Koerant en Konteks in Opperman se Poësie

Abstract

Opperman does not only use his personal and cultural experiences to distil them Into poetry, but also uses news reports appearing in the daily press and which reflect everyday life around him. These news reports are used by Opperman as an intertextual framework on which to weave his own worl< of art.

In this article the author traces how Opperman reworks journalistic prose through allusion, transposition and editing to become poetry

It is also indicated that an intergame takes place between the news report and the socio-cultural topicality The perspective of the poem is shaped in the construction of the conflict situation touched upon by the press report, but which in the poem is woven in perspectivistically in both the composition of the poem and the figurative conception both of which then grow towards a culminating conclusion. In "Klara Majola" from Engel uit die klip, for example, the whole of the events builds up towards an identification with Klara Majola, so that her deed in the final two lines rises above the perspective with great dynamic force.