Demise of a great wordsmith
It was with great sadness that I personally learnt about the death of Prof Dennis Vincent Brutus, an academic, political activist and world class poet.
In 1988 when I was in exile at the ANC School, the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO) in Morogoro Tanzania, I established the poetry link with Prof Brutus who then lectured in the Department of Black community, Education, Research and Development at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the USA.
He personally sent me a number of interesting poetry magazines (The Gar) relevant to his poetry and the struggle to South Africa, which together with the SOMAFCO poets we used (the material) during our poetry workshop.
Prof Dennis Brutus also sent some us some of his anthologies of poems including Letters to Martha and other poems from a South African prison, A simple lust and Censure published in Enugu, Nigeria.
I recall that on behalf of the Somafco Poets I sent our poems to Prof Brutus and he edited and published them in magazines (CALLALO) and newspapers including the People (UWAP) at the University of Pittsburgh.
In 1989 a Senegalese lecturer Pierrette Herzberger- Fofana from the University of Erlangen in West Germany requested me to make a contribution to a book Critical Perspectives on African Literature in honour of Dennis Brutus’s 65th birthday in 1989.
Poets and writers across the board are deeply saddened by his death. Brutus left a polished mark in the national and international poetry.
- F Qoopane
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