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READ THIS
The poet describes a horrifying incident which happened when he was but four years old. His mother was
making vetkoek in a pan on a primus stove. The younger brother was in a chair, looking on. Suddenly
the pan of oil fell and the superheated oil oozed towards the little boy. The mother stopped the flow by
placing her own arm in its path. The savage burn is still there some 40 years later as a long scar on her
arm.
ABOUT THE POET
Chris Van Wyk was born in Soweto and lived his early years in Newclare before moving to Riverlea, a
poorer suburb of Johannesburg.
He was educated at Riverlea High School before working for a non-government organisation known as
SACHED - South African Committee for Higher Education - where he was an educational writer.
He was also the editor of Staffrider and started the short-lived Wietie magazine with
fellow poet, Fhazel Johennesse.
Van Wyk showed signs of wanting to be a writer as early as five years of age - and since then, he says,
he has had a love affair with words.
He credits much of his success in storytelling to his love of "skinder" (gossip). "I skinder more than most
women," he says, and explains that he listened to all the gossip between his mother and her friends. This
eventually found its way into the many stories which he thereupon wrote.
"You will not believe the kind of information you can pick up just by keeping your ears open," van Wyk
says, although there are certain little tricks you have to observe to prevent yourself from being caught
eavesdropping.
These include not behaving like a quiet little mouse but rather making noises, "like drinking a glass of
water" or singing bits from pop songs or calling to the dog outside, or doing something like reading or
writing while you are also preoccupied in listening.
But above all, he says, don't give yourself away by laughing at a joke that you have overheard. "If you do,
it's a dead giveaway and means that you've had your ears tuned on them all the time."
Van Wyk has written over 20 books, including poetry collections and children's stories. He published his
first volume of poetry in 1979 - It is time to go home - which was to win him the prestigious
Olive Schreiner Prize the following year.
He would win other awards for his novels and short stories, including the Maskew Miller Longman Award
for Black Children's Literature in 1982 and the Sanlam Literary Award for the best short story of 1995.
His first novel - The Year of the Tapeworm - was published in 1998 while, in 2004, his
childhood memoir Shirley, Goodness & Mercy became a successful play by director Janice
Honeyman.
Unlike many South African writers who wrote "as a weapon against apartheid", van Wyk preferred to use
humour as his primary weapon. "We've got our own magic, lots of it," he says.
He married his childhood sweetheart, Kathy, and they reared their two sons in Riverlea where he has lived
most of his life. "I want to be part of this community," he says. "There's an element of the writer that
keeps me here."
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:
"Derek is dangling on the kitchen chair
While I'm shuffling about in a flutter of flour.
Mummy is making vetkoek on the primus.
Derek is too small to peer over the table,
that's why Mummy has perched him on the chair."
- How old is Derek? How do you know? (4)
[Need help?]
Derek's age isn't given but, since he is younger than his four-year-old brother, he must be about two or
younger. Furthermore, he is "dandled" on the chair instead of sitting on it. One usually dandles a baby
or very young child. He is also still too small to peer over the table. And, of course, he still sucks a
dummy.
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- What does "dandling" mean? (4)
[Need help?]
"Dandling" is defined as "moving or bouncing a baby or young child up and down in a playful or
affectionate way".
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- What does the poet mean when he says that he is "shuffling about in a flutter of
flour"? (4)
[Need help?]
Probably his mother has dropped flour onto the floor and the little boy is "shuffling about" in it, i.e. he is
shuffling or dragging his feet on the floor, sliding them through the flour.
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[Need help?]
"Vetkoek" are small balls of flour dough which are dropped into boiling fat to cook. They are "fat cakes",
and indeed if one eats a lot of them, one will become very fat - although that's not why they are called
"vetkoek" which means literally "cakes cooked in fat or oil".
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- What is a primus stove? (4)
[Need help?]
A primus stove is a pressurised burner. It usually contains paraffin or kerosene which is pumped up to
create the pressure, and a flame is lit. They are used mostly by people who do not have electricity.
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- Why has Mummy perched Derek on the chair? (4)
[Need help?]
Derek is indeed too small to see over the table to watch his mother cook. But you also need to explain
why his mother hasn't simply left him playing on the floor.
The answer is that Derek might get up to mischief if left alone on the floor. And very definitely his mother
doesn't want him in the way while she is working with boiling oil. So she perches him on a chair where
he can watch her but is nevertheless out of her way but within immediate view.
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The poet uses the metaphor of the bird throughout this poem.
- Identify the words which promote this metaphor. (6)
[Need help?]
The words which refer to a bird are: "flutter", "perched", "twitters so he's a bird", "the twittering bird", "the
bird to fly away", "to ruffle his feathers".
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- Why has the poet used this image of the bird? (4)
[Need help?]
Is it because the poet wishes to give a very lighthearted start to the poem, perhaps wishing to disarm us
so that we will not suspect the horror which is to follow? He therefore uses this sustained metaphor of
the lively bird.
The poet also clearly likes making up metaphors. The little boy is a bird because of the noise he makes
with his dummy. He himself is a giraffe because he is tall and because of the patches of light on his back.
His father becomes a cupboard perhaps because of the wheezing, squeaky noises he makes.
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