‘Nothing prepares you to win the Gratiaen’
Nilma DOLE
As television’s ER heartthrob Noah Wyle takes a deep breath, he
begins to recite the poem ‘Disappearance’ at a Human Rights Watch
ceremony to felicitate Bravery medallist, Sunila Abeysekara.
The author of the poem is indeed a charming lady who exudes
pleasantness and grace - Kandy-born Vivimarie Vanderpoorten.
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Vivimarie Vanderpoorten. Picture by Palitha Gunasena |
“My mother hailed from Matale whilst my father’s roots were in
Kurunegala”, she says. Possessing a mixed heritage of Belgian Jewish
blood and Sinhala Buddhist origins, Vivimarie has an older sister named
Yichaelle. Having been educated for the first 10 years of her life at
St. Agnes Convent in Matale, Vivimarie confesses that “I was quite nerdy
in school”.
Eventually she shifted to the Holy Family Convent when her family
moved to Kurunegala when she was in the fourth grade. At the tender age
of 14, she embraced Buddhism and went on forth to becoming a Prefect
even though she was a Buddhist in a Catholic school.
Determination
“I faced many issues so to speak, ever since I was growing up but I
guess I overcame them with determination” she says.
Vivimarie started writing when she was 17 years as she finished her
O/L examination.
“For my A/Ls, I undertook Political Science, Pure Maths, Economics
and French which was a very unlikely combination but I passed and got
selected to university” she commented about her academia.
She was accepted to the University of Kelaniya where she started on
an Arts degree. However, as fate may have it, there was a time when they
called for applications at the English literature department for those
who had an interest.
“My sister was studying in that department and I just took the exam
to see where I stood”, she says. Good enough for her, she passed the
exam and eventually found herself studying English Literature and
Language at the English Department.
Growing experiences
Further on, she completed her Masters in Applied Linguistics at the
University of Ulster in Northern Ireland and gives back to the community
whence she carved her niche. She teaches literature, poetry language and
linguistics at the Open University and other universities.
She was very close to her father whom she describes as a young Dad
whom she had share her growing experiences with and remembers him.
“Sadly, he passed away seven years ago but he would have been very
proud of me”.
Her actual work on the book that made her larger than life ‘Nothing
Prepares You’ was about her emotions and experiences which she wrote at
that time.
As writers and poets, people write about their feelings at that
moment, she points out and after they move on, the story and poetry
moves on too. This she says was the pure essence of her work and she
highlights “I didn’t want to publish it until such time I realised I
actually published it!”
After various poetry recitals at the British Council (BC) and writing
on the BC’s website WriteClique, many people saw that poetic spark in
her that impelled her to go further in this special sphere.
This resulted in her bagging the prestigious Sri Lankan edition of
literary recognition, the Gratiaen, for which she says “I never did have
time yet to celebrate because I have my Ph.D dissertation to complete by
next year and I’m always out and about involved in research for it”.
Vivimarie is currently working on her new book which is a collection
of 60 poems that will be published soon.
“My work was recently translated into Spanish and I am hoping that
one day, I will be able to publish internationally” she said with a
smile. In her opinion she is her worst critic and is pessimistic about
her work which is evident that she is by far a perfectionist for
creating brilliant poetry.
“I remember at the Galle Literary Festival when Shyam Selvadurai was
on a panel saying that writers couldn’t change the world and everyone
was agreeing to it”, she notes.
In the midst of the audience where her professors and teachers sat,
she commented on the fact that writers can in fact, change the world for
she emphasised about how she was greatly moved and enlightened on gay
people by reading ‘Funny Boy’.
Later Selvadurai himself professed to have been inspired by her work
and commented “Writers write dreaming that they can hear a comment like
that one day.”
Having been inspired by Kamala Das, Margaret Atwood, Silvia Plath and
a multitude of Indian poets, she says she even saw tears of joy from a
Uzbekistani poet who read her work and stated “I am happy that I have
touched people’s lives with my poetry”.
Support
She acknowledges her parents, her friends, her colleagues from
University and her loyal and supportive friends. Speaking of which she
notes “It’s funny how your friends become family”.
She extends a special thank you to her husband, Lal Medawattagedara,
her friends Ashok Ferry, Nazreen Sansoni, Dushy Mendis, Ann Scowcroft,
Anne Ranasinghe, the late Nihal De Silva, Ameena Hussein, the British
Council, the organisers of the Galle Literary Festival and all the
writers at the English Writer’s Cooperative as well as ‘many others’ who
have been supportive of her creative writing.
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