Anthology of poetry by local teens

will be four prizes of R2 500 each.

The competition project co-ordinator, retired lecturer Wouter Gildenhuys, of Durban, who put up the prize money, says he was motivated to introduce the competition because Afrikaans was his mother tongue and he had always loved poetry.

“I have always loved words … and, in particular, the composition of words as in poems, and I have been running an Afrikaans poetry reading group for about 12 years.”

The competition arose because Gildenhuys considered it important to stimulate pupils to read and write more, and to write more poetry, in particular poetry with an African influence.

The 18 teenagers whose poems feature in Grondwoorde are from grades 8 to 12.

They represent eight schools – Eden College, Durban, Port Natal, Durban Girls’ High, Gelofte, Empangeni High, Greytown, Hillcrest High and Werda.

Twenty-three schools were approached to enter the competition, and all poems submitted were reviewed by Professor Marius Crous at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth, the head of the university’s Department of Literature and Language Studies.

“The poems submitted were generally of a high standard and all are included in the anthology,” says Gildenhuys.

“It is my ideal to involve more schools form rural areas in next year’s competition.”

Gildenhuys says that anyone wanting to order a copy of Grondwoorde – at R100 each (R50 for pupils) – should telephone 083 628 0860 or e-mail gildenhuys.wouter@gmail.com for further details.