{"id":232456,"date":"2022-07-26T20:06:34","date_gmt":"2022-07-26T18:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/epitaph-for-a-baobab-remembering-south-african-poet-and-activist-don-mattera\/"},"modified":"2022-07-26T20:06:34","modified_gmt":"2022-07-26T18:06:34","slug":"epitaph-for-a-baobab-remembering-south-african-poet-and-activist-don-mattera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/epitaph-for-a-baobab-remembering-south-african-poet-and-activist-don-mattera\/","title":{"rendered":"Epitaph for a baobab: remembering South African poet and activist Don Mattera"},"content":{"rendered":"

The towering South African poet, activist and humanitarian Donato Francesco Mattera<\/a> passed away<\/a> on 18 July at the age of 86. What he represented to South Africa is far larger than his contribution<\/a> to literature. <\/p>\n

During the online memorial service<\/a> for Mattera, filmmaker and lecturer Dr Teddy Mattera said of his father: \u201cHe illuminated my pathway as a creative person.\u201d Tributes from journalists, historians, politicians, doctors and lawyers \u2013 people who don\u2019t readily identify as creative \u2013 echoed his sentiments. Herein lies the enduring greatness of Don Mattera: what he did for people.<\/p>\n

He was, in the traditional sense, an African poet, the centre of social life. Although Don was entertaining, he was far more than an entertainer; as a spokesman for the poor and marginalised his reach was wider than an activist\u2019s. He was never a public representative yet he represented people. <\/p>\n

He was an outsider<\/a> to the intellectual establishment, a passionate voice in the wilderness. <\/p>\n

Often abrupt in his critique of elitism, and his lifelong profound identification with the poorest and most marginalised members of society, what he stands for challenges the academy\u2019s conception of The Humanities. It urges them to do better to serve human beings. For South African universities to walk their decolonial talk, they will have to acknowledge the importance of a figure<\/a> like Mattera<\/a> to the society well beyond making people write exams on his scansion and prosody. They will have to perforate brick and mortar of the university with clay and thatch, and abandon, or at least question, the brittle certainties that uphold the system as it is.<\/p>\n

Like all great poets, Don embodied paradox, and was motivated by, and motivated, radical change. From the early days of apartheid<\/a> right up until his death, he challenged authority, publicly witnessed systemic violence, he actively used his agency and voice to liberate himself and others. <\/p>\n

His style was emotional and subjective, which may also have contributed to his exclusion from the academy, where his work is not widely taught. He spoke up for and supported organisations defending prisoners, children, women, people with disabilities, the KhoeKhoe<\/a> people. If the essence of excellent scholarship is rigorous research, innovation and relevance to society, Don\u2019s only crime was passion.<\/p>\n

Memory is the Weapon<\/h2>\n

Don\u2019s autobiography Memory is the Weapon<\/a> (1987) is a seminal reflection on apartheid\u2019s earliest crimes, particularly for its detailed observation of ordinary life, its unflinching portrayal of violence and its much-needed humour and humanity. It is the \u201cpoet as historian\u201d described by South African author AC Jordan<\/a>. <\/p>\n

An instance of the vividness of his language and searing compassion, reflecting the conditions that sadly continue to dehumanise and impoverish people:<\/p>\n

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You would find a man or a woman lying drunk in the slime and grime and debris, breathing the foul air of a dispossessed and forsaken life \u2013 men and women robbed of those vital fibres that separate man from beast. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\"A<\/div>\n

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<\/span> Ravan Press<\/span><\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Poetry brought Don and I together. We agreed that poetry, with its ability to contain and express the harshness of pain, grief, rage and despair, had drawn us in and healed us: his from the harsh deprivations of early urban apartheid and mine from the duplicity of my childhood<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Poet of compassion<\/h2>\n

\u201cHe led with his soul,\u201d said Fasiha Hassan, scholar, activist and mentee of activist and political leader Jessie Duarte<\/a> at an intimate Women of Waqf event at the Masjid-Ul-Islam in Fordsburg specifically designed for community healing following the deaths of Yasmin Jessie Duarte and Don Muhammad Omaruddin Mattera.<\/p>\n

Spirituality and poetry are on the same frequency, and lent his words a presence and intimacy which inspired his readers to action \u2013 always positive, affirming and defending Black people, and importantly, inspiring people to raise each other. In this way we reach for and enact our highest human potential. He said to me, \u201cWhen you get a chance to move up in the world, look around and see who you can take with you.\u201d <\/p>\n

We were in Kimberley at the Northern Cape Writers\u2019 Festival of 2008, where he held court alongside poet Keorapetse Kgositsile<\/a>, healer and author Credo Mutwa<\/a>, and writers Diana Ferrus<\/a>, Sindiwe Magona<\/a> and James Matthews<\/a>. Unique in the way it presented traditional dance and storytellers from deep in the Kalahari desert, the festival programme taught me, among other things, that there are at least three more indigenous languages that are not recognised because they\u2019re not written down, and Don could speak them. <\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

The Kimberley stage was broad enough to contain and cherish his unique genius, and gave him space to demonstrate his prolific response to the canon of indigenous oral poetry, and equally the lyrical in English. <\/p>\n

Don\u2019s relationship with mortality may have its roots in another formative experience, he confided in me when we were on tour in the UK. As a teenage gangster in Sophiatown<\/a> in the 1950s, before he got involved with politics, he killed a rival gangster in self-defence. Eternally wounded by the experience, Don became the poet of compassion, of anything life-affirming.<\/p>\n

His spirituality was also political: his Pan Africanism was non-racial and welcoming. In 2009 we joined a delegation including Kgositsile and Lebo Mashile<\/a> to tour the UK. As we walked through the airport, waiters, servers, bartenders and cleaners flocked to greet the two gentlemen of letters, while white fellow travellers looked on bemusedly. I was reminded, after having experienced the same with James Matthews two years previously, that we are seen by those who are invisible. And poets are more than wordsmiths, they deliver heart and minds from emotional suffering and ignorance, and inspire agency. It is a calling, not a career.<\/p>\n

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Read more: A tribute to Keorapetse Kgositsile, South Africa’s poet laureate<\/a> <\/strong> <\/em>\n<\/p>\n

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Mattera and his works were banned for more than ten years during apartheid. After the banning order was lifted he self-published his poetry collections, and in 2008 Rose Francis, the founder of African Perspectives Publishing<\/a>, republished<\/a> Memory is the Weapon and Azanian Love Song. <\/p>\n

If a poet\u2019s value is based on their commercial currency, many of us would not be able to claim the title. Mattera\u2019s values, strongly influenced by his Pan Africanism, Black Consciousness and Islam, see the well-being of the individual as indivisible from that of the collective, and the humanities would do well to follow that example.<\/p>\n

A baobab kneels<\/h2>\n

The aesthetic concerns of oral poetry do not always successfully transfer to the page; sound demands a musicality that is sometimes at odds with the content of a poem. Don Mattera\u2019s unforgettable voice straddled traditions and united divergent and often contradictory imperatives: he was an oral poet and a writer, an Italian and an African, a nationalist and a Pan-African. <\/p>\n

To keep his vision alive we could start by conceiving of creativity as a human potential in everyone, and prescribe his works to students of medicine, law, social work and administration, and not just teaching and literature.<\/p>\n

In his tribute at the memorial, Teddy said that his father was an oak who left many seeds, but I disagree. He is a baobab<\/a> who seeded a forest. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
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<\/span> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Source: The Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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