University of the Western Cape veteran releases collection of poetry
Gottschalk, a former senior lecturer of political studies at UWC, is an accomplished anti-apartheid poet who still does research and publications in the name of the University. His latest book was published in 2021, but he held off on the marketing until the Covid-19 lockdown came to an end.
The book is a compilation of about 70 poems written over 35 years, dedicated to scientists, inventors, engineers, astronauts and all who inspire the ‘Space Age’.
Gottschalk smiles as he thumbs through ‘Cosmonauts do it in Heaven’ and sits up in his chair when he lands on page 14. He immediately starts reading aloud the poem ‘We demand Physics!’
‘when the stars fled Cape Town
the astronomers followed
for stars hide in the light
we can only see them
in the brightest dark.
‘we who serve the stars,
left Hartleyvale floodlights,
smog & skyglow to astrologers,
for astrology thrives on opaqueness.
‘starlight & irony bathe this Sunderland Karoo koppie:
a descendent of British admiralty
now precessed to this desert hill:
tonight, astronomy looks up.
‘Freddy Marang, night assistant,
checks spinning red dials, green screens,
keyboards his commands to electronic eye,
remembers:
‘“Bellville South High School
didn’t teach Physics
– we demanded Physics!
eleven of us: ten boys, one girl:
so our maths teacher, Jan Persens, did the job.”
‘in such ways the stars
help their friends win small victories
on the ground.’
Freddie Marang was the first black South African night assistant in 1978 at the Sutherland Observatory. He was under the mentorship of the late Prof Jan Persens, the revered maths professor at UWC.
‘I started writing this collection more than 30 years ago and continued when I began work here at UWC in 1984. Some of the poems overlap with my protest background. Like this poem called ‘First Night’, about my first night as a detainee with a full moon shining through the prison window,’ he says.
‘The five bars’ reflection looks like live silver banners on the wall opposite the banner. As the moon rises in the sky the silver banners slowly creep across the cell wall.’
There is another called the ‘The Moon is Coming’, which mentions former Vice-Chancellor, Prof Jakes Gerwel, Campus Coordinator Edna van Harte, and Sociology lecturer Leila Patel being detained during the apartheid State of Emergency. At the time, Gerwel was an Afrikaans lecturer.
‘The big liberation Struggle arrived before I got here to give credit where it is due. The horror stories of racism that Adam Small and others told me about happened before I arrived,’ remembers Prof Gottschalk.
‘There are two women’s toilets and two men’s toilets in the B-Block and A-Block of the campus with no explanation of why that is so. The reason is that in around 1975 the blankes and nie-blankes were screwed off of the doors.
‘In 1984 it would have been a fantasy for UWC to say it was going to offer astronomy, and we are the leading astronomy department in the whole country, namely the SKA project.’
‘Cosmonauts do it in Heaven’ is published by Hands-on Books, an imprint of Modjaji Books. It is available at most book stores.