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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:
"His dummy twitters so he's a bird.
I'm not that small; I was four in July.
I'm tall enough to see what's going on;"
- Contrast the difference between the two boys. (4)
[Need help?]
There is about a two year gap between the two boys. Chris is four years old, which would make Derek
about two. Chris is tall enough to see over the table when standing alongside it, whereas Derek is still too
short. Derek also still sucks a dummy.
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"I'm a giraffe and the blotches of shadow
on the ceiling and walls
from the flames of the primus and candle
are patches on my back."
- Why does the poet describe himself as being a giraffe? (4)
[Need help?]
Chris is of course much taller than Derek, and so can peer over the table - like a long-necked giraffe. On
the other hand, the flame from both the primus and the candle cast a patchwork on the ceiling and walls,
and also on his back. This makes the youngster feel not unlike a giraffe: tall and with patches on his
back.
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"Daddy's coming home soon
from the factory where they're turning him into
a cupboard that creaks"
- Why does the poet refer to his father as being "a cupboard that creaks"? (4)
[Need help?]
There's no definite answer to this question. Perhaps the little boy is allowing his imagination run riot. He
sees his brother as a bird, himself as a giraffe, so why not his father as a cupboard? Perhaps his father
wheezes a great deal and this reminds him of a creaking cupboard door?
Any other reason you can think of?
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"but the vetkoek are sizzling and growing
like bloated gold coins,
we're rich."
- How could the vetkoek make them rich? (4)
[Need help?]
A vetkoek is made by rolling dough into little balls which fry in golden oil till they are golden brown. They
are therefore round and golden, like golden balls or golden coins which have swollen. This is again an
example of a little boy allowing free rein to his imagination.
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"That is the first vivid memory of childhood.
Why have I never written it down before?"
- With such vivid memories, why has the poet never written this down? (4)
[Need help?]
Although the memory of this vetkoek-making incident is most vivid, it has always been overshadowed by
what happens when his mother drops the pan, thus pouring oil over the table and risking burning his
brother. His mother's extreme act of bravery in saving the young boy by deliberately placing her own arm
in the way of the boiling oil has nevertheless succeeded in scarring the young poet's vivid mind.
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"Maybe because the pan falls with a clatter
and the oil swims towards the twittering bird.
Mummy flattens her forearm on the table
stopping the seething flow."
- Comment on the very abrupt change of TONE in these lines. (4)
[Need help?]
Up until now, the poem has been lighthearted, dealing with a series of memories surrounding his mother's
making vetkoek. The words the poet has chosen echo such a lighthearted theme, especially the
reference to his little brother as a bird twittering through his dummy.
Suddenly, however, the tone of the poem become serious. His mother drops the pan, oil "swims"
menacingly towards the "bird" who is perhaps now twittering in fear. She "flattens her forearm on the
table" to stop the flow of the oil, but it seethes and bubbles against her arm. Remember that boiling oil
is much, much hotter than boiling water.
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- "The oil swims towards the twittering bird" contains a very frightening image. What is
it? (4)
[Need help?]
Oil and birds do not go well together. Think about oil which can kill penguins when the birds are caught
up in it while swimming in the sea.
In this poem, the oil itself is portrayed as an animal, swimming menacingly towards the bird which is now
twittering in fear. The oil will engulf this bird and do it serious injury.
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- Comment on the use of the word "seething" in these lines. (4)
[Need help?]
"Seething" means "bubbling and boiling". It also means "very angry". The oil is boiling and bubbling as
it flows across the table. It will eat up anything in its path. There is no way to stop it from reaching the
child except for the mother flattening out her arm on the table to divert its angry passage. Its seething,
however, now consumes the mother's skin and eats the flesh off her arm.
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"As she does she pleads with the bird to fly away,
but quietly so as not to ruffle his feathers."
- Explain the imagery used in these two lines which depict a mother attempting to shoo away her child
without actually frightening him. (4)
[Need help?]
The mother must at this moment have total obedience from the child. He must climb off his chair and
move out of reach of the oil. But, if she frightens him (if she ruffles his feathers), then the boy will panic
and run to her instead - which is the very thing that she does not want. So she must beg him, must plead
with him, but must not frighten him - and there is no time to be lost.
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"Ma gives a savage scream that echoes across the decades
and cauterizes my childhood like a long scar."
- The poet has up till now referred to his mother as "Mummy". How do you explain his use now of the
term "Ma"? (4)
[Need help?]
Up till this point, the poet has portrayed his mother as a little toddler of four would see her. She is his
"Mummy". Suddenly, however, the poet is leaping through the decades. As he has grown older, he has
ceased to call her "Mummy" but has rather used the term "Ma" - as so many teenagers do.
There is also an abruptness in the word, an abruptness he probably used when she screamed out in
agony back then when the oil seared the flesh off her arm. His memory of her too is one of the person
who gave her life to save her children.
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- What is meant by the term "cauterizes"? (2)
[Need help?]
To "cauterize" is a medical term which means the burning of part of a body to remove or close off a part
of it. It's a medical procedure which is used in an extreme situation.
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- Comment on the TWO ways in which the poet has used the term "cauterizes" in these
lines. (4)
[Need help?]
In this situation, the woman has deliberately chosen to have her arm cauterized as an extreme way of
preventing her son from being harmed. The poet, however, uses the term for his own life. His own
childhood, he says, was cauterized at that moment. Suddenly he was no longer a child. His childhood
had gone, burnt away, cauterized at that very moment when his mother's arm was cauterized.
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The poem is called "Memory". Explain how the poet slides very abruptly from a poem which deals with
memories to one which deals with only a single memory. (6)
[Need help?]
More than half of this poem is spent in speaking about what seems to be pleasant childhood memories.
Suddenly, however, the theme of the poem is abruptly altered. No longer is he talking about memories
but rather a single memory of the time when his childhood was brought to an abrupt end with the tragedy
of the boiling oil.
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