Personae
by Sarah Johnson
(UCT Younger Poets Series No 3, with Snailpress)
Sarah Johnson’s first collection of poems is a wonderful addition to South African literature. With a touch that is both light and clean, and deeply serious, she addresses some age old concerns. The title, Personae, reflects her concern with relationships, and in these the moral position of the individual. In some poems, assuming that the reader is familiar with biblical texts, she takes incidents from biblical stories and re-imagines the events, bringing the “personae” wonderfully to life, often with sensual or erotic imagery, always touching on the paradoxes inherent in the dualism of spirit and flesh.
And in each of these she focuses on the individual who has, in that moment, a choice to make. Potiphar’s wife muses on her pique at Joseph’s rejection of her, but she also becomes aware of her own limiting narcissism. Jacob, seeing the angel’s foot on the ladder close by his head, is overwhelmed by the splendour of this being while at the same time he realises more fully than ever, his own earthly nature and is satisfied to be of this world.
Interspersed with the poems that explore biblical relationships, many of which have considerable, and some might consider surprising, relevance to us today, are several poetic sketches of moments from present day life. Johnson clearly intends to show by this juxtaposition, how little humans have changed in 3000 years. In Lunching she touches ever so delicately on the preservation of balance in a relationship which might or might not go from friendship into a deepening intimacy. In Symposium, a longer poem, she creates with a few devastating strokes, an academic evening function, succinctly drawing the hosts and their guests, trailing their pasts and enduring the present.
Johnson is clearly steeped in the study of morality. In addition, she may re-ignite, especially for Christians, lapsed and otherwise, a sense of serious joie de vivre. Among the present day poems is Signs and Wonders on the issue of faith (or belief): the poem ends thus:
Do not ask, then, for signs and wonders –
for angels singing in your backyard,
for dishwater turning to wine.
Look, instead, for the faces of those
who walk awed as Lazarus
into the grey morning, who breathe
as though air were a miracle,
who pause, now, in the business of the day,to smile, and bow their heads, and pray.
Despite the fact that for most people these days, the spritual side of life is somewhat overshadowed, and many have abandoned the old religions for New Age versions, Johnson makes her spiritual allegiance quite clear. But whatever the religious orientation of the reader, there is an underlying thread through all these poems which is a concern with knowledge, and the gradual revelation of understanding. Potiphar’s wife begins to understand her contribution to events; the friends, meeting for lunch, gain a finer comprehension of what is really happening between them. In this way she transcends any barriers of belief. In a striking poem about a found photograph, perhaps of her parents, Johnson explores the how differently people perceive a moment in time, and does not flinch from the hard knowledge that understanding gives.
Despite her youth – she is twenty-four – Johnson’s poems have a honed quality, and compressed simplicity that suggest she has been writing for many years. She is undoubtedly a poet to watch, and read, with great interest.