Bientang

One long poem in many parts gives a voice to Bientang, a Khoi woman who lived in a seaside cave at Hermanus around 1800 and of whom the records keep scarcely a line. In close, sensuous verse she recalls her time shut away in a hut as she becomes a woman, then a pregnancy by her own brother that makes her taboo and drives her from her family. Sea, whales, fynbos and birds take the place of kin. Other voices break in to reflect, among them Klaas, guide to a European traveller called Lord Montagu, who desires Bientang and is rebuffed. Through them the poem speaks of newcomers renaming plants, animals and people, of whaling, of race, and of women written out of history, and at the close the poet questions her own reasons for telling the tale.

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About the book

Form

Poetry

Length

64 pages in the original

First published

2020 by Human & Rousseau

ISBN

9780798180948 (original)