Dennis Brutus 1924-2009

When I think of Dennis Brutus, I remember a photo I once saw of him standing in front of a portrait of Frederick Douglass. His graying mane and stoic expression gave him a certain resemblance to Douglass, which I’m sure he was well aware of. I met him several times when I was doing anti-apartheid work in the 1980s, and I was sorry to read of his death.

I once helped organize a fundraising event at Harvard where Brutus spoke about his efforts to have South Africa banned from the Olympics, and about his attempt to escape after his arrest in 1963. Finding himself with his guards on the streets of Johannesburg, he broke free and ran, thinking that they would never be reckless enough to shoot him on a crowded street.

He was wrong. A bullet passed through his body, and before long he was serving an 18-month sentence on Robben Island.

I was carrying a copy of his book A Simple Lust, and before the event I mentioned to him that I liked his poem “The companionship of bluegum trees.”

To my surprise, he stopped what he was doing, sat down, looked up the poem, and read it to me: the only time that I have been privileged enough to be an audience of one for a poet.

The companionship of bluegum trees
their sheen and spangle against the midday
winter sun
and the companionable nudge of my heart
knocking against my mind and memory
with evocation of my student hazy days
condemns me once again
labels me poet dreamer troubadour
unreal unworldly muddle-headed fool
while the trees nod and swagger
and the level sunlight flows.