The photos in this article were kindly contributed by Jack Heddon, thank you Jack!

Photo: Jack Heddon

Cape Town CityPoems:
“To White South Africa” by Cosmo Pieterse, and
“Times Change” by Peter Clarke

These CityPoems can be found in the District 6 Museum in Cape Town.

The District 6 Museum in Cape Town, South Africa - Photo: Jack Heddon

The District 6 Museum

District Six was named the Sixth Municipal District of Cape Town in 1867. Originally established as a mixed community of freed slaves, merchants, artisans, labourers and immigrants, District Six was a vibrant centre with close links to the city and the port. By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, the history of removals and marginalisation had begun.

The first to be 'resettled' were black South Africans, forcibly displaced from the District in 1901. As the more prosperous moved away to the suburbs, the area became the neglected ward of Cape Town.

In 1966, it was declared a white area under the Group areas Act of 1950, and by 1982, the life of the community was over. 60 000 people were forcibly removed to barren outlying areas aptly known as the Cape Flats, and their houses in District Six were flattened by bulldozers.

The District Six Museum, established in December 1994, works with the memories of these experiences and with the history of forced removals more generally.

Cape Town

Cape Town was originally developed as a victualling station for Dutch ships sailing to Eastern Africa, India, and the Far East more than 200 years before the construction of the Suez Canal in 1869. Jan van Riebeeck's arrival on 6 April 1652 established the first permanent European settlement in South Africa. Cape Town quickly outgrew its original purpose as the first European outpost at the Castle of Good Hope. It was the largest city in South Africa until the growth of Johannesburg and Durban.

To White South-Africa

If, when you walk around the Cape's sand flats*,
You do not see men laugh or sing or play
But only hear them swear and shout, then say
That here are those who work in your stone flats,
Who walk your streets; who see your sights; who are
Your blood, your sin, your guilt your crime, who own
No colour in their lives but their own,
Who live in the dark because you bar
From light the children of the sun, who pray
To God for help that never came or will,
Who are to hunger, pain, each human ill,
Just as you are, and the last to death, all prey...
Your wealth feeds want, two-thousand miles o'ersea-
You're blind to, ten miles from your eyes, stark misery

-- Cosmo Pieterse, excerpt from "Seven South African Poets" (Heineman); reprinted in "Words in the House of Sound: The writer's floor of the District Six Museum" Published by District Six Museum. 2000. Page 58.

* NB: the Cape Flats are the part of Cape Town where non-whites were relocated during apartheid (and their segregated nature continues today).

Photo: Jack Heddon 

Times Change

His great-Voortrekker-grandfather
would, instead,
have raised his voorlaaier
higher
and shot me dead.

His grandfather and father
would rather
have kicked my black arse
out of the way
so that they could pass.

How nicely he says,
"Skuustog."**
Times change.
How strange.

Peter Clarke

** NB Skuustog means 'Excuse me'.

About the authors

Cosmo Pieterse is a South African poet, actor, lecturer, broadcaster, and teacher in London, South Africa and US. He was born in Windhoek in Namibia in 1930. He has taught class for several decades South Africa. After he was banned in 1962, he was a lecturer in London, and from 1965 at the University of Ohio in the US.

He is a poet (Present Lives Future Becoming, 1974), dramaturge (Ballads of Cells, 1965) and literary critic (Protest and Conflict in African Literature, 1969). He has published several South African poetry, prose and theatre anthologies (Seven South African Poets; Five African Plays).

Peter Clarke is a highly accomplished and versatile visual artist, working across a broad spectrum of media. But he also has a literary side as an internationally acclaimed writer and poet. Of these three roles, he jokes: "Had I been triplets, it would have made it much easier because each could have his own jobÉ There are times when I go through a writing phase and there are times for phases of picture-making but there is never a dull moment."

Clarke is best known for his graphic prints, particularly his woodcuts, and more recently he has moved into collage. He also uses leather, glass, found objects and other mixed media to produce his colourful work.

Born in Simons Town in 1929, Clarke's artistic career spans many decades and he has unsurprisingly produced a large number of works and appeared in many exhibitions. Nevertheless, commentators generally feel that despite this experience and exposure, his work is not given the full recognition it deserves.

> http://www.artthrob.co.za/03sept/artbio.html   

Inspiring Cities Museum of CityPoems

Inspiring Cities has collected many citypoems over the years, as well as organized salons with citypoets and cities doing special projects. We have two criteria for what a citypoem is: the intention must be poetic, and it must be in the public realm of cities. Shapes, form and locations can and do differ.

The Museum of CityPoems has citypoems from cities all over the world. From Alhambra to Zonnebeke, from Taipei to Lima.

Got one yourself? Mail us your pictures (free of rights) and description, and we will publish.