Van Riebeeck Park Poet publishes her work of 15 years

Lounging in her Van Riebeeck Park home, Amanda Wichmann-King recently talked about visions and prophecies behind her poetry book, Chasing Joy, that was launched in December last year.

Amanda, an English teacher at St Andrew’s School for Girls, said she was a visionary and prophetic poet.

She said she had been having visions since she was 13 and called it a gift from God.

“I grew up as a pastor’s daughter and have seen visions my entire life,” Amanda said.

She talked about a poem she had written, Soweto Friday Night, inspired by a vision in which she saw a man walking in Soweto, playing a saxophone.

“In it, I heard a voice on a radio that announced how Walter Sisulu and six others had been imprisoned.

“I did some research, since I wondered why I titled it Soweto Friday Night, and then I found it was a Friday when these politicians were arrested,” she said.

Her work also comes from inspiration. She once backpacked through Joburg to get a taste of the city’s culturally rich life.

“I once saw a boy selling avocados in Boksburg in front of a flower shop. Avocados is based on him. It was the middle of winter when I saw him with his hands in his pockets.

“He was wearing pants that were too short and a pair of school shoes,” she said while explaining how she would venture around to understand raw realities within South Africa.

Amanda’s work has touched many so far. A SABC reporter, Amanda Matshaka, once invited her to a high-tea talk about God and my issues.

“The poem that touched many of the women is called Trapped, which was written from a vision in 2006.

“While I was blow-drying my hair one day, I saw a vision of a soul looking like a luminous light bulb with a body. Just a being, sitting in a cell surrounded by prison bars, with its arms wrapped around its knees.”

On the prison bars she saw the words “anxiety”, “fear” and “depression”, which paved the way for one of her favourite pieces.

She said her visions were vivid and she could remember them in detail.

“For God time is irrelevant. When you have a vision that lasts only a few seconds, it feels so much longer. I can describe them in detail. When it’s from God, it stays with you,” said Amanda.
She said she was a free verse poet. “I don’t like lines, I think in curves.”
For her it’s essential that poetry touches people in a way that awakens something inside them to expand and change their perception.
“With poetry, you have to make an impact in a short space of time.”
She is fond of her heritage and it comes into play in her poetry.
“I am the third generation of mixed ancestry. My great-grandmother was Zulu, who married my great-grandfather, a Scot.”