Priest�s Afrikaans poetry

by Michael Shackleton · March 31, 2009

SEEVLAK TOT SAVANNA by Bonaventure Hinwood. Bent Uitgewers, 2008. 60pp.

Reviewed by Michael Shackleton

In the 1970s Franciscan Father Bonaventure Hinwood told me about his first published collection of Afrikaans verse, called Smeulvuur. I had not been aware till then that his considerable intellectual talents went hand in hand with the divine muse.

I read Smeulvuur and was struck by how the poet used alliteration and the distinctive sounds of well-spoken Afrikaans to grab the reader. In Seevlak tot Savanna,�Fr Bonaventure�s sixth collection of verse, I found that he had lost nothing�of his imaginative choice of words and their sounds in�blendings of arresting beauty.

This is a collection of poems about nature and the poet�s surging emotions when faced with the sea (Seevlak) and the land (Savanna). The poet�s moods and feelings are expressed in short entities, each one neither longer nor briefer in verbiage than the images demand.

In �El Ni�o� he succinctly feels:
die Godkind word die skuld gegee
vir weggeblewe somerreen
al is Hy heel volwasse
twintig eeue terug beween

God�s special relationship with creation, the human family in particular, is central to this poetry. And, as a Franciscan, Fr Bonaventure is perhaps perfectly suited to be writing it.