TRIBUTE: Dr. Don Mattera - A poet who falls in the line of cultural workers who helped shape Black Consciousness

Tribute to Dr Don Mattera 

My first encounter with Don “Bra Zinga” Mattera was through his work, a poetry anthology of his, to be specific. It was in 2008 at the Rhodes Park Library In Kensington that I first interacted with his world. Seven years later, he would grace one of my Children’s Book Clubs with his presence at the very same library when we celebrated an anniversary. He graciously performed to the gallery of elated kids. I loved children so much and always advocated for their protection, good health care and education that will propel them for active citizenship.

Khehla Chepape Makgato with Don Mattera at The Rhodes Park Children’s Book Club in  2015.

Mattera was, in person, a remarkable human being. Few times in which I was privileged to be at events he was in, I always marvelled at his grace and poise. One of his famous quote every time he took a podium at artsy gatherings is that ‘On your marks, get set, look back and see who you could pick before you go’. 

The book I referred to in the opening of this tributary piece is called Azanian Long Song. This anthology sparked my interest and titillated my literary appreciation.. There is a particular poem I fancied from the book and is called Sophiatown because it captured the terror that eroded black cultural hub and African humanity destroyed by apartheid with 1950’s Immorality Amendment Act which prohibited mixed race cohabitation. This act came into effect in February 1955 which saw forced removals being implemented by the then National Party’s apartheid regime. 

Introducing the second edition of this anthology a decade after its first publication in 1983, then Professor Emeritus Es’kia Mphahlele in 1993 wrote “I think the time is ripe for an essay in appreciation of this ageless literary activist who makes music with poetry. To hear his resonant voice speak his poetry is also to  wish he would make tape recordings of his reading. He is a natural poet. ‘Natural’ because he doesn’t strain at a vocabulary of resistance or engage in verbal gymnastics to impress his reader.”

True to Mphahlele’s submission about Mattera’s writing, a reader feels accommodated without a stretch of intellectual comprehension on the words. A reader feel at home because Mattera’s work is  focused on the humanity of his subjects – who were mostly black – humanity which apartheid and later democracy stripped from them. Mattera’s work is aesthetically beautiful and meaningful, but can also be viewed as political if one considers that.

Born Donato Francisco Mattera in West Native Township, a road across Sophiatown in 1935, he is celebrated as a poet, activist, editor, writer and cultural icon in the world. His passing on 18 July 2022 aged 86 has left a huge void in the local and global literary community. No doubt his richly nuanced writings will surely attempt to close. He arguably, as Professor Mphahlele remarked ‘falls in the line of poets who established the momentum of Black Consciousness era’. He is from a generation of cultural workers who fought apartheid through their talents whilst willing to put their lives on the line for the liberation of South Africa and Africa at large. May his soul rest in peace.