Hello, everyone.The following presentation is a poem titled
‘At A Funeral' with the subtitle '(for Valencia Majombozi, who
died shortly after qualifying as a doctor)’ written by Dennis Brutus.This poem forms part
of the new Grade 12 English Home Language poetry curriculum for 2023 and the next few
years to come.
Here is a bit of background information to Dennis Brutus.You won’t ever be examined
on this, but it is good to know in order to place his poem
in context.
Brutus was born in Zimbabwe in 1924, but he moved to South Africa when he was four years
old.
He graduated from the University of Fort Hare and taught in various high schools in South
Africa after 1948, which was when the apartheid regime began, but he was dismissed for his
vocal criticism of apartheid.
He was the co-founder of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee, which was an
organisation that was influential in the banning of South Africa from the Olympic Games.
In 1961, he was banned from South Africa for his political activities.
After years spent overseas, he was eventually unbanned by the South African government in
1990 when he returned to South Africa.
He passed away from cancer in December 2009 in Cape Town.
Let us take a look at a short summary of the poem.
The poem is a tribute to Valencia Majombozi, black South African woman who managed to qualify
as a doctor after much hardship and sacrifice during the apartheid era.
She died during an anti-pass law protest at the hands of the apartheid police.
This poem is about her funeral ceremony and what it symbolises.
Brutus presents the funeral as an occasion to rekindle his commitment to the struggle
for freedom.
He urges active resistance from the reader and he ultimately concludes that death is
a better fate than yielding or surrendering to the apartheid government.
Let us read through the poem.
‘Black, green and gold at sunset: pageantry And stubbled graves: expectant, of eternity,
In bride’s-white, nun’s-white veils the nurses gush their bounty Of red-wine cloaks,
frothing the bugled dirging slopes Salute!
Then ponder all this hollow panoply For one whose gifts the mud devours, with our hopes.
Oh all you frustrate ones, powers tombed in dirt, Aborted, not by Death but carrion books
of birth Arise!
The brassy shout of freedom stirs our earth; Not death but death’s-head tyranny scythes
our ground And plots our narrow cells of pain defeat and dearth: Better that we should die,
than that we should lie down’
The first two lines read: ‘Black, green and gold at sunset: pageantry And stubbed
graves: expectant, of eternity.’
Consider the words 'black, green and gold'.
These colours can be interpreted in two ways.
Firstly, 'black, green and gold' make reference to the resistance movement flag.
In other words, the colours of the ANC flag are black, green and gold.
The ANC was banned in 1961, so these words can symbolise an act of defiance and resistance.
The second interpretation is that these colours could also refer to the academic gowns, caps
and hoods worn by many of the mourners, perhaps those academics who Majombozi knew from university.
The black could represent the academic gowns, the gold an arts degree and the green a science
degree.
This funeral is described as taking place at sunset, but figuratively, this could mean
the end of a day, which is symbolic of the end of a life.
The image of a funeral at sunset along with its figurative meaning of death, creates a
sombre mood and it establishes connotations of darkness and sadness.
The speaker describes this funeral as 'pageantry'.
A pageant is a ceremony of splendid and rich display.
However, it is all just for show.
Think of a beauty pageant - it is all just a display of beautiful woman, but nothing
much else.
This funeral, in the view of the speaker, is merely just for show.
It does not make up for all the hopes and dreams that are lost with this young woman's
death.
To the speaker, all that this funeral is, is pageantry and 'stubbled graves'.
Perhaps this could be a reference to the short-looking tombstones all around the graveyard or even
short grass around each of the gravestones.
Symbolically, this could refer to how short tis young woman's life was.
These graves are described as 'expectant, of eternity'.
We have personification here.
The graves have been given the human quality of being able to expect or wait to hold more
bodies for 'eternity'.
In lines 3 and 4, we have a description of the nurses present at the funeral.
Nurses from the hospital who knew Majombozi are present at her funeral.
They are wearing their nurses' uniforms, which consisted of a white dress, a short white
veil on their heads and a red cloak around their shoulders.
The colour of the nurses' veils are described as 'bride's-white'.
The nurses being referred to as brides could symbolise the ideas of love and virtue.
The nurses' veils are are also described as 'nun's-white'.
The veil a nurse wears is called a wimple.The nurses’ veils or wimples are symbols of
holiness and purity.
The nurses at this funeral are said to 'gush their bounty'.
To gush means to flow out quickly.
The word bounty means something in abundance.
In other words, the nurses are expressing their absolute grief for Majombozi's death.
The colour of the nurses' cloaks are compared to the colour of red wine.
These nurses around the graveyard in their red and white uniforms are said to look like
bubbles of red wine rising and overflowing or 'frothing' across the slopes or the hills
where this funeral is taking place.
Picture in your mind how the nurses in their red and white uniforms and many other mourners
have come in their masses to a funeral taking place within an area surrounded by 'slopes'
or hills.
These hills or 'slopes' are described as 'bugled' and 'dirging'.
A bugle is a type of brass musical instrument, almost like a small trumpet.
The person playing this musical instrument at the funeral is playing dirges, which are
sad, mournful songs.
In these first four lines, images of the massive crowd, its colourful appearance and the movement
and sound of the people are created.
This is definitely a large funeral.
Line 5 begins with the single exclamation, 'Salute!'
This single exclamation brings the movement and the sounds of the funeral to a still moment
of respect and honour for the deceased woman.
Once the moment of honour and respect has occurred, the speaker then instructs the reader
to 'ponder all this hollow panoply'.
The word 'ponder' means to think about or consider something.
The word 'hollow' means meaningless.
'Panoply' means a splendid display or spectacle.
In other words, the speaker is instructing the reader to reflect on this meaningless
and worthless display that is Majombozi's funeral.
This is by no means disrespectful.
It is simply a shame that behind all of the fancy aspects of this funeral, a life of potential
and opportunity has been lost at the hands of the apartheid government.
Line 6 instructs the reader to 'ponder' about the 'one' - referring to Valencia Majombozi
- whose 'gift's or talents as a doctor and her ability to heal people that the 'mud devours'.
We have personification here.
The earth or the 'mud' in which her grave has been dug is given the human quality of
eating hungrily or 'devouring’.
The mud of the graveyard is compared to a hungry mouth.
The personification emphasises that all her talents and the hope of her people are now
buried in the earth.
The speaker addresses 'all you frustrate ones' in line 7.
These are all those who are oppressed and who would want to 'frustrate' something.
To frustrate something means to thwart or prevent the success of something.
In this case, the speaker addresses all those who want to prevent the success of the apartheid
regime.
The speaker describes the oppressed as having their 'powers tombed in dirt'.
Black people's 'powers' - meaning, opportunities, talents and freedom - during the apartheid
era are figuratively buried with the deceased woman.
In other words, those who are oppressed by the apartheid government are politically 'dead'.
The oppressed have been aborted - their lives terminated before they are born - 'not by
Death' himself, but rather by 'carrion books of birth'.
The word 'carrion' refers to decaying flesh.
Vultures are birds that feed on carrion.
We could say metaphorically that the apartheid government is the vulture or carrion bird
that rips at the flesh of those oppressed.
The apartheid government does this through its issuing of 'carrion books of birth'.
These books refer to the pass books issued to all black people during the apartheid era.
It can be said that the life of a black person ends before he/she can even live his/her life.
From the moment of birth he/she is issued with a passbook.
As I have mentioned before, this means that black people are figuratively 'dead' because
their freedom and opportunities are taken away due to passbooks and the oppression from
the apartheid government.
Line 9 begins with another single exclamation 'Arise!'
Here, the speaker calls on all people of colour to rise against the oppression.
The speaker describes this exclamation as a 'brassy shout of Freedom' that 'stirs our
earth'.
The word 'brassy' can be interpreted in two ways.
Firstly, this could be a reference back to the bugle mentioned in line 4.
Here, the music from the bugle would not send the politically 'dead' to their rest, but
rather it would awaken them to action.
Secondly, the word 'brassy' can also mean bold or loud.
The 'shout of Freedom' that 'stirs our earth' could be a result of an uprising that will
turn the 'abortion' of lives into a new birth.
Note that, like 'Death' in line 8, 'Freedom' is also capitalised.
Here, 'Freedom' is given the human quality of being able to shout.
In line 10, it is 'not death but death's-head tyranny' that 'scythes our ground'.
In other words, death itself is not destroying South Africa and its people.
Rather, it is 'death's-head tyranny'.
The poet compares the apartheid government to the death-head wearing Nazis in World War
Two.
The death-head symbol is typically depicted as a skull and crossbones.
The word 'scythes' could mean to cut with a scythe, which is a tool used for cutting
crops or grass.
'Scythes' also means to move through something rapidly and forcefully.
'Our ground' refers to land.
Perhaps in the context of apartheid, this could make reference to the Group Areas Act.
The pronoun 'our' could suggest the land of South Africa belonging to everyone.
In simple terms, line 10 basically states, that Death does not cause destruction and
death across South Africa, but rather it is the apartheid government that causes this
death and destruction.
The 'death-heads tyranny' that 'scythes our ground’ – in other words, the apartheid
government - in line 11, also 'plots our narrow cells of pain, defeat and dearth'.
The word 'plots’ could have two meanings.
The first meaning is to plan something.
The second meaning refers to small pieces of land.
Consider the repetition of the pronoun 'our’.
The land of South Africa that should be free to everyone is reduced to the ownership of
‘narrow cells’.
These 'narrow cells' are described as being of 'pain, defeat and dearth'.
This could be a reference to the graves in a graveyard, prison cells or perhaps even
the small houses in poor areas in which people of colour had been forced to live, as a result
of the Group Areas Act.
The word 'dearth' means a scarcity or a lack of something.
This could be a lack of basic human rights, freedom of movement and basic needs to survive.
Line 12 is the last line in this poem.
The poem ends with a significant statement in which the speaker states, "Better that
we should die, than that we should lie down."
Remember that this poem was a response to the death of Valencia Majombozi.
She died during an anti-pass law protest.
The poet suggests in this line that it is better that she, and many others, die fighting
for freedom and equal human rights, rather than to 'lie down' and surrender and accept
the apartheid system.
Note the pronoun 'we'.
This refers to the collective of those people who are against the apartheid system.
This includes the poet himself.
It is interesting to note that the poem does not end with a full stop.
We can interpret this with the idea that there is no surrender to the apartheid regime and
that resistance towards it has no end.
In this poem, the themes of the criticism of oppression, resistance and frustrated hopes
are evident.
The overall tone, which is the speaker's feelings towards the subject matter at hand, is of
anger, dismay, frustration and disappointment.
Thank you for watching this presentation on Dennis Brutus' poem ‘At A Funeral’.
My goal is to upload more Grade 12 poetry from the new set of poems, so please subscribe
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