I would like to make a case for the repatriation of the remains of Arthur Nortje, a poet from Port Elizabeth buried in Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford, United Kingdom. He died of a suspected barbiturate overdose on 11 December 1970. Dennis Brutus, Nortje’s mentor, claimed that he had died from an overdose of forty-five barbiturate tablets while other sources vary in the details of his death. The coroner, however, declared an open verdict because he believed that his death could not have been accidental.
Cecilia Potgieter, a Coloured domestic worker, gave birth to Arthur Kenneth Nortje on 16 December 1942. The father was “a young Jewish man named Arthur Kaplan who was thought to be the son of Cecilia’s employer” (McLuckie & Tyner, 1999). Nortje spent most of his childhood years in Korsten and Gelvandale, two areas in Port Elizabeth he wrote about fondly in his poetry.
The discriminatory apartheid system under which Nortje lived, had a devastating impact on him. Sadly “Nortje found himself between two opposing forces of Black and White while Coloureds were reduced. Coloureds were disenfranchised by apartheid laws and distanced from all others”.
Nortje took a one-way exit permit in 1965 after receiving a scholarship to attend Jesus College at Oxford. It was during those years of isolation that his poetry started showing signs of deep psychological insight as he searched for meaning to his existence. Arthur Nortje was a complex character and tragic figure. He used his sharp powers of observation to write about life. In 2004, Dirk Klopper wrote that “Many studies of Arthur Nortje's poetry have commented on the prevalence in his work of images of alienation, seeing this as a function either of political conditions in South Africa in his lifetime or of Nortje's exile from his home country.”
Poem for Luca Daniel Milborrow
Willow sings 'Twinkle little star'
Barend van Vuuren lees sy laaste gedigte
Gedig vir Ma
Poet Rozetta Whitting talks about the Christmas season
Bevan Boggenpoel talks about his book 'Madiba's Quotes & Anecdotes' with Prof Darryl David
Selwyn Milborrow talks about his book 'Madiba's Quotes & Anecdotes' to Prof Darryl David
gedicht voor veerle, els, en anne-sophie
Port Elizabeth poet Chantal Sam Moodaley reads her poem 'Love at first fight'.
My new poem "Child of Africa"
The fear of writing and a free-writing exercise
Selwyn Milborrow's poem 'A love so beautiful'.
Give yourself permission to be creative - SELWYN MILBORROW
Lockdown Journal - 29 July 2020
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How aspiring writers tend to have self-limiting beliefs
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