I lived from 1933-1965.
I was from South Africa.
Ingrid Jonker (19 September 1933 - 19 July 1965) was a South African poet. Although she wrote in Afrikaans, her poems have been widely translated into other languages. Ingrid Jonker has reached iconic status in South Africa and is often called the South African Sylvia Plath, owing to the intensity of her work and the tragic course of her turbulent life. Her work has also been compared to that of Anne Sexton. During the night of 19 July 1965, Jonker went to the beach at Three Anchor Bay in Cape Town where she walked into the sea and committed suicide by drowning.
Read full description...
Ingrid Jonker was born on a farm near Kimberley in South Afrika on 19th September 1933. Her parents seperated before her birth and she (and her mother and sister) lived with grandparents who moved to another farm near Cape Town. her grandmother died in 1938 and her mother ded in 1943 when Ingrid was still only 10. After her mother's death she and her sister lived with her father and his third wife but relations with their children were not harmonoious.
She produced her first collection of Afrikaans poems, entitled Na die somer (After the summer) at the age of sixteen. Despote the fact that several publishers were interested in her work, she was advised to wait before going into print and her first book of poems Ontvlugting (Escape) was not published until 1956, the year she married Poeter Venter. her daughter Simone was born the following year.
Her father was a member of the South African Parliament and one of his jobs gave him responsibility for the censorship of publications and entertainments. Ingrid did not agree with his policies on this and the subsequent conflict and stress caused a breakdown which involved her spending time in Valkenberg psychiatric clinic in 1961.
She died at Three Anchor Bay near Cape Town by deliberately walking into the sea to drown herself. Her father, upon hearing of Ingrid's death is reported as saying: "They can throw her back into the sea for all I care".
Perhaps the greatest tribute to her came in 1994 When Nelson Mandela read her poem Die Kind ( wat doodgeskiet is deur soldate by Nyanga) in the original Afrikaans
during his address at the opening of the first democratic parliament.
She was granted the Order of Ikhamanga by the South African President for her oustanding contributions to literature. She wrote her poetry in her native Afrikaans though much of it has been translated into other languages.
Due to the intensity of her poetry and her troubled life she is often refered to as a South African Sylvia Plath.
JS
Links of interest include
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrid_Jonker
My poetry
The child is not dead
The child lifts his fists against his mother
27 lines
Uit hierdie Valkenburg het ek ontvlug
en dink my nou in Gordonsbaai terug:
19 lines
My omhelsing het my verdubbel
my borste roep na mekaar
12 lines, 1 comment
Ek herhaal jou
sonder begin of einde
14 lines
Your face is the face of all the others
before you and after you and
17 lines
Om myself weg te bêre soos ’n geheim
in ’n slaap van lammers en van steggies
11 lines
I repeat you
Without beginning or end,
10 lines
Begin summer and the sea
a cracked-open quince
16 lines
This journey which obliterates your image
torn blood-angel thrown to the dogs
25 lines
Ward one-hundred-and-thirty in the passage on the right.
It’s five in the morning for the milk-cart
30 lines
Start a forum topic about this poet
