In A place to night in, Frank Meintjies examines his identity, his context and the trajectory of his life, challenging his readers “to perambulate along / the etched and sometimes recessed lines to / a kind of burning centre…” (‘Maze…’)

 

Describing his birthplace in ‘Riet- vlei’, Meintjies employs a characteristic device evident in many of the poems—a series of words and phrases, variously spaced, which cumulatively conjure the spirit of place. And into the centre of the poem, he inserts a memorable childhood moment:

 

 

He provides further autobiographical details in ‘Tree of Life’ (“My names are Frank and Andrew / i’m eight siblings wide”); and in ‘That place along the Otto’s Bluff Road’, in which he recollects, with considerable humour, a domestic scene around “our Formica kitchen table” where textbooks abound, one of which “tells in fine detail / how many legs a grasshopper has”. Meanwhile, an older brother, just bailed out of prison, “smears peanut butter on bread”.

 

In ‘Bits of salt’, he announces “i am khoi”, visits relations and elders, shows respect for the ancestral spirits, and thinks of the Khoi chief and political activist, David Stuurman (1773–1830), “the lion of Gamtoos”. At the end of the poem, he is at peace, though he knows “unsettled feelings” will inevitably resurface; awareness of his ancestry produces both “calm & turmoil”. In further analysing self, in ‘The bits that constitute me’, Meintjies identifies places, people and experiences that have shaped him, and refers to two wounds—“the cut above my eye”, and “my ankle where the go-cart axle punctured me”—wounds that he revisits in ‘Two marks’, where the scars take on symbolic significance.

 

In the context of a troubled South Africa, Meintjies writes of the omnipresence of poverty, accompanied by the “primed grenade” of “resentment” (‘Slant’); of atrocities associated with apartheid (‘Athlone’); of buildings, once synonymous with sinister activities, now converted into museums, where “the walls confess / again and again” (‘In the castle’); of activism, commitment and faith (‘Tree of Life’).

 

Highlighting the disparity between the comfortable and those whose “dwellings perched on the mountainside” (‘Poppedorp’), and acknowledging the urgency for housing projects (‘Grey Street’), Meintjies addresses the issue of personal living space and the way in which it defines us.

 

He depicts, in ‘In the city’, an elderly homeless man who is “tugging a trolley laden / with scrap iron”, as he heads for “his place / in the city’s cracks & grooves”.

 

In ‘Space’, he writes of a house that is too small, cramped on its property, unable to accommodate guests. While his reality, in ‘Home’, is still “toy-small building blocks”, he considers the ideal of a place built of “hardy bricks”, capable of welcoming “a knot of people”; a place not only “to night in”, but where one is anchored and memories may be made. Eventually, when he upgrades his accommodation, he is aware of the need for redefinition, feeling “somewhat unbelonging” as “my new spaces / consider me” (‘New spaces, folds and snarls’).

 

Clearly, Meintjies felt driven to write from a young age. He calls his pen “a prayer crawling across the page” (‘Tree of Life’); sees writing as a means of remembering, “because death is lodged / in the body of time” (‘Purple flower’); and recollects various of his jobs that involved “me the letters the words and / the times they wrote” (‘The printer’s ink’).

 

Vibrant as it may seem, life is accompanied by the “death doula” (‘Beside you’), and while a bridal car may be moving along one street, a hearse may occupy another (‘Wentworth’). On a personal level, Meintjies writes of the passing of his brother, Stanley, repurposing the words of the Lord’s Prayer, which he works into the poem (‘Untitled I’). Elsewhere, Meintjies suggests that death is, “that welcome gloom” (‘The dark’).

 

Largely autobiographical in content and economical in structure, the poems attest to a writer who is sensitive, observant and acutely attuned to the spirit of place.