“U vra na die taak van die digter in tweeduisenddertien?”: 'n fiktiewe gesprek met Peter Blum in Kaar

Abstract

“You ask me about the task of the poet in two thousand thirteen?”: a fictitious conversation with Peter Blum in Kaar by Marlene van Niekerk

This article focuses on the poem “ʼn Boodskap uit die dode van Peter Blum” [Message from the dead by Peter Blum] in Marlene van Niekerk’s collection Kaar (2013:138-9). The fictitious conversation between the speaker and the late poet Peter Blum focuses on the task of the Afrikaans poet in 2013. He mentions nine prescriptive trends in Afrikaans poetry and culture which the poet is supposed to write about. Subsequently I will look at the poem “rimram” by Van Niekerk which exemplifies the poet’s disobedient streak and a refusal to reflect these trends in her work. Whereas as society demands poems that are patriotic, religious and filled with postcolonial theory, the poet Van Niekerk opts to write poems in an intermediate language.