RECITING POETRY

My enjoyment of reading poetry aloud began a long time ago:

I was in Grade 2 when the small primary school I attended at Sheba Gold Mine, in the then Eastern Transvaal, hosted a concert. As was the custom, this took place on the small stage of the mine recreational hall. Apart from the weekly film show, opportunities for entertainment were so rare that most people in that mining community attended, even if they didn’t have children in the school. The details of the concert elude me for my concentration was solely focused on my contribution to the evening’s entertainment: I had been directed to recite a poem. All the poems we had learned at school were in Afrikaans; mine had to be in English.

I clearly recall paging through my mother’s embossed leather-bound volume entitled An Anthology of Modern Verse containing a collection of poems selected by A. Methuen…