Ingrid Jonker award ceremony speech

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Thank you for giving me this prize and inducting me into the rarefied world of people beset with thank you-speech anxiety.

Thank you India.
Thank you terror.
Thank you disillusionment.

 

For those of you who are not up on recent rock history, those are the chorus lyrics from Alanis Morissette song “Thank U”.

Considering my track record with prizes – ie none so far – this is going to be my only thank you speech ever, unless I live to 92, in which case many of you will be dead, so I have only this one opportunity to forget someone really important to thank.

There is no new and interesting way to say thank you. Unless you can belt it out like Alanis Morissette. So please now reach for your tissues, or stifle your yawns, as I make my official thank you speech.

Thank you to the Ingrid Jonker committee for keeping alive such a noble legacy. Recognition of this kind – in the cold, cruel world that for the most part thinks that poetry is a useless, pointless endeavour undertaken by strange weirdos in black turtleneck sweaters  – is not just wonderful for the poet, but important for keeping alive (schmaltz warning, people) a hell of a whole lot of hope in the world. Because, without good words, without good books and literature, without reading, without strong cultural engagement, hope dies. Yes. It is that simple.

I believe in reading. I believe most strongly in reading to children. There’s a new print run on Bare & Breaking – with a nice shiny “prize winner” sticker on it. Hot off the press this very day. It costs R120 if you buy it here. If you decide to buy it for R130, I will donate R10 to The Bookery. On that note, I have to thank Lesley Byram from the Bookery, and Nosisi Sokutu, who volunteers at The Bookery, for the work they and others do to ensure that children have access to books the way that most of us here had access to books when we were young.

Thank you to the judges, Bev Rycroft, Liesl Jobson and Geoff Haresnape, all of whom are poets whose work I admire and respect. That you unanimously and independently came to the conclusion that Bare & Breaking deserves this recognition is possibly the most happy-making part of this whole terribly happy-making event in my life.
Thank you, Simone Jonker, for taking the time out of your life to come to this. I am deeply honoured that you are here.

If my count is correct, there are two other people, apart from Simone, in this room tonight who knew Ingrid Jonker: André Brink and Mike Cope, whose father, Jack Cope, together with André Brink, were the friends whose efforts to keep Ingrid Jonker's work alive are the reason this award exists.

But I must also thank Mike together with Ken Barris, Hugh Hodge, Liesl Jobson and Dawn Garisch, who helped me shape my poetry with their stern, firm but always humorous input on my poems. To this day I am unable to write a last line that Ken is satisfied with. My friends and mentors from uctpoetryweb, without your rigour and your interest I would never have had the confidence to come out of the poetry closet.

Thank you to Rachel and Sam and my fantastic new colleagues at Irvine Bartlett who made me feel like a complete rock star on the day I found out about this prize and for achieving the unusual feat of making me drunk at 4 pm on a week day. Thank you in particular to Sam, upon whose wisdom we are here in this beautiful hotel tonight because she said, “You cannot have an award ceremony in some dingy poetry basement” and worked her contacts in order to secure this space for the committee.
Thank you to Janneman Britz and his staff here. Janneman, ons gaan ‘n lang pad loop, ek en djy. Baie dankie.

Thank you most particularly, and from my marrow, thank you, to the stretcher bearers who helped me up off the floor during the roughest time of my life: my mother Elsabe, my friend James, Leonie, Patrick, and Sandra and Evelyn, who couldn’t make it tonight.

Thank you, Ollie and Lulu. If I wasn’t me, I’d be jealous of me for being able to share my home and life with two such phenomenally kind, funny, empathetic and long-suffering human beings.

Dankie, Andries. Daar is nie woorde nie. Maar jy weet.

Thank you to Colleen Higg of Modjaji who, it seems, is now the only person publishing poetry at all in South Africa. Your bravery in the face of the odds is epic and we poets and poetry lovers thank you and thank you and thank you for your work.

Before you start stifling your yawns in your black turtlenecks, let me finish off by saying that if you have read me, walked with me, fed me, saved me, loved me, laughed with me, worked with me, and if you are here, consider yourself thanked and loved for your graciousness in allowing me to be as happy as I am about this award.

I am deeply moved by this honour.

8 October 2014

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