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READ THIS
The poet's mother decided to create a herb garden for her son. She planted various herbs and tended
them so carefully that it became a luscious garden of remembrance after she had died.
ABOUT THE POET
Stephen Gray was born in Cape Town in 1941. He schooled at St Andrew's College in Grahamstown
before enrolling at the University of Cape Town for his initial degree. He then proceeded to Cambridge
University for his Masters, followed by a Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Iowa.
He finally researched for a Doctorate in Literature and Philosophy at the Rand Afrikaans University - now
the University of Johannesburg - where he had became a lecturer and eventually Professor of English.
Since 1991 Gray has devoted himself to full-time writing and has had a plethora of publications across the
full literary spectrum, from poetry to novels to biographies to plays. He has also tried his hand at editing
and directing.
His poetry has been described as "simple, warm and witty".
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
"My mother before she died insisted
I should have a herb garden
Something in her English soul
Amid rough South Africans."
- Why would the poet's mother have insisted on his having a herb garden? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet does not give clear reasons other than it being "something in her English soul", and possibly her
belief that her son needed some form of environmental distraction from his otherwise harsh South African
occupations.
What would she have had in mind? Distraction from his studies? From his typically South African focus
on sport? What do you think?
And what would this "something in her English soul" be? Marguerite Poland refers to something similar
in Shades where Mrs Farborough feels the need to plant a typically English rose garden in the
midst of the harsh Eastern Cape vegetation on the mission station near Keiskamma Hoek.
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- The poet lists some of the herbs she planted in this garden. What are they? (4)
[Need help?]
What about mint, lavender, sage, chives? But it does seem that there were many more because he
speaks of "his mother's bed of lost spices" which hints at a plethora of other herbs.
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- The poet mentions two specific assets of planting herbs. What are these? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet mentions "tenderness" and their "scent" or sweet smell.
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"They arrived in soggy pages of The Star
With a spade taller than herself
She dug them into my backyard
Before I was ready for them
A cigarette tightly in her lips
Explaining chives made life worthwhile."
- What is The Star? Why would it have made a good medium for transporting the
herbs? (4)
[Need help?]
The Star is a newspaper. Newsprint is an ideal medium for seedlings because it readily absorbs
water which keeps the roots damp while at the same time its soft texture does no damage to the delicate
young plants.
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- Would you like to describe the poet's mother? (4)
[Need help?]
She would appear to have been very short (the spade was taller than she) and elderly. By the time she
died, she was very frail. She also appears to have smoked a lot.
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- What words tell us that the caring for the herb garden was therapeutic for his
mother? (4)
[Need help?]
"Explaining chives made [her] life worthwhile."
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- What words tells us that the planting of the herb garden was very much the mother's
idea? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet explains that his mother was already busy planting the herbs before he was ready for them. In
other words, it was her idea and not his. Left to himself, he might never have been ready to make the
garden.
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"That is how she died in her own
Garden of sweet remembrance."
- Why does the poet refer to the herb garden as a "garden of sweet remembrance"? (4)
[Need help?]
A "Garden of Remembrance" is traditionally a memorial garden dedicated to the memory of all those who
have given their lives for a good cause. We would expect one at a war memorial or linked to people
dedicated to specific deeds of greatness.
The herb garden becomes a specific place in which the poet remembers his mother - and remember her
he does, even her "every gesture".
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- What words in the poem tells us that his mother was never satisfied with what she had
done? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet explains that his mother was "always finding the sun too hot" and the soil was always "far too
dry for the gentler herbs".
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- What words tell us that the poet has continued to maintain the garden long after her
death? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet says that the garden has "so flourished" that he has had to "cut it back" or prune it. Indeed, he
himself appears even to have developed "green fingers" because he says that he has mint growing in the
crevices of his fingers and the sage under his "very nails".
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The sole exception is for educational institutions which may wish to reproduce
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