Windcatcher
by Breyten Breytenbach
Published by Harcourt Books
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Reviewed by Beth Cummings
Subtitled: New and Selected Poems 1964-2006
Breyten Breytenbach was born and raised in South Africa. He spent some of his college years in France where he married a French-Vietnamese woman. Upon returning to South Africa, during the apartheid years, he was persecuted for marrying outside of his race and subsequently imprisoned for seven years for anti-apartheid activities.
The poetry in this book covers his years in France, the years in prison and poetry written in exile in New York, Vancouver, Amsterdam and Dar es Salaam. He is also an artist and has exhibited paintings in various locations.
Breytenbach is extremely imaginative and writes his verse with descriptions that demonstrate that he sees with the eyes of an artist. He paints word pictures that are haunting beautiful and sometimes horrifically real.
A particularly vivid view of the ocean is found in the beginning of “departure.”
“In the basin between mainland and island lies the sea
within her twilight womb unknown pinnacles and forests and valleys
and blackfish and cities and urns of wine and skeletons plucked bare
over which our boat streaks.”
From prison in “ poem on toilet paper” he writes:
“nights everything is possible
this red labyrinth that I inhabit like a rat
its echoing passages and frowns of steel barriers fade away
only floodlights and solitary warders
ring the darkness in rising towers
the jail becomes a monetary.”
The poem continues to give details of nights in a prison cell.
Later, in “the conquerors” he expresses some of his anger with apartheid:
“because we refused to see them as people
all that was inside us wasted away
and we find no more tears to bemoan our dying
because we wanted nothing but hatred and fear
we ignored their uprising clamoring for humane laws
and hoarsely tried to find ways out but all too late
the flower’s in the fire.”
Breytenbach is not an easy poet to read. He touches hard subjects without fear. There is also a complication in syntax occasionally due to his writing in a other than his first language. These poems are not translations however.
This book gives an excellent sampling of forty years work.
Armchair Interviews says: This is worthy of study by readers of poetry.