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Joan Hambidge in gesprek met Isobel Dixon
Ek het Isobel Dixon twee keer ontmoet. Verlede jaar saam met haar skoonouers, die ouduitgewer, Danie van Niekerk en sy vrou, Anneke, in ’n restaurant. En nou weer as digter. Die belese, innemende literêre agent was toe in Suid-Afrika om ’n letterkundige prys te kom haal. Ons gesprek die aand — ’n koue wintersaand — was oor die digkuns en letterkundige gebeure. Nou ontmoet ek haar weer. As digter. En laat ek dit sommer pront-uit stel: dit is wat my betref ’n belangrike bundel wat veel beloof, veral binne die landskap van die Suid-Afrikaanse Engelse digkuns wat verryk word met hierdie suiwer stem. Hoe lui die bekende spreekwoord nou weer? Dat ’n mens moet stilstaan wanneer ’n digter verbygaan. Nee, hier moet en behoort ’n mens eerder die hoed af te haal. Ek het via e-pos vir Isobel Dixon die volgende vrae gevra nadat Herman Wasserman my gevra het om die bundel te resenseer vir Die Burger. Die resensie word aangeheg vir die leser se gerief.
Ek stuur aan haar ’n paar vrae via e-pos en spreek ook die hoop uit dat die vrae nie grensoorskrydend of persoonlik is nie. Sy reageer dadelik. Ek besluit om in Afrikaans my vrae te stel en sy mag in Engels reageer, ofskoon haar praat-Afrikaans baie goed is. Digters praat egter in hul moedertaal die waarste woorde, meen ek. Hier volg dan ’n ongeredigeerde vraag-en-antwoord-gesprek tussen my en Isobel Dixon.
I think it’s self-evident that any writer’s work is strongly informed by location and relationship, the places one moves through, the people one meets. So, yes, these years in Britain have made a difference to how I write, what I write about. That having been said, I think I would still have written poems looking back to childhood and the past as that “other country”, even if I was still living in the Karoo, where I grew up. But they would have been different poems. Longing is always a strong impetus for writing — whether they’re love poems, or poems of “hunkering, verlange en heimwee” for a faraway place. (I use the Afrikaans words here, because they are so descriptive — they seem to embody the emotion even as one says/types them!) Memory has a powerful funnelling effect. But it’s not just a question of a picture postcard “Wish I was There” that I try to achieve (how successful I am is a different question), not just nostalgia, but a questioning, of how did we get here, how were we shaped, what people and places made us what we are? Pragmatically, living in the midst of an extraordinarily literate culture, in which hundreds of small magazines publish poetry, and even broadsheets do their bit weekly, this has been a strong impetus to making the publication happen, getting the poems “out there”, and not just out of my own system. Also, the very fact that you’re treading the same streets as so many writers is inspiring — I once stalked Seamus Heaney down the road in front of the British Museum (!); my accountant’s office is a few doors down from John Betjeman’s house; Jan and I can go to the pub in Cambridge where Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath used to meet with friends, and take the same walk they did to Grantchester, where Rupert Brooke lived. (And, less pleasantly, the house Sylvia committed suicide in is only ten minutes walk from my office.) Even this weekend, my sister and I were up in Yorkshire, in Haworth, in the church the Brontes’ father preached in, in the Old Parsonage where they lived. And not far from there is Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd, Ted Hughes’ childhood world, where Sylvia is buried. I still find all this sense of location amazing.
Not certain of exactly where the question lies in 2, but though yes, although at times there may be a note of gentle irony, a playfulness, I would take issue with the word “debunk” here and link it to your next question (3) about religion — because quite the contrary, I never found my religious upbringing suffocating. Rather, I view it as a real blessing, as I was born into a thinking religious family — a father who is both a minister of religion and has an honours degree in Science from St Andrews University, a thoughtful intellectual, yet firmly committed in his belief that science and religion are not mutually exclusive. And both my parents being great booklovers. It was a safe and loving upbringing, in which I could still ask all kinds of questions and be answered thoughtfully. So the depiction of my father in “Crossing”, for instance, is a fond and appreciative one, though it plays around with religious images of prophets and the miraculous, in an urban setting. I do have a very strong sense of a continuing personal faith, albeit peppered with questions, and with a sometimes painful awareness of my own inconsistencies. It certainly wasn’t a wealthy childhood, but we had a house that was a treasure trove of books, a garden that was a child’s dream; and I have four fine sisters — and in all these things I count myself very fortunate. So, I guess I found it possible to write honestly about the harder things, the stringencies of coming from a large family supported on a teacher’s salary for instance, knowing that this was underpinned, counterbalanced by warmth and love. In fact, there was a time when I worried that I would find nothing to write about — “happiness writes white” — in contrast to the examples of all those famous tortured poets who have gone before and could make wonderful poetry from their angst! But yes — “’die afgetelde” vs the sybaritic … this, like the tension between restraint and release does feature often as a (sometimes unconsciously played out) theme. None of my poems are manifestos — I am not a powerful position-taker — but they do reflect certain states of minds. So while “Housewifery” — which plays on the idea of control and abandon — ends up delighting in letting go, in the growing and organic house/self, “Slubberdegullion” in contrast goes at the question from a different angle and ends up reflecting a sense of helplessness and guilt for similar acts of slippage. So different poems, different points on the pendulum’s arc, and a constant questioning of where — if anywhere — it is right and good to come to rest. Here’s an extra for your amusement — a single Afrikaans poem, on the same themes of restraint/censorship. I can’t judge it, as it’s not in my native tongue, but it found me (out?) on a train journey, fully formed. Here it is, for what it’s worth.
ek gee vir jou
Have I answered some of this already? A lapsed romantic? A collapsing romantic?! No, I still have a good dose of idealism in my smalltown Karoo heart. But I guess I sometimes do stand to one side and observe, and though I don’t see myself as very ironic in my everyday life, the ironic vein does pump a little more strongly in the poems.
Elsewhere I’ve quoted Marlene van Niekerk’s comment to me on poetry as “aandagtigheid”, and this is part of what I believe in. Looking at things carefully, describing them in — emotional or physical — detail, to help yourself understand better, and others too, if you’re lucky and manage to pull it off, the act of transferring your personal meaning to a more general one. This is where “Plenty”, for instance, surprised me. It was written in a cold London winter, the very first poem I’d written about my family in a narrative kind of way, different from the more associative, impressionistic things I’d written before. And I thought, this is just a bit of my personal history, and it’s not going to mean anything to anyone else. And yet, it’s the poem in the collection that the most people have responded to, from Eastern Cape locals to friends from London, people from vastly different geographical and familial landscapes. (I came across a quote from a Joan Didion essay “Holy Water” the other day (do you know her? a wonderful prose stylist) in which she writes: ’Some of us who live in arid parts of the world think about water with a reverence others might find excessive” — spot on for a girl from the Karoo, even though Joan D is a girl from Sacramento and was writing about swimming pools in California. And of course water flows right through the Weather Eye collection as well.) How long have I been writing, and on this collection in particular? I’ve always written, as long as I can remember; I know I would make up sing-song rhymes before I could write, and as soon as the miraculous world of reading and writing opened up, I scribbled (bad) verses. But the earliest poems in this collection were written at university, in Stellenbosch, with the bulk of the poems being written in Edinburgh, London and Cambridge, or shuttling somewhere between continents!
Yes, it was important to me to be published at home, not just because the poems are largely about South African realities, but because I want to be part of local publishing — determined local publishers, like Annari van der Merwe and Gus Ferguson, are nothing short of heroes for their untiring and often thankless efforts. To be frank, though I have had several poems published in different publications here, I don’t think this collection would fit in easily with some of the ruling fashions. I could imagine some scathing reviews — it’s not complex enough, intellectual enough. Though there are many different strands of literary thought here, and there is a group of poets like Michael Donaghy who write wonderful poetry in which emotion and intellect are intertwined, but accessibly and musically, in careful forms. Those who like this kind of poetry might look more kindly towards the approach in my own (though I have a long way to go).
Michael Donaghy, for the reasons above. The astounding Sharon Olds who writes so piercingly — with forthrightness and yet compassion. And the new US poet laureate Billy Collins has to be just about my favourite poet right now — so seemingly straightforward, yet so carefully crafted, so funny, and yet so wise. No obtuse intellectual tricks, a poet with a huge and gentle heart. I just can’t find enough of his poems to read. If you want a snapshot of past and continuing loves, you’ll find, interestingly enough, a number of Afrikaans poets. There was an energy, an earthiness, a freshness in Afrikaans poetry that made me very aware of the possibilities of language and the musicality of poetry — Breyten Breytenbach, Ingrid Jonker, NP van Wyk Louw. We had a very good Afrikaans teacher and I remember how Raka really shook me up — I can still hear huge chunks of it in my head. And DJ Opperman. I could quote “Die jaar word ryp in goue akkerblare / In wingerd wat verbruin” by Van Wyk Louw at the same time as Louis Macneice’s “The sunlight on the garden hardens and grows cold / We cannot cage the minute within these nets of gold” began to resonate in my mind. Quoting them side by side there’s suddenly a clear connection — the rhythm, the resonance of the language, the sense of passing and loss. As for poets writing in English, there are of course the usual suspects — TS Eliot (who wasn’t influenced when they were young, by “Preludes”, by “The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock”?), Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath. And a triumvirate of poets who do the pastoral so well, each in their very different way: Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney and my first love, Robert Frost.
I would never try to loosen myself from the country I call home. I think one has to go into some strange denial in order to do so, and it’s not something I’m capable of, or wish to do. I’d also never use the word hate, though I am aware, through a passionate love for this “land of strong colours” as Irma Stern put it, of the fact that it is also a country of strong emotions, with its tough and manic side. I’m fierce in defence of my country, love it deeply, but am not unaware of its absurdities — a bit like one’s family really?
Oh dear, more gaps in my education exposed. No, though I’ve read about Jung, I’ve never actually read anything by him, though I keep meaning to — I’ve read a fair bit of Freud, but I can’t honestly say that I feel strongly convinced or influenced by psychoanalysis, either as a therapeutic or as a literary tool. Though I can see the attraction and beauty of the idea of the Jungian archetypes and imagery. But though it may echo his categories, my imagery is not consciously drawn from Jung at all — for instance, my geckoes in “Four Things on Earth” are actually straight from the Bible — The Observations of Agur, in Proverbs 30, in which he says there are four things on earth which are “exceedingly small, exceedingly wise”, among them the I think anyone who writes using a lot of imagery from the natural world, as I like to do in the more “creaturely” poems, will echo these things. It’s all there, in the richness of the language, and of our world, isn’t it?
Take care, and thank you. Isobel
Die resensie is geskryf voor die onderhoud.
Die nostalgie is waarskynlik een van die belangrikste stylkenmerke van die digkuns. NP van Wyk Louw, Yeats, Auden is van die voorste beoefenaars van die nostalgie, en in Isobel Dixon se debuut Weather eye, wat bekroon is met die Sanlam Letterkundeprys, vind ’n mens die nostalgie as ’n soort refrein terug in bykans elke vers. Die digter woon in Cambridge en haar verse roep ’n vergange jeug op. (Tristia is byvoorbeeld geskryf tydens Louw se verblyf in Amsterdam en reeds in Nuwe verse vind ’n mens die blik terug op die jeug en ongeskonde landskap.) Die digter romantiseer waarskynlik altyd die jeug, soos ons dan ook lees in Dixon se openings- of programvers: dit was nie noodwendig ’n maklike jeug nie. Maar juis omdat die ouer digter terugkyk na die ouers, oor wie daar dikwels ambivalente gevoelens gekoester word, vind sy in hierdie vers ’n versoening met die jeug, die landskap en natuurlik ook die sosiale kodes van die tyd. Dit is hierdie terugkyk wat Freud tereg as die “Besetzung” in die onbewuste beskryf het: juis dit wat die spreker maak wat sy is. Ook die “weather eye” suggereer alreeds die veranderlike blik. Die kind versus die volwassene se interpretasie van sake. (’n Mens hoor ook die Afrikaanse woord verweerde inspeel.) In die openingsgedig word daar dan ook verlang na die tyd toe alles gereguleer en op sy plek was. In “Fruit of the land” artikuleer sy al die elemente van die nostalgiese vers: die hier versus die daar en hoe iets sintuigliks ’n verlore lewe kan oproep (“each small explosion in the mouth the precious milk and honey of nostalgia”, p 11). In die lieflike “Plenty” (p 13) werk sy hierdie verbande ook uit. Die afgetelde, suinige jeug waarin “each month was weeks too long” (p13) word geplaas teenoor die sibaritiese hede. In die epifaniese gedig “Rapture” (p 16) word die metafisiese in oënskou geneem en in “Nightwards” (p 17) word die vertrek na die huis — met al sy vrese en gewaarwordinge — goed vasgevang. “Four things on earth” (p 19) artikuleer die effek wat gekko’s op haar lewe het. Die gekko’s is volgens die Jungiaanse denkwyse ’n simbool van kreatiwiteit en in hierdie gedig word die implikasies goed beskryf. Ook die kiewietjie se spel met die melancholie word uitstekend verbeeld. In die haikoe-agtige “valentine” (p 27) beskryf sy die meer private
this heaving muscle glistens darkly something like a toad.
Die bundel begin met ’n bestekopname van Afrika en sluit daarmee af — oor biddae vir reën, geweld, hongersnood, verkragting. “Back in the Benighted Kingdom” (p 44) sien muskietbyte as liefdesbyte van ’n kontinent! ’n Mens lees selde ’n bundel waarin daar net afgeronde verse staan. Isobel Dixon se versameling getuig van vakmanskap en ’n eie stem. Ons vind hier ’n ryk debuut waarin die invloede goed verhul is. Dit is tereg bekroon met ’n letterkundige prys.
So klink haar verse:
My walls grow fur, plush velveteen. The fridge hums greenly. Om. A mossy stone. Footsteps are muffled here. Take off your shoes.
r fe t. It’s only human, dust. A drift of it, snow settling, pollenfall. My razorblade blunts quietly, rust blossoms on its edge. I am a slow creature in a secret house. The white facade blinks at the sun. Reach I’ve grown short-sighted — here My lenses mirror all our artifice: It only blocks the little light the clouds allow. and nothing speaks to me Your message pips. Tapped from a different hemisphere the mineral sea a flight of veils, You draw my eyes across to where the ship We’ve time to watch it go — Cook fish, a snoek, for me that way.
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