SELECTED POEMS by INGRID JONKER

ISBN: 9780798141789

Human & Rousseau, December 1988

64 pages, Paperback

Jonker began writing poems as a young girl, producing her first collection, Na die somer, at 13. By 16, she was corresponding with the South African writer and poet D.J. Opperman and publishing in Die Huisgenoot.

In 1956, the poet married Pieter Venter and gave birth to a daughter, Simone, a year later. The couple moved to Johannesburg, but soon separated and Jonker returned to Cape Town with her daughter.

The relationship with her father was tempestuous and bitter. As writer, editor and National Party Member of Parliament, Dr Abraham Jonker was instrumental in implementing censorship laws on art, publications and entertainment. Their political differences were public and humiliating, and Abraham publicly denied Ingrid as his daughter.

The Afrikaanse Pers-Boekhandel prize and a scholarship from Anglo American Corporation enabled her to travel to Europe, however, her harrowing love affairs with South African literary figures, Jack Cope and André Brink complicated her life. One of the affairs resulted in a pregnancy and an abortion, which was illegal in South Africa. In 1961 she received psychiatric treatment at Valkenberg, where her mother had died some years earlier.

The multiple losses of her childhood, her failed marriage, the anxiety resulting from her affairs and her father’s bitter rejection finally proved overwhelming. On the night of 19 July 1965, she walked into the sea at Three Anchor Bay. When her father heard the news, he allegedly said, “They can throw her back into the sea for all I care.”

The Ingrid Jonker memorial is at Gordons Bay where she spent time as a child. The monument is a sculpture of a tricycle, inspired by her poem The Child who was shot dead by soldiers at Nyanga.