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Chris van Wyk was born in Soweto and lived in Riverlea where he went to school. He worked for a non-government organisation called the South African Committee for Higher Education as an educational writer. He was also the editor of Staffrider and started the short-lived Wietie magazine with fellow poet, Fhazel Johennesse. He once said, "I skinder more than most women," and this inspired many of his stories. He has written over 20 books, including poetry collections and children's stories. His first volume of poetry in 1979 - It is time to go home - won the prestigious Olive Schreiner Prize the following year.

Unlike many South African writers who wrote "as a weapon against apartheid", van Wyk preferred to use humour as his primary weapon. "We've got our own magic, lots of it," he says. He married his childhood sweetheart, Kathy, and has two children. He died in October 2014.

In your groups, discuss which traits you inherited from your father, both physical and personality traits.

What flaw does he admit he had inherited?

underline assonance

I have my father’s voice too

And his fuming temper

And I shout as he does.

But I spew the words out

in pairs of alliteration

and an air of assonance.

Everything a poet needs

my father has bequeathed me

except the words.

define

Where his father 'blusters', how does the poet claim he expresses himself?

What is ironic about this poem? Discuss.

where is the other sock, and why is he 'angry'?

He also used his voice for harsher things:

to bluster when we made a noise

when the kitchen wasn’t cleaned for supper

when I was out too late.

Late for work, on many mornings,

one sock in hand, its twin

an angry glint in his eye he flings

dirty clothes out of the washing box:

vests, jeans, pants and shirts shouting

anagrams of fee fi fo fum until he is up

to his knees in a stinking heap of laundry.

does he literally mean 'anagram', or what could this sentence be an euphemism for?

define

Irony

The poet has everything he needs from his father’s legacy.

Irony: parents give you everything you need to make you successful yet the poet believes they did not give him the thing he needs most as a poet “the words”.

It is also ironic because he is saying his father never gave him the words however the whole poem is about his father giving him the words, so in the end he is the only one who can find the irony: his own words.

This poem is a philosophical one, introspective, questioning and challenging.

What does this suggest about his age?

  • domestic scenes
  • intimacy created

When I was a pigeon-toed boy

my father used his voice

to send me to bed

to run and buy the newspaper

to scribble my way through matric.

How did he "use" his voice?

personal

What two contrasting attitudes could this word suggest about his academic ability?

define

When I walk into a room

where my father has just been

I fill the same spaces he did

from the elbows on the table

to the head thrown back

and when we laugh we aim the guffaw

at the same space in the air.

Before anybody has told me this I know

because I see myself through

my father's eyes.

List all the ways he is similar to his father in your books.

I HAVE MY FATHER'S VOICE

Chris van Wyk

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