in Baden-Baden. When Brutus was shot in

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 329

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

330

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

1964, De Broglio asked the International Judo Federation to distribute a SANROC document about the incident at the Olympics in Tokyo. See C. De Broglio, The SANROC Story, at http://onlinelaw.co.za/docs/The_ SANROC_story.pdf. The anti-apartheid sports activist Sam Ramsamy, who later became SANROC chairman in London, comments: “His [De Broglio’s] conscience led him into the non-racial sports movement and the wider political struggle and, harassed by the authorities, he used his Mauritian passport and emigrated to London. Chris offered his time and expertise to SANROC on a purely honorary basis, as everyone did until 1978, and provided the organisation with its first head office in the basement of his hotel.” See S. Ramsamy (with Edward Griffiths), Reflections on a Life in Sport (Cape Town: Greenhouse, 2004), 25. 77 See Anon., “Sanroc active in Rome” Eastern Province Herald, 23 Apr. 1966: 3. Also see Anon., “Politics in sport denounced by IOC chief” Eastern Province Herald, 25 Apr. 1966: 11 and Anon. “Another Sanroc man in Rome” Eastern Province Herald, 26 Apr. 1966: 13. 78 See Anon., “SA keeps Olympic membership” Eastern Province Herald, 27 Apr. 1966: 1. 79 P. Oborne, Basil D’Oliveira: Cricket and Conspiracy: The Untold Story (London: Little, Brown, 2004), 122. 80 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 50–51. 81 Anon., “SA cultural boycott ‘crippling’ theatre” Evening Post, 12 Aug. 1965: 7. 82 Anon., “Equity to retain ‘ban’ on SA” Eastern Province Herald, 26 Apr. 1966: 2. 83 Anon., “UN releases details” Eastern Province Herald, 28 July 1965: 12–13. Some countries, however, merely paid lip service to these measures. The UK, for instance, continued to sell military equipment to South Africa, make British capital and skilled manpower available to develop South Africa’s armaments industry, and train South African military personnel during the second half of the 1960s. In 1965, for example, it agreed to supply military vehicles to South Africa even after the US and Canada refused to do so. See R. Fieldhouse, Anti-Apartheid: A History of the Movement in Britain (London: Merlin Press, 2005), 79. 84 Anon., “UN condemns apartheid as peace threat” Eastern Province Herald, 16 Dec. 1965: 3. 85 Horrell, Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1966, 49. 86 Anon., “Biggest military display seen in SA” Eastern Province Herald, 1 June 1966: 13. 87 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 27. 88 M. Horrell, A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1965 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1966), 24. 89 Anon., “916 East Cape political arrests in two years” Eastern Province Herald, 17 July 1965: 2. 90 See B. Turok, Nothing but the Truth: Behind the ANC’s Struggle Politics (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2003), 146–147; also see Horrell, A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1965, 54.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 330

2020-01-17 03:50:57 PM

Notes

331

91 See Horrell, Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1966, 66. 92 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 32. 93 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 124. 94 See Anon., “Vorster warns Mrs Brutus” Post (Cape edition), 1 May 1966: 11. 95 This unpublished poem is included in GB 193 BRU: CSAS MF 15, “Dennis Brutus, papers.” 96 See Anon., “Biggest win in history of SA” Eastern Province Herald, 1 Apr. 1966: 1. 97 See Anon., “Brutus wants to quit SA” Post (Cape edition), 29 May 1966: 3. 98 A general slowdown in the South African economy led to an increase in unemployment in Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage, nearly doubling the number of unemployed people from 677 in February 1964 to 1 250 in February 1965 (the number of coloured men registered as unemployed during this period rose from 256 to 511). See Anon., “Unemployment up but no alarm in city” Eastern Province Herald, 4 Mar. 1966: 17. 99 Undated form (stamped 28 July 1966), Magistrate’s Office, Port Elizabeth. See NARSA, File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice. 100 Horrell, A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1966, 72. The government subsequently even attempted to silence those in exile. On 1 April 1966, in terms of a notice under the Suppression of Communism Act, it prohibited the publication of any statement – written or verbal – by 46 people, including the journalists Can Themba, Lewis Nkosi, Todd Matshikisa, Bloke Modisane, Terry Bell and Morrison, and the writers Mazizi Kunene, Ronald Segal and Mphahlele. See Anon., “Govt silences 46 S Africans abroad” Eastern Province Herald, 2 Apr. 1966: 11; also see Suppression of Communism Act, Notice R510, Government Gazette, 23–25. 101 Letter, 13 July 1966, NARSA, File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice. 102 Telegram, 26 July 1966, NARSA, File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice. 103 Letter, 26 July 1966, NARSA, File 2/1/1558, Part 1, Department of Justice. 104 See Anon., “Brutus leaves for UK on exit permit” Eastern Province Herald, 30 July 1966: 1. 105 This is in line with the origin of the word “patriotism,” which is derived from the Latin word “patria,” and literally means “fatherland” or, more generally, “country.” Accordingly, Igor Primoratz describes patriotism as “love of one’s country, identification with it, and special concern for its wellbeing and that of compatriots.” See I. Primoratz, “Patriotism and morality: Mapping the terrain” in Patriotism: Philosophical and Political Perspectives, ed. I. Primoratz and A. Pavković (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 18. 106 W. Scott, The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, ed. J.L. Robertson (London: Oxford University Press, 1960 [1904]), 39. 107 Brutus, “Introduction,” 364 (emphasis in the original). 108 J. Montgomery, The Select Poetical Works of James Montgomery (Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Co., 1857), 353. Brutus even set Montgomery’s

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 331

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

332

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

poem to music, much to the annoyance of his brother Wilfred – “always an astringent critic rectifying my sentimental and romantic effusions” (Brutus, “Introduction,” 364). 109 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 40. 110 Brutus, Letters to Martha, 41. 111 Brutus, Stubborn Hope, 52. 112 “I am out of love with you for now” first appeared, with minor differences in punctuation, in Penpoint 15 (1963: 43). 113 D. Brutus, A Simple Lust: Collected Poems of South African Jail and Exile (Oxford: Heinemann, 1973), 41. 114 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 139. 115 S. Lewis, “Speaking their wordless woe” in Selves in Question: Interviews on Southern African Auto/biography, ed. J.L. Coullie et al. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006), 155. 116 B. Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness survives’: Dennis Brutus talks about his life and poetry” The Benin Review 1 (1974): 54–55. 117 G. Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall: A History of South African “Coloured” Politics (Cape Town: David Philip, 1987), 222. 118 Brutus is presumably referring to Deutscher’s three-volume biography The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 1879–1921 (1954), The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky, 1921–1929 (1959) and The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky, 1929–1940 (1963). 119 Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 29. 120 See W. Willkie, One World (London: Cassell and Co, 1943), 3–4. The book was a best-seller in the US and, according to David Levering Lewis in his 2018 biography, The Improbable Wendell Willkie, became “the most influential book published in the United States during World War II” (quoted by T. Mallon, “Can the GOP ever reclaim Wendell Willkie’s legacy,” The New Yorker, 11 Sep. 2018). See http://links.newyorker.mkt4334.com/ctt?kn=18& ms=MTQyMjI3NTQS1&r=MTMzMTgzNzQ1OTU3S0&b=0&j=MTQ4MDgz NzUzMgS2&mt=1&rt=0). 121 Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 54. 122 J. Donne, Selected Prose (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987), 126 (emphasis in the original). 123 Amazwi South African Museum of Literature (Amazwi), 1994.4.1.17. 124 Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 54. 125 See H. Bernstein, “Introduction”, The Rift: The Exile Experience of South Africans (London: Jonathan Cape, 1994), xii. 126 Lindfors, Dennis Brutus Tapes, 18.

Epilogue 1 2

D. Brutus, “Writer’s notes.” Bernth Lindfors Archive: Transcriptions. 9 Jan, 1969. ALS 4/28/2: L1, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg. H. Wylie, e-mail to author, 26 Sep. 2016.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 332

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

Notes

3

4

5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19

20 21

22

333

J. van Wyk, “Interview with Dennis Brutus” Alternation 8.2 (2001): 173; also see S. Gray, “Dennis Brutus” in Indaba: Interviews with African Writers (Pretoria: Protea Book House, 2005), 155. Anon., “Interview with Dennis Brutus” in Palaver: Interviews with Five African Writers in Texas, ed. B. Lindfors et al. (Austin: University of Texas, 1972), 32. B. Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness survives’: Dennis Brutus talks about his life and poetry” The Benin Review 1 (1974): 53. K. Goddard, “Dennis Brutus” in Out of Exile: South African Writers Speak, ed. K. Goddard and C. Wessels (Grahamstown: National English Literary Museum, 1992), 68. Anon., “Interview,” 32. D.B. Gibson, “Introduction” in Modern Black Poets: A Collection of Critical Essays, comp. D.B. Gibson (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1973), 1. D. Brutus, “The Poetry of suffering: The black experience,” Ba Shiru 4.2 (1973): 1. E.E. Miller, “An interview with Dennis Brutus,” Obsidian 1.2 (1975): 49. C. Pieterse, “Dennis Brutus” in African Writers Talking, ed. D. Duerden and C. Pieterse (London: Heinemann, 1972), 58. W.R. Johnson, The Idea of Lyric: Lyric Modes in Ancient and Modern Poetry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 177. D. Killam and R. Rowe, eds. The Companion to African Literatures (Oxford: James Currey; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 52. Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 51. D. Brutus, “From the Introduction to Salutes and Censures” in From South Africa: New Writing, Photographs and Art (TriQuarterly 69, Spring/Summer 1987), ed. D. Bunn and J. Taylor (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 364. D. Brutus, “Dennis Brutus 1924–” in Contemporary Authors: Autobiography Series, Vol. 14, ed. J. Nakamura (Detroit: Gale Research, 1991), 60. K. Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach” in The Communist Manifesto with Related Documents, ed. J.E. Toews (Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s, 1999), 139. D. Brutus, “Letter”, Sunday Independent, 13 Jan. 2008: 7. Brutus formally joined the ANC in the UK after it opened its membership to all South Africans at its consultative conference in Morogoro, Tanzania, in 1969 (L. Sustar and A. Karim, eds, Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006), 35–36). M.P. Giyose, personal interview, Port Alfred, 25 Nov. 2016. See Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 36; also see C.W. McLuckie, “A biographical introduction to Dennis Brutus’ art and activism” in Critical Perspectives on Dennis Brutus, ed. C.W. McLuckie and P.J. Colbert (Boulder: Three Continents Press, 1995), 7. Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 35.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 333

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

334

23 24 25

26 27 28

29 30

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

B. Lindfors, ed., The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography (Woodbridge: James Currey, 2011), 173. Sustar and Karim, Poetry and Protest, 36. D. Klopper, “The Lyric poem during and after apartheid” in The Cambridge History of South African Literature, ed. D. Attwell and D. Attridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 587. W.C. Spengemann, The Forms of Autobiography: Episodes in the History of a Literary Genre (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 171. Lindfors, “‘Somehow tenderness,’” 54. S. Lewis, “Speaking their wordless woe” in Selves in Question: Interviews on Southern African Auto/biography, ed. J.L. Coullie et al. (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2006), 153. D. Brutus, Stubborn Hope: New Poems and Selected Poems from China Poems and Strains (London: Heinemann, 1978), 66. D. Lindley, Lyric (London: Methuen, 1985), 21.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 334

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

Bibliography PRIMARY SOURCES POETRY B.K. [D. Brutus]. (1963a) Autumn, adelphi literary review, January B.K. [D. Brutus]. (1963b) Tourist guide, Fighting Talk, January Brutus D. (1963a) I am out of love with you for now, Penpoint 15: 43 Brutus D. (1963b) Off the campus: Wits, The Purple Renoster 5: 8 Brutus D. (1963c) Sirens Knuckles Boots. Ibadan: Mbari Publications Brutus D. (1963d) When they deprive me of the evenings, Penpoint 15: 15 Brutus D. (1966) Letters to Martha, Christian Action: 20–25 Brutus D. (1970) Thoughts Abroad. Del Valle: Troubadour Press Brutus D. (1973) A Simple Lust: Collected Poems of South African Jail and Exile. Oxford: Heinemann Brutus D. (1975) Strains. W. Kamin and C. Dameron (eds). Del Valle: Troubadour Press Brutus D. (1978a/1968) Letters to Martha and Other Poems from a South African Prison. London: Heinemann Brutus D. (1978b) Stubborn Hope: New Poems and Selected Poems from China Poems and Strains. London: Heinemann Brutus D. (1979/1971) Climates of love and continents. In C. Pieterse (ed.) Seven South African Poets: Poems of Exile. London: Heinemann Brutus D. (1986) Remembering the Fort Prison, Johannesburg. The Black Scholar 17.4: 51 Brutus D. (1988) Quixote, The Gar 35: 16 Brutus D. (1990/1989) Airs and Tributes. G. Ott (ed.). Camden: Whirlwind Press Brutus D. (1993) Still the Sirens. San Francisco: Pennywhistle Press Brutus D. (2005) Leafdrift. L.B. Steptoe (ed.). Camden: Whirlwind Brutus D. (2010/2004) Poetry and Human Rights: Poems by Dennis Brutus. K. Gibbs and W. Kamin (eds). Worcester: Worcester State College Le Dab [D. Brutus] (1945) Rendezvous. The SANC 26

PROSE Booth J.B. [D. Brutus]. “Fighting Talk” is silenced, The New African, 4 May 1962 Booth J.B. [D. Brutus]. Theatre: Second act, Fighting Talk, September 1962 Booth J.B. [D. Brutus]. Negritude, literature and nationalism, Fighting Talk, October 1962 Booth J.B. [D. Brutus]. Coloured education: Retreat from opposition? Fighting Talk, November 1962 Booth J.B. [D. Brutus]. Bringing down the apartheid curtain: Theatre, Fighting Talk, December 1962

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 335

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

336

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Booth J.B. [D. Brutus]. Silent poets, strangled writers, Fighting Talk, January 1963 Brutus D. Editorial: The flame and the darkness, Educational News, November/ December 1953 Brutus D. Tasks facing SASA, The Leader, 9 January 1959; 16 January 1959 Brutus D. Sports test for South Africa, Africa South, July–September 1959 Brutus D. South Africa and the next Olympic Games, Contact, 17 December 1960 Brutus D. Mr Honey concedes, Contact, 9 March 1961 Brutus D. In a Cape packing shed, Fighting Talk, August 1961 Brutus D. The Malmesbury convention: A preliminary report, Contact, 10 August 1961 Brutus D. “Whites only” SA teams out of world soccer, Contact, 5 October 1961 Brutus D. Let’s keep on battling, Golden City Post, 19 November 1961 Brutus D. Sport: Threat to the security of the state, Fighting Talk, December 1961/ January 1962 Brutus D. Cattle, The New African, January 1962 Brutus D. Some exciting finds, Contact, 25 January 1962 Brutus D. The new un-African, The New African, March 1962 Brutus D. Sport and politics, New Age, 10 May 1962 Brutus D. Sports racialists in tight corner, New Age, 14 June 1962 Brutus D. Where do we go from here? New Age, 21 June 1962 Brutus D. Letter, The Times, 6 December 1966 Brutus D. Reflections on a return to the land of sirens, knuckles, boots, In These Times, 6–12 November 1991 Brutus D. Letter, Sunday Independent, 13 January 2008 Brutus D. (1967) Robben Island, Christian Action: 14–17 Brutus D. (1969a) Childhood reminiscences. In P. Wastberg (ed.) The Writer in Modern Africa: African Scandinavian Writers’ Conference, Stockholm 1967. New York: Africana Publishing Corporation; Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies Brutus D. (1969b) Writer’s notes. Bernth Lindfors Archive: Transcriptions. 9 Jan. 1969. ALS 4/28/2: L1, Centre for African Literary Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg Brutus D. (1970) The blacks and the whites in sport, Africa Today 17.6: 2–5 Brutus D. (1973) The poetry of suffering: The black experience, Ba Shiru 4.2: 1–10 Brutus D. (1978/1969) Protest against apartheid. In C. Pieterse and D. Munro (eds) Protest and Conflict in African Literature. London: Heinemann Brutus D. (1981) Dennis Brutus on banning. In Censorship and Apartheid in South Africa: A Report by the PEN Freedom to Write Committee. New York: PEN American Center Brutus D. (1987) Introduction. Salutes and Censures. In D. Bunn and J. Taylor (eds) From South Africa: New Writing, Photographs and Art (TriQuarterly 69, Spring/ Summer 1987). Chicago: University of Chicago Press Brutus D. (1991) Dennis Brutus 1924– . In J. Nakamura (ed.) Contemporary Authors: Autobiography Series (Vol. 14). Detroit: Gale Research

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 336

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

Bibliography

337

Brutus D. (1993) Constellations of exile. In D. Burness (comp.) Echoes of the Sunbird: An Anthology of Contemporary African Poetry. Athens: Ohio University Press Brutus D. (2005) Preface. In A. Martin (comp.) Poems of Dennis Brutus: A Checklist, 1945–2004. Madison: Parallel Press Brutus D. (n.d.) Untitled, IDAF Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives DAB [D. Brutus]. Racism in reverse is still racism, Fighting Talk, June 1962 DIP [D. Brutus]. Book review, The Fort Harian, September 1947 DIP [D. Brutus]. David Copperfield, The Fort Harian, September 1947 Player J. [D. Brutus]. The rugby tour and the Maoris, Fighting Talk, December 1959 Player J. [D Brutus]. Bringing down the apartheid curtain: Sport, Fighting Talk, December 1962 Terry L.N. [D. Brutus]. Time for an all-out attack on the colour bar stage, Fighting Talk, May 1962

SECONDARY SOURCES Abasiekong D. (1965) Poetry pure and applied: Rabearivelo and Brutus, Transition 23: 45–48 Adhikari M. (1993) “Let Us Live for Our Children”: The Teachers’ League of South Africa, 1913–1940. Cape Town: Buchu Books; University of Cape Town Press Agherdien, Y., A.C. George and S. Hendricks (1997) South End: As We Knew It. Port Elizabeth: Western Research Group Allen N. Anti-apartheid sports campaigner, The Times, 29 January 1968 Alvarez-Pereyre J. (1984) The Poetry of Commitment. London: Heinemann Anon. (1902) College and school notes, Zonnebloem College Magazine 1.3: 1–3 Anon. (1902) Zonnebloem Cricket Club, Zonnebloem College Magazine 1.3: 5 Anon. (1903) Ceres, Zonnebloem College Magazine 1.6: 3–4 Anon. (1956) The Olympic Games: Fundamental Principles, Rules and Regulations. Lausanne: International Olympic Committee Anon. Kleur en sport: Dönges stel SA beleid, Die Burger, 26 June 1956 Anon. Passport to the Games refused, Evening Post, 30 July 1960 Anon. [“Puzzled schoolboy”]. “Letter”, Evening Post, 2 August 1960 Anon. Death ends father’s dream, Evening Post, 6 August 1960 Anon. In memory of Christopher Gell, Evening Post, 16 August 1960 Anon. Passport to Olympics delayed, Evening Post, 26 August 1960 Anon. State of emergency is over, Evening Post, 31 August 1960 Anon. (1961) Why a “Coloured” National Convention? Cape Town: South African Coloured National Convention Anon. SASA to discuss future of white and non-white sportsman, The Leader, 6 January 1961 Anon. Peake will speak in PE, Evening Post, 22 June 1961

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 337

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

338

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Anon. PE call for all-race talks, Evening Post, 26 June 1961 Anon. Coloured talks: 11 charged, Evening Post, 11 July 1961 Anon. X [illegible word] talks report back, Evening Post, 19 July 1961 Anon. Erasmus move: A coloured view, Evening Post, 25 July 1961 Anon. SASA plans new campaign, Contact, 27 July 1961 Anon. SASA fires new salvo, The Leader, 28 July 1961 Anon. Resolutions of the Malmesbury convention, Fighting Talk, August 1961 Anon. Boycott coloured elections, New Age, 7 September 1961 Anon. CPC pickets US apartheid producer, New Age, 21 September 1961 Anon. Dennis Brutus suspended, New Age, 21 September 1961 Anon. South Africans out of Perth Games, Contact, 21 September 1961 Anon. PE against theatre apartheid, New Age, 28 September 1961 Anon. Renewed pleas for National Convention, Evening Post, 14 October 1961 Anon. Banned teacher: “I’m no red,” Evening Post, 17 October 1961 Anon. Five police calls on vanished teacher, Evening Post, 18 October 1961 Anon. Big step taken towards national conference, Contact, 19 October 1961 Anon. National convention “a matter of life and death,” New Age, 19 October 1961 Anon. A new National Convention, Evening Post, 20 October 1961 Anon. Fierce freedom struggle ahead, Evening Post, 23 October 1961 Anon. “We want Brutus,” New Age, 2 November 1961 Anon. (1962) A Short Pictorial History of the University College of Fort Hare 1916– 1959. Alice: Lovedale Press Anon. Sports assn writes to British Lions, The Leader, 11 May 1962 Anon. British Lions: Envoys for apartheid, New Age, 24 May 1962 Anon. The inside story about SASA, New Age, 30 August 1962 Anon. Dennis Brutus elected to Wits SRC, New Age, 6 September 1962 Anon. Radicals on students’ councils, Contact, 6 September 1962 Anon. Non-racial Olympics committee formed, New Age, 11 October 1962 Anon. Delegates’ day flit, Golden City Post, 14 October 1962 Anon. SANROC calls for sportsman’s convention, New Age, 29 November 1962 Anon. Who’s who in SANROC, New Age, 29 November 1962 Anon. Prize for poem that can’t be read in S. Africa, Rand Daily Mail, 15 December 1962 Anon. South African, Nigerian win Mbari literary prizes, Fighting Talk, January 1963 Anon. S. African sports leader on bail, The Times, 31 May 1963 Anon. Nairobi is Brutus’s goal, Eastern Province Herald, 10 August 1963 Anon. Swaziland refuses Brutus, Eastern Province Herald, 17 August 1963 Anon. Aged mother questioned, The Star, 18 September 1963 Anon. Brutus was shot in freedom dash, The Star, 18 September 1963 Anon. Fugitive Brutus shot, Rand Daily Mail, 18 September 1963 Anon. Fugitive Brutus shot on Rand, Eastern Province Herald, 18 September 1963 Anon. Police take no chances with Brutus, Rand Daily Mail, 19 September 1963

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 338

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

Bibliography

339

Anon. Strict guard on Brutus’s ward, Eastern Province Herald, 19 September 1963 Anon. Arrest stopped Brutus going to Olympic meeting, Rand Daily Mail, 20 September 1963 Anon. Brutus makes dramatic sickbed protest, Golden City Post, 22 September 1963 Anon. Brutus has contracted slight pneumonia, Eastern Province Herald, 25 September 1963 Anon. Brutus has bigger guard, Eastern Province Herald, 28 September 1963 Anon. UN to take up Brutus case? Golden City Post, 29 September 1963 Anon. Exams in jail for 2 students, Rand Daily Mail, 5 November 1963 Anon. Brutus case adjourned, Rand Daily Mail, 11 December 1963 Anon. R250 to be returned to Sanroc, Rand Daily Mail, 7 April 1964 Anon. Greek play not for whites, Eastern Province Herald, 23 May 1965 Anon. Plans for South End welcomed – Botha, Eastern Province Herald, 3 June 1965 Anon. Call to boycott cricket tour, Eastern Province Herald, 28 June 1965 Anon. Brutus out: House arrest now, Evening Post, 8 July 1965 Anon. Brutus rejoins his family, Eastern Province Herald, 9 July 1965 Anon. Untitled, Evening Post, 9 July 1965 Anon. North End Lake site for sale, Evening Post, 16 July 1965 Anon. 916 East Cape political arrests in two years, Eastern Province Herald, 17 July 1965 Anon. UN releases details, Eastern Province Herald, 28 July 1965 Anon. SA cultural boycott “crippling” theatre, Evening Post, 12 August 1965 Anon. Where non-whites have no library service, Evening Post, 23 September 1965 Anon. Poetical – but cops thought it might be political! Golden City Post, 6 October 1965 Anon. Grave concern over sports future, Evening Post, 11 October 1965 Anon. Coloured families move out, Evening Post, 26 November 1965 Anon. Coloured People’s Congress trials, Contact, December 1965 Anon. Clearance move in South End section starts, Evening Post, 1 December 1965 Anon. Moving day for South End coloureds, Eastern Province Herald, 15 December 1965 Anon. UN condemns apartheid as peace threat, Eastern Province Herald, 16 December 1965 Anon. (1966) University College of Fort Hare: Golden Jubilee 1916–1966. Alice: Fort Hare University Press Anon. Unemployment up but no alarm in city, Eastern Province Herald, 4 March 1966 Anon. Coloured housing plight spotlighted, Eastern Province Herald, 24 March 1966 Anon. Biggest win in history of SA, Eastern Province Herald, 1 April 1966 Anon. Govt silences 46 S. Africans abroad, Eastern Province Herald, 2 April 1966

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 339

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

340

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Anon. Sanroc active in Rome, Eastern Province Herald, 23 April 1966 Anon. Politics in sport denounced by IOC chief, Eastern Province Herald, 25 April 1966 Anon. Another Sanroc man in Rome, Eastern Province Herald, 26 April 1966 Anon. Equity to retain “ban” on SA, Eastern Province Herald, 26 April 1966 Anon. SA keeps Olympic membership, Eastern Province Herald, 27 April 1966 Anon. Vorster warns Mrs Brutus, Post (Cape edition), 1 May 1966 Anon. Brutus wants to quit SA, Post (Cape edition), 29 May 1966 Anon. Biggest military display seen in SA, Eastern Province Herald, 1 June 1966 Anon. Brutus leaves for UK on exit permit, Eastern Province Herald, 30 July 1966 Anon. (1972) Interview with Dennis Brutus. In B. Lindfors, I. Munro, R. Priebe and R. Sander (eds) Palaver: Interviews with Five African Writers in Texas. Austin: University of Texas Astrachan A.M. (1963) Creative writing, Nigeria Magazine 79: 290–294 Auden W.H. (1984/1966) Collected Shorter Poems 1927–1957. London: Faber and Faber Backscheider P.R. (2001) Reflections on Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press Barnett U. (1983) A Vision of Order: A Study of Black South African Literature in English (1914–1980). London: Sinclair Browne Beier U. (1963) Three Mbari poets, Black Orpheus 12: 46–50 Beinart W. (2001/1994) Twentieth-Century South Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press Benson M. The men on Robben Island, The Guardian, 10 August 1964 Benson M. (1990a/1989) A Far Cry: The Making of a South African. London: Penguin Books Benson M. (1990b/1986) Nelson Mandela. London: Penguin Books Berger R. (1980) Interview with Dennis Brutus, Genéve Afrique 18: 73–78 Bernstein H. (1994) Introduction. In H. Bernstein (ed.) The Rift: The Exile Experience of South Africans. London: Jonathan Cape Bernstein H. (n.d.) Transcript of interview with May Brutus. TS MCA 7, Hilda Bernstein Collection, UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives, Cape Town Bizos G. (2017) 65 Years of Friendship: A Memoir of My Friendship with Mandela. Cape Town: Umuzi Bose M. (1994) Sporting Colours: Sport and Politics in South Africa. London: Robson Brimble L., D. Brutus, W. Kamin and H. Wylie (1988) It’s 1 967 miles from Port Elizabeth to San Antonio, The Gar 35: 11–15, 18–19 Bruckner M.T. (1995) The trobairitz. In F.R.P. Akehurst and J.M. Davis (eds) A Handbook of the Troubadours. Berkeley: University of California Press Brutus, M. “South Africa: ‘A land of broken spirits,’” publication unknown, 1984 Butler H. Anti-SA slogan greets Boks, Eastern Province Herald, 16 July 1965 Cachalia A. (2013) When Hope and History Rhyme. Johannesburg: Picador Africa Cajee A. (2016) Fordsburg Fighter: The Journey of an MK Volunteer. Cape Town: Face2Face

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 340

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

Bibliography

341

Carey J. (1990/1981) John Donne: Life, Mind and Art. London: Faber and Faber Cascardi A.J. (2002) Introduction. In A.J. Cascardi (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Cervantes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cavill A. and Blow D. Fugitive Brutus shot, Rand Daily Mail, 18 September 1963 Chapman M. (2018) Sydney Clouts: Poet’s poet…and more? Current Writing 30.1: 35–47 Christopher A.J. (1987) Apartheid planning in South Africa: A case study of Port Elizabeth, The Geographical Journal 153.2: 195–204 Christopher A.J. (1994) The Atlas of Apartheid. London and New York: Routledge; Johannesburg: Wits University Press Cicero [D. Brutus?] Whites only, Evening Post, 18 December 1965 Cleophas F.J. (2014) Writing and contextualising local history: A historical narrative of the Wellington Horticultural Society (Coloured), Yesterday & Today 11: 21–53 Clouts S. (1984) Collected Poems. M. Clouts and C. Clouts (eds). Cape Town: David Philip Copeman F. (1948) Reason in Revolt. London: Blackford Press Copleston F.C. (1977/1955) Aquinas. Middlesex: Penguin Books Cubitt C. More summonses for debt, Evening Post, 2 July 1960 Currey J. (2008) Africa Writes Back: The African Writers Series and the Launch of African Literature. Oxford: James Currey Daniels E. (1998) There and Back: Robben Island 1964–1979. Cape Town: Mayibuye Books Dathorne O.R. (1976) African Literature in the Twentieth Century. London: Heinemann Davies W.J. (1971) Patterns of Non-White Population Distribution in Port Elizabeth with Special Reference to the Group Areas Act. Port Elizabeth: Institute for Planning Research, University of Port Elizabeth Davis G.V. and Ehling H.G. (1994) On a knife edge: Interview with Dennis Brutus. In G.V. Davis (ed.) Southern African Writing: Voyages and Explorations. Amsterdam: Rodopi Degenaar J.J. (1981) “Oosthuizen, Daniel Charl Stephanus”. In C.J. Beyers (ed.) Dictionary of South African Biography (Vol. 4). Pretoria: HSRC De La Mare W. (1969) The Complete Poems of Walter de la Mare. London: Faber and Faber Dick A.L. (2012) The Hidden History of South Africa’s Book and Reading Cultures. Toronto, Buffalo and London: University of Toronto Press Dobson P. (1996) Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry: South Africa vs New Zealand 1921–1995. Cape Town: Human & Rousseau Donne J. (1977/1971) The Complete English Poems. A. Smith (ed.). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Donne J. (1987) Selected Prose. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Dostoyevsky F. (2003) The Brothers Karamazov (trans. and intro. D. McDuff). London: Penguin Books Ellmann R. (1973/1949) Yeats: The Man and the Masks. London: Faber and Faber

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 341

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

342

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Erwee J.A. and Davies W.J. (1973) The Port Elizabeth Metropolitan Area: An Appraisal of Terrain, Land Use and Possible Future Development Patterns. Port Elizabeth: Institute for Planning Research, University of Port Elizabeth Feldmann-Laschin G.R. (1967) Income and Expenditure Patterns of Urban Coloured Households (Port Elizabeth/Uitenhage Survey). Pretoria: Unisa Bureau of Market Research Fieldhouse R. (2005) Anti-Apartheid: A History of the Movement in Britain. London: Merlin Press Frankel P. (2001) An Ordinary Atrocity: Sharpeville and Its Massacre. New Haven: Yale University Press Frawley M. (2008) The Victorian age, 1832–1901. In P. Poplawski (ed.) English Literature in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Frederikse J. (1990) The Unbreakable Thread: Non-Racialism in South Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan Press Fuentes C. (1986) Foreword. In M. de Cervantes (trans. T. Smollett) The Adventures of Don Quixote de La Mancha. London: André Deutsch Fugard A. “Letter”, Evening Post, 23 December 1965 Fugard A. Notebooks 1960–1977. M. Benson (ed.). London: Faber and Faber, 1983 Gardner W.H. (1958/1953) Introduction. In W.H. Gardner (ed.) Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Gell C.W.M. Port Elizabeth Diary, Africa South, 1.4 July–September 1957 Gerhart G.M. and T. Karis (1977) From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa (Vol. 4). Stanford: Hoover Institution Press Gibson D.B. (1973) Introduction. In D.B. Gibson (comp.) Modern Black Poets: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Gibson I. (1989) Federico Garcia Lorca: A Life. New York: Pantheon Books Goddard K. (1992) Dennis Brutus. In K. Goddard and C. Wessels (eds) Out of Exile: South African Writers Speak. Grahamstown: National English Literary Museum Goddard K. (1992) Sydney Clouts’s poetry, English in Africa 19.2: 15–34 Goldin I. (1987) Making Race: The Politics and Economics of Coloured Identity in South Africa. Cape Town: Maskew Miller Longman Goodwin K.L. (1982) Understanding African Poetry: A Study of Ten Poets. London: Heinemann Govender R. It was a flight into the sun for Brutus, The Leader, 29 January 1960 Gray S. (2005) Dennis Brutus. In S. Gray, Indaba: Interviews with African Writers. Pretoria: Protea Book House Grobler J. (2014) Black resistance against apartheid, 1950s–1980s. In F. Pretorius (ed.) A History of South Africa: From the Distant Past to the Present Day. Pretoria: Protea Book House Gross T. (1986) Interview with Dennis Brutus, “Fresh Air,” National Public Radio, United States. Bernth Lindfors Collection, C4688 (Side 1), Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas Hain P. (1996) Sing the Beloved Country: The Struggle for the New South Africa.

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 342

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

Bibliography

343

London and Chicago: Pluto Press Harradine M. (1996) Port Elizabeth: A Social Chronicle to the End of 1945. Port Elizabeth: E.H. Walton Packaging Harvey R. (1999) Courtly love in medieval Occitania. In S. Gaunt and S. Kay (eds) The Troubadours: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Hepple B. (2013) Young Man with a Red Tie: A Memoir of Mandela and the Failed Revolution, 1960–1963. Johannesburg: Jacana Higgs C. (1997) The Ghost of Equality: The Public Lives of D.D.T. Jabavu of South Africa, 1885–1959. Athens: Ohio University Press Hiscock A. (2008) The Renaissance, 1485–1660. In P. Poplawski (ed.) English Literature in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Hoare P. (2009) Leviathian or, The Whale. London: Fourth Estate Holmes R. (1995) Biography: Inventing the truth. In J. Batchelor (ed.) The Art of Literary Biography. Oxford: Clarendon Press Hommel M. (1981) Capricorn Blues: The Struggle for Human Rights in South Africa. Toronto: Culturama Horrell M. (1965) A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1964. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations Horrell M. (1966) A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1965. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations Horrell M. (1967a) Port Elizabeth: Report on Plans for Group Areas and Beach Zoning. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations Horrell M. (1967b) A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1966. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations Horrell M. (1968) South Africa and the Olympic Games. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations Horrell M. (1970) The Education of the Coloured Community in South Africa 1652– 1970. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations Hughes T. (1972/1942) Tom Brown’s Schooldays. London: J.M. Dent and Sons Hutchinson A. (2006/1960) Road to Ghana. Johannesburg: Penguin Books Hyslop J. (2010) On biography: A response to Ciraj Rassool, South African Review of Sociology 41.2: 104–115 IDAF (International Defence and Aid Fund). (1967) South African Prisons and the Red Cross Investigation: An Examination by International Defence and Aid Fund, with Prisoners’ Testimony. London: Christian Action Publications Imrie J. Holding of Brutus, Rand Daily Mail, 23 September 1963 Jeffares A.N. (1990/1988) W.B. Yeats: A New Biography. London: Arena Jeftha G. (n.d.) Dowerville/Lakeview (Forced Removals 1964): A Sociological Report. Personal document made available to the author Johnson W.R. (1982) The Idea of Lyric: Lyric Modes in Ancient and Modern Poetry. Berkeley: University of California Press Kathrada A. (2004) Memoirs. Cape Town: Zebra Press Katz J. (1983) For the unsung brave: Dennis Brutus, Poet from South Africa (1973). In J. Katz (ed.) Artists in Exile. New York: Stein and Day

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 343

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

344

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Keats J. (1970/1956) Keats: Poetical Works. H.W. Garrod (ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press Kerr A. (1968) Fort Hare 1915–48: The Evolution of an African College. Pietermaritzburg: Shuter & Shooter Kies B.M. (1943) The Background of Segregation. Cape Town: Anti-CAD Committee Killam D. and Rowe R. (eds) (2000) The Companion to African Literatures. Oxford: James Currey; Bloomington: Indiana University Press Kitson P.J. (2008) The Romantic period, 1780–1832. In P. Poplawski (ed.) English Literature in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Klopper D. (2012) The lyric poem during and after apartheid. In D. Attwell and D. Attridge (eds) The Cambridge History of South African Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Klose K. Rebel without a country, The Washington Post (Style), 16 August 1983 La Guma A. Coloured convention outwits the government, New Age, 13 July 1961 Lapchick R.E. (1975) The Politics of Race and International Sport: The Case of South Africa. Westport: Greenwood Press Legum C. and Legum M. (1968) Dennis Brutus: Poet and sportsman. In C. Legum and M. Legum The Bitter Choice: Eight South Africans’ Resistance to Tyranny. Cleveland: World Publishing Company Leigh R.L. (ed.) (1966) The City of Port Elizabeth. Johannesburg: Felstar Publishers Lewin H. (1981/1974) Bandiet: Seven Years in a South African Prison. London: Heinemann Lewis G. (1987) Between the Wire and the Wall: A History of South African “Coloured” Politics. Cape Town: David Philip Lewis S. (2006) Speaking their wordless woe. In J.L. Coullie, S. Meyer, T.H. Ngwenya and T. Olver (eds) Selves in Question: Interviews on Southern African Auto/biography. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press Lindfors B. (1974) “Somehow tenderness survives”: Dennis Brutus talks about his life and poetry, The Benin Review 1: 44–55 Lindfors B. (1976) Dialectical development in the poetry of Dennis Brutus. In A. Niven (ed.) The Commonwealth Writer Overseas: Themes of Exile and Expatriation. Liege: Revue des Langues Vivantes Lindfors B. (1999) Introduction. In B. Lindfors (ed.) The Blind Men and the Elephant and Other Essays in Biographical Criticism. New Jersey and Asmara: Africa World Press Lindfors B. (ed.) (2011) The Dennis Brutus Tapes: Essays at Autobiography. Woodbridge: James Currey Lindley D. (1985) Lyric. London: Methuen Lodge T. (1987/1983) Black Politics in South Africa since 1945. Johannesburg: Ravan Press Longfellow H. (18–?) The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. London: Ward, Lock and Co. Luthuli A. and G.M. Naicker. Don’t support apartheid, New Age, 14 June 1962 Mandela N. (1990/1978) Nelson Mandela: The Struggle Is My Life. London: IDAF Publications

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 344

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

Bibliography

345

Manganyi N.C. and Attwell D. (eds) (2010) Bury Me at the Marketplace: Es’kia Mphahlele and Company, Letters 1943–2006. Johannesburg: Wits University Press Marcus S. Poet laureate in exile, The Progressive, August 1984 Maritain J. (1931) St Thomas Aquinas: Angel of the Schools. London: Sheed & Ward Martin A. (comp.) (2005) Poems of Dennis Brutus: A Checklist, 1945–2004. Madison: Parallel Press Marx K. (1999) Theses on Feuerbach. In J.E. Toews (ed.) The Communist Manifesto with Related Documents. Boston: Bedford/St Martin’s Massey D. (2010) Under Protest: The Rise of Student Resistance at the University of Fort Hare. Pretoria: Unisa Press Matteau-Matsha R. (2013) “I read what I like”: Politics of reading and reading politics in apartheid South Africa, Transformation 83: 56–85 Matthews Z.K. (1981) Freedom for My People: The Autobiography of Z.K. Matthews: Southern Africa 1901 to 1968. London: Rex Collings; Cape Town: David Philip Mbeki G. 30 000 at funeral of man who was shot by the police, New Age, 5 April 1956 McDonald P.D. (2009) The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and Its Cultural Consequences. Oxford: Oxford University Press McLuckie C.W. (1995) A biographical introduction to Dennis Brutus’ art and activism. In C.W. McLuckie and P.J. Colbert (eds) Critical Perspectives on Dennis Brutus. Boulder: Three Continents Press Mercouri M. (1971) I Was Born Greek. New York: Doubleday Miller E.E. (1975) An interview with Dennis Brutus, Obsidian 1.2: 42–55 Montgomery J. (1857) The Select Poetical Works of James Montgomery. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Co. Moore T. (1924) The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore. A.D. Godley (ed.). London: Milford Morrow S. (2016) The Fires Beneath: The Life of Monica Wilson, South African Anthropologist. Cape Town: Penguin Books Mphahlele E. (1972) Voices in the whirlwind: Poetry and conflict. In E. Mphahlele Voices in the Whirlwind and Other Essays. New York: Hill & Wang Mphahlele E. (1984) Afrika My Music: An Autobiography 1957–1983. Johannesburg: Ravan Press Murray B. and C. Merrett (2004) Caught Behind: Race and Politics in Springbok Cricket. Johannesburg: Wits University Press; Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press Naidoo I. (2000/1982) Island in Chains: Ten Years on Robben Island. Johannesburg: Penguin Books Nasson B. (2016) History Matters: Selected Writings, 1970–2016. Cape Town: Penguin Books Newnham T. (1975) Apartheid Is Not a Game: The Inside Story of New Zealand’s Struggle against Apartheid Sport. Auckland: Graphic Publications

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 345

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

346

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Nortje A. (2000) Anatomy of Dark: Collected Poems of Arthur Nortje. Dirk Klopper (ed.). Pretoria: University of South Africa Oborne P. (2004) Basil D’Oliveira: Cricket and Conspiracy: The Untold Story. London: Little, Brown Odendaal A. (2003) The Story of an African Game. Cape Town: David Philip Ojaide T. (1986) The troubadour: The poet’s persona in the poetry of Dennis Brutus, Ariel 17.1: 55–69 Pahad A. (2014) Insurgent Diplomat: Civil Talks or Civil War? Johannesburg: Penguin Books Paton A. (1988) Journey Continued: An Autobiography. Cape Town: David Philip Pieterse C. (1972) Dennis Brutus. In D. Duerden and C. Pieterse (eds) African Writers Talking. London: Heinemann Pogrund B. (1990) Sobukwe and Apartheid. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Primoratz I. (2007) Patriotism and morality: Mapping the terrain. In I. Primoratz and A. Pavković (eds) Patriotism: Philosophical and Political Perspectives. Aldershot: Ashgate Prince G. Letter, The Herald, 8 January 2010 Ramsamy S. (with E. Griffiths) (2004) Reflections on a Life in Sport. Cape Town: Greenhouse Rangasamy G.K., A. Paton and D. Brutus Open letter to the “Lions,” Contact, 31 May 1962 Raper P.E., L.A. Moller and L.T. Du Plessis (2014) Dictionary of Southern African Place Names. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Sandwith C. (2014) World of Letters: Reading Communities and Cultural Debates in Early Apartheid South Africa. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press Saunders F.S. (2000/1999) The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters. New York: The New Press Scher D.M. (2014) The consolidation of the apartheid state. In F. Pretorius (ed.) A History of South Africa: From the Distant Past to the Present Day. Pretoria: Protea Book House Scott W. (1960/1904) The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott. J.L. Robertson (ed.). London: Oxford University Press Shakespeare W. (1996) The Tempest. A. Barton (ed.). London: Penguin Books Sharp M. (2008) “All a prisoner’s predicament”: The enduring essence of Dennis Brutus’ Letters to Martha. In T. Falola, N. Afolabi and A.A. Adesanya (eds) Migrations and Creative Expressions in Africa and the African Diaspora. Durham: Carolina Academic Press Shava P.V. (1989) A People’s Voice: Black South African Writing in the Twentieth Century. London: Zed Books; Athens: Ohio University Press Simons J. and Simons R. (1983/1969) Class and Colour in South Africa 1850–1950. London: International Defence and Aid Fund Sparks A. Swazi official tipped police – Msibi, Rand Daily Mail, 27 September 1963

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 346

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

Bibliography

347

Spengemann W.C. (1980) The Forms of Autobiography: Episodes in the History of a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale University Press Stelzig E. (2012) “Lives without narrative”: Romantic lyric as autobiography, The Wordsworth Circle 43.1: 56–58 Steptoe L.B. (2005) Interview: The poetic aesthetic of Dennis Brutus. In D. Brutus, L.B. Steptoe (ed.) Leafdrift. Camden: Whirlwind Strachan H. (2004) Make a Skyf, Man! Johannesburg: Jacana Strand M. (2000) On becoming a poet. In M. Strand and E. Boland (eds) The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. New York: W.W. Norton Sustar L. and Karim A. (eds) (2006) Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader. Chicago: Haymarket Books Tabor C.J. (1929) The troubadours, Folklore 40.4: 345–368 Tennyson A. (1968/1953) Tennyson: Poems and Plays. London: Oxford University Press Tennyson A. (2007) Selected Poems. C. Ricks (ed.). London: Penguin Books Thomas C. (2012) Times with Dennis Brutus: Conversations, Quotations and Snapshots 2005–2009. East London: Wendy’s Book Lounge Thomas C. (2014) Coloureds: A complex history. In F. Pretorius (ed.) A History of South Africa: From the Distant Past to the Present Day. Pretoria: Protea Book House Thompson L. (1995) A History of South Africa. New Haven and London: Yale University Press Thompson R. (1964) Race and Sport. London: Oxford University Press Thompson W. (1983) Dennis Brutus: An interview, Ufahamu 12.2: 69–77 Thumboo E. (1974) Dennis Brutus: Apartheid and the troubadour, Joliso 2.2: 31–46 Turok B. (2003) Nothing but the Truth: Behind the ANC’s Struggle Politics. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Ungar A. (1967/1966) South Africa. In E. Heimler (ed.) Resistance against Tyranny: A Symposium Edited by Eugene Heimler. New York and Washington: Frederick A. Praeger Van der Ross R.E. [R] (1986) The Rise and Decline of Apartheid: A Study of Political Movements among the Coloured People of South Africa, 1880–1985. Cape Town: Tafelberg Van der Ross, D. [R] (2010) A Blow to the Hoop: The Story of My Life and Times. Cape Town: Ampersand Press Van der Ross R. (2015) In Our Own Skins: A Political History of the Coloured People. Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball Van Wyk J. (2001) Interview with Dennis Brutus, Alternation 8.2: 168–215 Vigne R. (1997) Liberals against Apartheid: A History of the Liberal Party of South Africa, 1953–68. Hampshire and New York: Basingstoke Visagie J. (2014) The emigration of the Voortrekkers into the interior. In F Pretorius (ed.) A History of South Africa: From the Distant Past to the Present Day. Pretoria: Protea Book House

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 347

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

348

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Wahlman M. (1974) Literature. In M. Wahlman (ed.) Contemporary African Arts. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History Watt I. (1997/1996) Myths of Modern Individualism: Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Robinson Crusoe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Welsh D. (2010/2009) The Rise and Fall of Apartheid. Johannesburg and Cape Town: Jonathan Ball White N. (1992) Hopkins: A Literary Biography. Oxford: Clarendon Press Willkie W. (1943) One World. London: Cassell and Co. Willmott R. (1985) Introduction. In R. Willmott (ed.) Four Metaphysical Poets: An Anthology of Poetry by Donne, Herbert, Marvell and Vaughan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Winter G. (1981) Inside Boss: South Africa’s Secret Police. Middlesex: Penguin Books Wordsworth W. (1959/1940) Preface. In W. Wordsworth and S.T. Coleridge The Lyrical Ballads: 1798–1805. London: Methuen Wordsworth W. (2006/1994) The Collected Poems of William Wordsworth. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Wylie H. (1990) Ruth First’s resistance activities and non-fiction. Paper presented at the African Literature Association conference at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin Yagoda B. (2009) Memoir: A History. New York: Riverhead Books Yon D.A. (2007) Race-making/race-mixing: St Helena and the South Atlantic world, Social Dynamics 33.2: 144–163 Zumthor P. (1995) An overview: Why the troubadours? In F.R.P. Akehurst and J.M. Davis (eds) A Handbook of the Troubadours. Berkeley: University of California Press

INTERVIEWS Adriaan, Lionel, personal interview, Cape Town, 29 March 2017 Brutus, Dennis, personal interview, Johannesburg, 18 June 1998 Carelse, Peter, personal interview, Cape Town, 29 March 2017 Coetzee, Urvin, telephonic interview, 26 October 2017 Daniels, Eddie, personal interview, Cape Town, 21 December 2016 Davis, Lionel, personal interview, Cape Town, 14 February 2017 Francis, Neville, personal interview, Port Elizabeth, 27 November 2018 Giyose, M.P., personal interview, Port Alfred, 25 November 2016 Jeftha, Gerald, personal interview, Cape Town, 30 March 2017 Kathrada, Ahmed, personal interview, Cape Town, 23 December 2016 La Guma, Blanche, personal interview, Cape Town, 27 March 2013 Laing, Theresa, telephonic interview, 23 October 2017 Langa, Mandla, personal interview, Johannesburg, 28 August 2012 Marcus, Sybil, telephonic interview, 26 April 2019 Ndebele, Njabulo, personal interview, Cape Town, 4 February 2013 O’Brien, Ramleigh, personal interview, Port Elizabeth, 28 November 2018 Petersen, Hamilton, personal interview, Port Elizabeth, 23 November 2016

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 348

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

349

Bibliography

Rousseau, Mervyn, telephonic interview, 9 March 2017 Serote, Mongane Wally, personal interview, Johannesburg, 25 September 2012 Simon, Fred, telephonic interview, 8 February 2016 Smith, Lionel, personal interview, Port Elizabeth, 27 November 2018 Yon, Gregory, telephonic interview, 21 March 2019 Yon, Paul, personal interview, Johannesburg, 12 March 2019

CORRESPONDENCE Bardien, Ebrahim, undated letter, stamped 25 September 1998 Buckley, Tracy, e-mails, 7 June 2017 and 8 August 2017 Chinyemba, Ashabai, e-mail, 26 May 2016 Davis, Lionel, e-mail, 9 July 2018 La Guma, Blanche, e-mail, 1 August 2018 Magnus, Hilton M., letter, 30 September 1998 Marcus, Sybil, e-mails, 24 February 2018 and 27 August 2018 Murison, Neville, e-mail, 2 March 2017 Robertson, Jacinta, e-mail, 7 August 2018 Schroeder, Elroy, e-mail to Lionel Smith, 10 February 2017 Wylie, Hal, e-mails, 26 and 27 September 2016

ARCHIVES Amazwi South African Museum of Literature (formerly National English Literary Museum), Makhanda Borthwick Institute for Archives, University of York, York, United Kingdom Catholic Diocese of Port Elizabeth Centre for African Literary Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg Cory Library for Humanities Research, Rhodes University, Makhanda Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas, Austin, United States LRC Oral History Project, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg National Archives of South Africa, Pretoria Special Collections, J.W. Jagger Library, University of Cape Town UWC-Robben Island Museum Mayibuye Archives, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town

WEBSITES Aberdare (n.d.) Aberdare Cables. Accessed September 2018, https://www. aberdare.co.za/ Anon. (2003) The Man with the Very Warm Handshake. Accessed February 2018, https://mg.co.za/article/2003-07-15-the-man-with-very-warm-handshake Anon. (2010) Dennis Brutus (obituary). Accessed April 2018, https://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/sport-obituaries/7377841/DennisBrutus.html

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 349

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

350

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Bel-Essex Corporation (n.d.) Bel-Essex Corporation. Accessed September 2018, www.bel-essex.com/be-engineering.htm British 1820 Settlers (2018) Transcribed Marriage Entries for Brutus. Accessed April 2018, www.1820settlers.com/genealogy/settlerbrowsemarrs. php?name=BRUTUS Butler L-A. (2016) Tribute to Century of Dower College. Accessed January 2018, http://www.heraldlive.co.za/news/2016/03/31/tribute-century-dowercollege/ Chesterton G.K. (1932) St Thomas Aquinas. Accessed June 2018, https://www. chesterton.org/st-thomas-aquinas/ De Broglio C. (n.d.) The SANROC Story. Accessed January 2017, http://onlinelaw. co.za/docs/The_SANROC story.pdf Frederikse J. (2009) Dennis Brutus interview transcript, SAHA Collection AL2460, South African History Archive. Accessed December 2013, http://www.saha. org.za/nonracialism/transcript_of_interview_with_dennis_brutus.htm Loerie Ruskamp (2009) Loerie Ruskamp. Accessed January 2018, http://www. loerieruskamp.co.za/hankey.html Looby R. (2005) Still Fighting Apartheid: South African Activist Dennis Brutus. Accessed January 2017, http://www.threemonkeysonline.com/stillfighting-apartheid-south-african-activist-dennis-brutus/1/ Mallon T. (2018) Can the GOP ever Reclaim Wendell Willkie’s Legacy? The New Yorker, 11 September. Accessed September 2018, http://links.newyorker.mkt4334. com/ctt?kn=18&ms=MTQyMjI3NTQS1&r=MTMzMTgzNzQ1OTU3S0&b= 0&j=MTQ4MDgzNzUzMgS2&mt=1&rt=0 Paterson High School (n.d.) Paterson High School: A Brief History. Accessed September 2018, http://patersonhigh.co.za/history/ PEN International (2018) PEN International: Our History. Accessed July 2018, https://pen-international.org/who-we-are/history Prabook (World Biographical Encyclopedia) (2018) Allen Mkaulo Malabane Nxumalo. Accessed October 2018, https://prabook.com:8443/web/allen. nxumalo/1719333 Russell, C. (2018) Ivor Montagu: Communist Aristocrat, Soviet Spy and Activist Filmmaker. Accessed November 2018, http://theconversation. com/ivor-montagu-communist-aristocrat-soviet-spy-and-activistfilmmaker-101600 SAHO (South African History Online) (2011) Andrew Mandla Lekoto Masondo. Accessed April 2018, http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/andrewmasondo SAHO (South African History Online) (2011) Bishop Mmutlanyane Stanley Mogoba. Accessed April 2018, http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/bishopmmutlanyane-stanley-mogoba SAHO (South African History Online) (2011) Grey Street Complex Timeline 18001999. Accessed July 2018, https://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/grey-streetcomplex-timeline-1800-1999

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 350

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

Bibliography

351

SAHO (South African History Online) (2011) Jordan Kush Ngubane. Accessed April 2018, http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/jordan-kush-ngubane Saunders C. (2017) Dower, William. Accessed August 2017, http://www. oxforddnb.com/view/article/45502 Unz Review (n.d.) Horizon Archives. Accessed April 2018, http://www.unz.com/ print/Horizon/Contents/ Vigne R. (2009) Barney Zackon: Lawyer and Activist Who Fought against Apartheid. Accessed April 2018, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/ barney-zackon-lawyer-and-activist-who-fought-against-apartheid-1699433. html

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 351

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

Index Please note: Page numbers in italics refer to images. Endnotes are indicated by the letter n.

A Abasiekong, Daniel 7, 133, 189 Abdurahman, Abdullah 30, 31 Abrahams, Lionel 117, 298n132 letter from Brutus to 248 adelphi literary review 6, 120, 121, 122, 133, 299n148 Adriaan, Lionel 71, 72, 74, 75, 76 African Literature Association (ALA) 17, 18 African National Congress (ANC) 5 banning of leaders 91–92 Brutus’ involvement in 96–99, 254, 255 Defiance Campaign 91, 288n24 and TLSA 87, 88 African Political Organisation (APO) 30, 31 African-American poetry/writing 251, 252 Alexander, Neville 194 Anglican Church 28, 29, 32, 33 Anti-Apartheid Movement 105, 227, 229, 252 anti-apartheid campaigns 6, 86, 253 demonstrations 227 publications 6 sports movement 80, 81 struggle 3, 19, 72, 81, 83, 88 Anti-Coloured Affairs Department movement (Anti-CAD movement) 5, 52, 84–87, 91, 238 Anti-Transfer Action Committees (ATAC) 119

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 352

apartheid 69, 273n153 description of 2 in education 119 poets active against 252 sports organisations opposed to 79, 80, 81 Aquinas, Thomas 60–61, 187, 197 Auden, W.H. 70, 112–113, 115, 121, 250

B banning orders/restrictions 5–6, 231 ANC leaders 91–92 amended/new (1963) 138–139, 140 breaking/contravening of 139, 140, 151–152 defiance of 135 first (1961) 14, 109, 110, 112, 124, 126, 131 post-imprisonment (1965) 209, 214, 226 Beier, Ulli 7, 114 Black Orpheus (Nigeria) 6, 7 boycott campaigns 84 cultural 228, 229 of sport 106, 130, 193 Breathru (UK) 6 Browning, Robert 50, 57, 185 Brutus, Dennis 243, 246 arrest 6, 145–147, 307n97, 308n104, 322n150 attachment to South Africa 237

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

Index

on an auto/biography 2, 3, 4, 249 banning/restrictions 5, 6, 14, 16, 109, 110, 112, 124, 126, 131, 140, 209, 214, 226, 231 Catholic upbringing/faith 197, 197–205, 223–225, 315n40 childhood 5, 12, 36–55 with his children 247 conviction/sentence 6, 152, 153, 311n138 death 19 early poetry 49, 50, 67 on economic globalisation 19 education/schooling 36, 39–43, 45 exile 6, 233, 234, 239, 281n113 exit permit to UK 17 family background 25–36 father of 11, 26, 27–35, 41, 42, 44–48, 143, 197, 270n115 & n123 fellow prisoners 182, 194, 199 high school 49, 50–54 house arrest 125, 196, 210–214 interviews with 8, 9, 12, 137 involvement in ANC 96–99, 254, 255 involvement in SANROC 6, 21, 131, 138, 139 involvement/participation in sport 64, 75–78 leaving South Africa 233–234 literary education 58, 59 and lyric poetry 7, 8, 9, 10, 186, 251, 253, 256 marriage 198, 277n52 on marriage 296n111 mental pressure 191 mother of 26–28, 33, 35, 36, 41, 45, 46, 48, 126, 196 and music and dance 73, 74, 75 names 13, 14

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 353

353

organisations involved in 5, 6 parents’ relationship 43–45, 46 poems about Robben Island 7, 166, 170, 174–176, 179, 184, 194, 195, 220 poetry prize 6, 15, 262n72 political education 51, 52, 62 on politics and poetry 249, 250, 253, 256 on post-1990 political dispensation 19 post-prison writing 251–252, 256 reappraisal of/refection on preprison poetry 185, 189–190 relationship with May 295n111 return to SA (2005) 19 shot/hospitalised 6, 145–148, 199, 308n104 in solitary confinement 15, 185, 189–191, 193 sport administration/ organisation 77–83 suicide attempts 15, 192 as teacher 5, 66, 67, 69, 70–73, 74 treatment by warders 192, 193 trial 6, 151–152 university 56–66 in the US 17, 18 volumes of poetry 7, 18 writing for national/regional publications 6 Brutus, Francis Henry 11, 26, 27–35, 41, 42, 44–48, 143, 198, 270n115 & n123 Brutus, Magdalene Winifred (née Bloemetjie) 26–28, 33, 35, 36, 41, 45, 46, 48, 126, 196 Brutus, Marc Aquinas 108, 149, 219, 308n104 Brutus, Martha (née Koopman) 172, 178 letters to 7

2020-01-17 03:50:58 PM

354

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Brutus, May Malvina Sophia (née Jaggers) 15, 126, 147, 148, 149, 178 acts of defiance 287n11 after Brutus’ release 210, 211 letters to 200, 201, 219, 295n111, 309n121 marriage 198, 277n52 poem to honour 232–233 Brutus, Wilfred Cecil Joseph 26, 50, 66 childhood 34, 39, 271n126 exile 326n27 house arrest 196 sentence 7, 215

C Campaign against Race Discrimination in Sport 105 Carelse, Peter 71, 76, 77, 279n93 Catholic Church/faith 13, 49, 61, 197, 198–205, 224–226, 315n40 and Brutus’ parents 35, 43 Central Indian High School 125, 128, 139, 140, 300n1 Christian Action 12, 168–169 Clouts, Sydney 9, 260n26 & n27 Coetzee, Urvin 72 Colesberg poem 162, 204, 205 Coloured Advisory Council (CAC) 52, 84, 100 Coloured Affairs Department (CAD) 84 Coloured National Convention (CNC) 5, 99, 100, 101, 104 Coloured People’s Congress (CPC) 100, 119, 215, 288n26 common-law prisoners 164, 171, 180, 181, 182, 184, 313n11 Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) 93, 288n13 Contact 88, 102

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 354

Co-ordinating Committee for International Recognition in Sport (CCIRS) 5, 78 cricket Beda Hall cricket team 64, 242 and SASA 81, 105, 106, 107, 129 cultural boycott 228, 229

D Daniels, Eddie 100, 104, 170, 193, 194 Davis, Lionel 192, 315n41 Defiance Campaign 91, 288n24 Dennis Brutus Tapes, The 12, 263n1 Dönges, T.E. 79 Donne, John 57, 68, 70, 98, 186–187, 189, 238, 274n7 Dowerville 5, 8, 36–39, 46, 54, 92, 215, 267n67 & n69, 326n31 removals 216, 327n36

E eastern Cape 2, 3 Fort Beaufort 65 Hankey 34 political arrests in 230–231 Eastern Province Herald 6, 98 education (in the early 1900s) 30, 31, 32 Education News (EN) 83 Eliot, T.S. 57, 59, 115, 189 Equity (British union) 119, 229

F Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) 107, 228 Fighting Talk, articles/poetry in 80, 82, 101, 113, 118, 131, 132 First, Ruth 295n110 Football Association of Southern Africa (FASA) 107 football, and SASA 107, 283n159 Fordsburg 106, 125, 139 police station 151, 152

2020-01-17 03:50:59 PM

355

Index

Fort Hare, University of 62, 63, 70 see also South African Native College Fort prison 148–151, 153, 199 Freedom Charter 73, 87, 91 Fugard, Athol 218, 285n176, 327n40, 327n42

G Gell, Christopher 73, 88, 94, 280n107, 286n195, 288n15 Grahamstown (Makhanda) 45 Group Areas Act (1950) 84, 273n153 and Dowerville 216 opposition to the 86, 87 rejection of the 84–85, 102

H Harris, John 140, 141, 178, 185, 192, 306n77, 317n85 Hayman, Ruth 147, 151, 199, 209, 324n2 Henry Kaiser Memorial School 5, 39 Hopkins, Gerard Manley 57, 67–68, 70, 99, 133, 189, 251 house arrest 125, 196, 213–215, 231 Hutchinson, Alfred 125, 289n29, 300n1

I Industrial Conciliation Act (1956) 91 international campaigns 18, 19 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) 155, 171, 313n13 International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) 17, 155, 171, 313n12, 315n33 International Olympic Committee (IOC) charter 77 and SASA/SANROC 82–83, 105, 106, 107, 130, 254

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 355

J Jebe, John Nangoza 95 Jeftha, Gerald 72, 76, 92, 287n11, 289n29

K Kathrada, Ahmed 126, 127, 172, 193, 194, 301n9

L Landman, Frank 84, 85, 87, 101, 103, 104, 292n66 Leeuwkop (prison) 153–158, 163, 199 Letters to Martha 195 first poem in 152–153 human suffering and the nature of God 224 Lindfors on 319n107 memories of Cape Town 165–166 Ndebele essay on 20 “Postscript 6” 183 religious undertones 202–203 review in The Guardian 253 success of campaigns against segregated sport 320n123 Letters to Martha and Other Poems From a South African Prison (1968) 7 Liberal Party 80, 100, 103, 119, 170, 254, 317n85, 324n2 Lindfors, Bernth 10, 12, 114, 185 lyric poetry/form 7–10, 20, 134, 135, 186, 251–253, 255, 256

M Malmesbury meeting 101–103, 291n57 Mandela, Nelson 98, 172, 194, 289n29, 301n14, 316n43 Marcus, Sybil 149, 310n124, 315n40 Marx, Karl 237, 238, 254

2020-01-17 03:50:59 PM

356

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

Mbari prize 6, 15, 262n72 writers’ conference 120 Mbari Publications 6, 7 Mbari Writers’ and Artists’ Club 6 Mbeki, Govan 73, 87, 92, 254, 255 metaphysical poets 57, 70, 186, 187, 251 mission school 5, 29, 32, 33, 39 Mozambique 143, 211 arrest 6, 144, 147, 198, 307n97, 322n150 Mphahlele, Es’kia 2, 17, 116, 120, 189, 259n13, 297n128 Murison, Neville 70, 74

N Naidoo, Indres 169, 322n153 National Party (NP) government 5, 16, 69, 79, 81, 82, 91, 94, 136, 222, 233 Ndebele, Njabulo 20 Negritude 120, 298n143 New African, The 6, 116 New Age 6, 73 articles/poetry in 95, 110, 130 Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM) 5 affiliates 97, 119 Ten-Point Programme (objectives) 86, 254 and TLSA 86 North End 98, 126, 198 description 324n4 Shell Street house 74, 210, 243 Nortje, Arthur 21, 70, 72, 73, 279n100, 280n109, 314n22

O Olympic Games 107 SA suspension from (1964) 193, 228, 307n93 Operation Sonreis 106, 107, 293n84

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 356

P Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) 87, 105, 199, 254, 322n153 pass laws 96, 97, 98, 136, 286n2 see also Sharpeville Paterson High School 271n134 Brutus as pupil at 5, 50, 51, 54 Brutus teaching at 68, 69, 71, 72, 76, 108, 109 sports at 77, 107 Paton, Alan 80, 88, 130, 254, 286n196, 324n2 Penpoint (Uganda) 6, 109, 236 Pieterse, Cosmo 7, 252 interview with Brutus (1966) 8, 9, 12, 137 poetry, volumes of 7, 18 political prisoners 164, 172, 176, 180, 181, 313n11 Pollsmoor prison 172 Population Registration Act (1950) 2, 91, 258n1 Port Elizabeth 2, 3, 5, 31, 32, 33, 36, 45, 53 arrests in 91, 92 and Group Areas Act 85, 86, 87, 216, 217 poem about 113, 132 Portuguese secret police 144 Pound, Ezra 58, 189 Présence Africaine (France) 6 Purple Renoster, The 6, 117 poetry in 57, 135

Q Quixote, Don 134, 136, 137, 138, 305n69

R racism 10, 37, 54, 116, 327n37 in sport (campaign against) 64, 80, 81, 82, 105, 106, 130

2020-01-17 03:50:59 PM

Index

Rangasamy, G.K. 80, 105, 130, 131, 292n73 Red Cross, the see International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Rivonia/treason trial (prisoners) 172, 289n29 Robben Island 163–185, 189–205 arrival at 164 beatings 167, 168, 169 common-law prisoners 164, 171, 183, 184, 185, 313n11 conditions 170, 171, 172 journey to 158, 163–166 letters to/from family 179, 180 maximum security section 172, 173, 184, 201 poems about 7, 166, 172, 174, 175, 176, 178, 184, 194, 195 political prisoners 164, 172, 179, 180, 181, 313n11 prison hospital 169 Segregation (isolation) section 172, 182, 184, 200 sexual assaults at 182 solitary confinement 15, 185, 189–193 visitors to 178, 179 warders 178, 179, 180, 182, 193 Rousseau, Mervyn 71, 72, 73, 74, 75 rugby, and SASA 82, 106, 130

S sanctions (against SA) 229 School Board Act 30 see also education (in the early 1900s) segregation racial 2, 52, 91, 272n144 residential 273n153 see also apartheid Separate Amenities Act (1953) 91

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 357

357

Separate Representation of Voters Act (1951) 84, 91, 284n171 Shakespeare, William 42, 45, 70, 71, 72, 157, 185 Sharpeville 16, 98, poem 96–97 Shell Street house 74, 210, 243 Simon, Fred 70 Simple Lust, A 4, 18, 253 Sirens Knuckles Boots (1963) 7, 186, 189, 295n111 Smith, Lionel 76, 272n125 solitary confinement 15, 185, 192, 193, 202, 317n84 poetry in 189, 187 South Africa Soccer Federation (SASF) 107 South African Coloured People’s Organisation (SACPO) 100, 178, 288n26 South African Communist Party (SACP) 126, 255, 288n13 South African Cricket Association (SACA) 105 South African Cricket Board of Control (SACBOC) 78, 81 South African Native College (SANC) 5, 56–66, 273n159 see also Fort Hare, University of South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC) 5, 6 Brutus’ involvement in 6, 21, 131, 138, 139 forming of 130, 131, 255 officials 303n40, 305n72 South African Olympic and National Games Association (SAONGA) 6, 105, 106, 107 and SANROC 139, 227 South African Sports Association (SASA) 5 and cricket 81, 105, 106, 107, 129 and football 107, 283n159 formation of 80, 81

2020-01-17 03:50:59 PM

358

Dennis Brutus: The South African Years

and the IOC 82–83, 105, 106, 107, 130, 255 and rugby 82, 106, 130 South End 5, 32, 198, 245 description of 285n176 and the Group Areas Act (removals) 85, 216, 326n35 & n37 Spartacus Club 51, 52, 92 sport boycott 106, 130, 193 campaign against racism in 79, 80–83, 105–107, 129, 227, 228, 320n123 discrimination/racism in 64, 77, 80, 130 government policy on 78–79 and international recognition 78, 80 St Augustine’s Catholic Cathedral 35, 241 St Augustine’s Catholic Teacher Training College 50, 53 St Helena 27, 28 St Theresa’s Catholic Mission School 5, 39, 40, 46, 269n89 St Thomas Aquinas High School 5, 66, 67 Stalinist movement 51 suicide attempt 15, 192, 193, 320n119 Suppression of Communism Act 5, 7, 93, 101, 102, 104, 109, 139, 215 Swaziland 20, 61, 141, 142, 143, 198, 306n86, 306n89

Teachers’ League of South Africa (TLSA) 5, 31, 52 and ANC 87, 88 Brutus’ participation in 198, 238 and NEUM 86 objectives of 83 political influence of the 51 Tennyson, Alfred Lord 11, 41, 42, 47, 51, 70, 185 The Leader 6 Transition (Uganda) 6, 7 Trotsky, Leon 52, 237, 238 Trotskyist 86, 87, 88, 254 movement 51 troubadour 3, 134–136, 138

T

Y

table tennis 75, 76, 77, 78 tape recordings 9, 12, 225 (in 1969) 249 (in 1970) 250 (in 1974) 2, 27, 191, 202, 236, 263n1

Dennis Brutus The South African Years.indb 358

U Ungar, André Rabbi 93, 94 United Nations 118 measures against apartheid 229

V Van der Ross, David 100, 101, 291n54 Van der Ross, Richard 100, 103, 104, 291n54 Vorster, B.J. 128, 131, 138, 209, 225

W Wits University 5, 111, 117, 120, 125–128, 139, 142, 149, 219, 301n14 Wordsworth, William 7–8, 41, 70, 115, 137, 251, 261n36 Wylie, Hal 3, 4, 249, 295n110, 299n147 Yeats, William Butler 57, 151, 319n107

Z Zonnebloem College 28, 265n24 Zonnebloem College Magazine 29

2020-01-17 03:50:59 PM