SELECTED POEMS, translated from the afrikaans by Jack Cope and William Plomer

52pp., hardback, d.w., Jonathan Cape, London, 1968

Adapted from the dust wrapper: 

Ingrid Jonker was an exceptional South African poet of her generation, distinguished by the fresh and intensely personal use of her native language, Afrikaans. Although deeply shaped by South Africa—both as a person and a poet—Jonker’s work transcended provincial boundaries, resonating with the universal human experience.

Among the contemporary poets she admired were Federico García Lorca, Paul Éluard, e.e. cummings, Dylan Thomas, and the Dutch poets Gerrit Achterberg and Lucebert. Jonker’s poetry, while rooted in her own context, echoed the depth and intensity of these literary influences.

Her writing was inevitably marked by the racial tensions of apartheid South Africa and her own childhood of poverty and rejection. Through her poetry, Jonker expressed an emotional engagement with the deprived and oppressed, the child, the aged, and the outcast—while also confronting the bewilderments of her own identity.

Among the last words she wrote were: “I cannot do any better, I cannot do anymore.”