Clive Lawrance
Clive Lawrance (1935- ) was born in Pietermaritzburg. At the age of six his family moved to Irene outside Pretoria. Educated at Pretoria High School he subsequently served a year in the navy, worked on the Kalahari gold fields, and spent three years in London before returning to Pietermaritzburg and embarking on career as a journalist.
He was employed by the Natal Witness (now the Witness), Pietermaritzburg’s daily newspaper, for most of his working life apart from a few years on the Boston-based Christian Science Monitor in the United States.
In a 2010 interview with Janet van Eeden Lawrance said he began seriously writing poetry when he retired to Nieu Bethesda in the Great Karoo in 1994. ‘I started dabbling in poetry when I was 18, strangely enough while on a train that was passing through the Karoo. All those years ago the Karoo triggered my desire to put feelings and observations into words … the small surprises of the Karoo rather than its vastness inspired me to write.’
After 13 years living in Nieu Bethesda and Grahamstown Lawrance returned to Pietermaritzburg where he still lives. In the same 2010 interview with Janet van Eeden, Lawrance said: “I love clarity and simplicity in all things, especially in nature and in poetry. Alliteration and other poetic devices such as metaphor need to be used very sparingly or else poetry becomes over the top or obscure … I use similes more often than I use metaphors, for this reason, because metaphors can sometimes ring a bit false. However, one must never abandon any figure of speech completely. Figurative speech has its place, but it must be used in the right place. I remember one lecturer at Rhodes saying that he was sick of poetry with metaphors, and I thought, ‘What a sad fellow’. A poet has to keep everything in his arsenal so that when he needs it, he can pull it out.”
In another interview (with Margaret von Klemperer) Lawrance said he considered poetry to be a craft. “I don’t believe poets who say they can churn out a poem in a few minutes. It’s very rare that a poem arrives fully formed…I can’t help thinking about what Uys Krige said to me when I interviewed him many years ago, ‘Read the Masters. And if you’re not reading, you should be writing. And if you’re not writing, you should be thinking about writing’. People who want to write, especially poetry, need to spend more time thinking, reading and observing. That’s when true craftsmanship is born”.
Selected work
The River of my Youth
There were days, at the cross-road,
when I should’ve turned left
to the certainties of the village school
but something pulled me
along the winding path to the river
and the hidden canoe; and the mud smell
as I dragged it through the reeds
to the brown water, barred with gold
from the great willow trees
and the dip and trickle of paddles,
the looming of the stone weir,
with its bright tumbling on boulders
where the large crabs were found.
I failed matric, of course,
and did not play football for South Africa,
and didn’t go to university until I was
twenty eight, and never bought a BMW.
but even in the crowded and sterile canyons
of New York City, or the pea soup fog
of London, a small river ran through me
and splashed my shoes with madness.
– The Barbados Hat
Soccer, Karoo Style
We had to shoo a fat sow, three piglets
and a family of chickens off the pitch
then carry a somnambulant great dane
from the penalty spot before the game
could begin. Shortly after half-time
our goalkeeper hoofed the ball skyward
and it burst into flower and wobbled
to earth
Both captains tried to shove the bulging rubber back into its pod, but, with a sad
psst, it died. I thought that was the end of the game, but someone quickly collected old socks and underpants and stuffed them inside the leather casing, and the game went on, to end in a goalless draw. the teams trooped off the pitch and the great dane, with a deep sight. slouched toward the penalty spot.
– The Barbados Hat
Hadeda
Coffin-cold and gray the drizzling dusk.
Plastered and black her feathers.
Heavy wings, heavy tread.
Dawn finds her slumped Beside the old tree stump,
One eye glazing at the sun.
Three-year-old JoJo says ‘Hadeda dead, granddad.’
We honour her coming And going In a large terracotta pot.
Plant plumbago For butterflies.
– Gumption
Bibliography
Collections of Poetry published:
Small Surprises from the Great Karoo (The Rusty Lizard Press, 2001) Stars Like Bees – Nieu Bethesda High Four Poems (The Rusty Lizard Press, 2003)
Butterflies and Blackjacks – Poems from a Maritzburg Garden (Abound, 2010)
My Barbados Hat (Jive Media Africa, 2011)
Whimsical Notions and darker waters (Jive Media Africa, 2012) Gumption – New and Selected Poems (Red Ant Media, 2015).
Poetry published in the following journals: Carapace, New Contrast, New Coin and Fidelities
Biography:
Graeme Pope-Ellis: The Dusi King (Shuter & Shooter, 1986)
In a 2010 interview with Janet van Eeden Lawrance said he began seriously writing poetry when he retired to Nieu Bethesda in the Great Karoo in 1994. ‘I started dabbling in poetry when I was 18, strangely enough while on a train that was passing through the Karoo. All those years ago the Karoo triggered my desire to put feelings and observations into words … the small surprises of the Karoo rather than its vastness inspired me to write.’
After 13 years living in Nieu Bethesda and Grahamstown Lawrance returned to Pietermaritzburg where he still lives. In the same 2010 interview with Janet van Eeden, Lawrance said: “I love clarity and simplicity in all things, especially in nature and in poetry. Alliteration and other poetic devices such as metaphor need to be used very sparingly or else poetry becomes over the top or obscure … I use similes more often than I use metaphors, for this reason, because metaphors can sometimes ring a bit false. However, one must never abandon any figure of speech completely. Figurative speech has its place, but it must be used in the right place. I remember one lecturer at Rhodes saying that he was sick of poetry with metaphors, and I thought, ‘What a sad fellow’. A poet has to keep everything in his arsenal so that when he needs it, he can pull it out.”
In another interview (with Margaret von Klemperer) Lawrance said he considered poetry to be a craft. “I don’t believe poets who say they can churn out a poem in a few minutes. It’s very rare that a poem arrives fully formed…I can’t help thinking about what Uys Krige said to me when I interviewed him many years ago, ‘Read the Masters. And if you’re not reading, you should be writing. And if you’re not writing, you should be thinking about writing’. People who want to write, especially poetry, need to spend more time thinking, reading and observing. That’s when true craftsmanship is born”.
Selected work
The River of my Youth
There were days, at the cross-road,
when I should’ve turned left
to the certainties of the village school
but something pulled me
along the winding path to the river
and the hidden canoe; and the mud smell
as I dragged it through the reeds
to the brown water, barred with gold
from the great willow trees
and the dip and trickle of paddles,
the looming of the stone weir,
with its bright tumbling on boulders
where the large crabs were found.
I failed matric, of course,
and did not play football for South Africa,
and didn’t go to university until I was
twenty eight, and never bought a BMW.
but even in the crowded and sterile canyons
of New York City, or the pea soup fog
of London, a small river ran through me
and splashed my shoes with madness.
– The Barbados Hat
Soccer, Karoo Style
We had to shoo a fat sow, three piglets
and a family of chickens off the pitch
then carry a somnambulant great dane
from the penalty spot before the game
could begin. Shortly after half-time
our goalkeeper hoofed the ball skyward
and it burst into flower and wobbled
to earth
Both captains tried to shove the bulging rubber back into its pod, but, with a sad
psst, it died. I thought that was the end of the game, but someone quickly collected old socks and underpants and stuffed them inside the leather casing, and the game went on, to end in a goalless draw. the teams trooped off the pitch and the great dane, with a deep sight. slouched toward the penalty spot.
– The Barbados Hat
Hadeda
Coffin-cold and gray the drizzling dusk.
Plastered and black her feathers.
Heavy wings, heavy tread.
Dawn finds her slumped Beside the old tree stump,
One eye glazing at the sun.
Three-year-old JoJo says ‘Hadeda dead, granddad.’
We honour her coming And going In a large terracotta pot.
Plant plumbago For butterflies.
– Gumption
Bibliography
Collections of Poetry published:
Small Surprises from the Great Karoo (The Rusty Lizard Press, 2001) Stars Like Bees – Nieu Bethesda High Four Poems (The Rusty Lizard Press, 2003)
Butterflies and Blackjacks – Poems from a Maritzburg Garden (Abound, 2010)
My Barbados Hat (Jive Media Africa, 2011)
Whimsical Notions and darker waters (Jive Media Africa, 2012) Gumption – New and Selected Poems (Red Ant Media, 2015).
Poetry published in the following journals: Carapace, New Contrast, New Coin and Fidelities
Biography:
Graeme Pope-Ellis: The Dusi King (Shuter & Shooter, 1986)