R5 vir die cocoa, giggels is gratis

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Die week in woorde

Ek het nie werklik dié week veel om te sê nie, behalwe ’n vinnige storietjie oor die beste R5 wat ek die afgelope tyd spandeer het. Dit was by Bikini Beach Books in Gordonsbaai, en ek het dit opgedok vir Wendy Cope se histeriese digbundel Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis. (Ek het ook R5 gehoes vir Phillip Larkin se High Windows, nog R5 vir ’n versamelbundel van Ted Hughes, R5 vir Kid van Simon Armitage, ens ens ens tot by R50. Maar met die ander bundels het ek nog nie kwaliteit-tyd spandeer nie – dus vat Cope vir eers die R5-koek.)

Elk geval: die hele Cocoa-bundel steek draak met digterlike pretensies en konvensies, maar Cope grap ook lekker met haarself en die Engelse oor die algemeen. Ek lag hardop. Daar is darem ook een ernstige gedig in die bundel, wat sommer ook die rede uitlê vir al die probleme wat ons hier ter lande ervaar.

Engineers’ Corner
Wendy Cope

^{Why isn’t there an Engineers’ Corner in Westminster Abbey? In Britain we’ve always made more fuss of a ballad than a blueprint ... How many schoolchildren dream of becoming great engineers?

Advertisement placed in The Times by the Engineering Council}

We make more fuss of ballads than of blueprints –
That’s why so many poets ends up rich,
While engineers scrape by in cheerless garrets.
Who needs a bridge or dam? Who needs a ditch?

Whereas the person who can write a sonnet
Has got it made. It’s always been the way,
For everybody knows that we need poems
And everybody reads them every day.

Yes, life is hard if you choose engineering –
You’re sure to need another job as well;
You’ll have to plan your projects in the evenings
Instead of going out. It must be hell.

While well-heeled poets ride around in Daimlers,
You’ll burn the midnight oil to earn a crust,
With no hope of a statue in the Abbey,
With no hope, even, of a modest bust.

No wonder small boys dream of writing couplets
And spurn the bike, the lorry and the train.
There’s far too much encouragement for poets –
That’s why the country’s going down the drain.

Vars leesstof

Joan Hambidge mediteer oor Tokio in haar jongste gedig.

Marlise Joubert waag ’n kortverhaal: “Op die Waagplein”.

Jaco Fouché maak “A crucial connection” in sy jongste kortverhaal.

Wenner

Margaret Clough is die wenner van Phillippa Yaa de Villiers se bundel The Everyday Wife. Sy het haar redes op twee tale laat rym:

An Old Wife and her Tale

Because I am a poet now
and once I was a wife,
this book should come to me
to bring comfort to my life.
Now that I am old and grey
and nodding in my chair,
these poems will soothe my grief
and keep me from despair.

Die ou vrou se storie

Ek behoort die prys te wen.
Ek is ’n digter nou
en destyds was ek ook iemand se vrou
Treurig en alleen sit ek en wag
vir hierdie boek wat my sal bring
die troos waarna ek smag.

Ernstige, fronsende groete tot volgende week, wanneer ons verder aan oplossings vir die wêreld se probleme werk.

Bibi

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Litnet

R5 vir die cocoa, giggels is gratis

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