Poem

Ronelda Kamfer

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Original language

CARRY ON

you shouldn’t try so hard
to smile
switch the light off
and draw the curtains
think bad thoughts
carry on

© Translation: 2021, Robert Dorsman

GAAN AAN

GAAN AAN

moenie so hard
probeer om te smile nie
sit die lig af
trek die gordyne toe
dink bad thoughts
gaan aan

© 2019, Ronelda Kamfer
From: Chinatown
Publisher: Kwela,

Ronelda Kamfer

Ronelda Kamfer

(South Africa, 1981)

Ronelda S Kamfer entered Afrikaans literature like a Guy Fawkes’ rocket at Pentecost. This remarkable poet was born in 1981 to parents who lived in Blackheath in the Cape. At the age of three, she went to stay with her grandparents, labourers on a Grabouw fruit farm. At ten, she returned to her parents in Blackheath and later moved to Eersterivier on the Cape Flats where she encountered firstha...

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CARRY ON

you shouldn’t try so hard
to smile
switch the light off
and draw the curtains
think bad thoughts
carry on

© 2021, Robert Dorsman
From: Chinatown

CARRY ON

you shouldn’t try so hard
to smile
switch the light off
and draw the curtains
think bad thoughts
carry on

© 2021, Robert Dorsman

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