Wopko Jensma

Wopko Pieter Jensma (born 26 July 1939 in Ventersdorp, South Africa) is a South African poet and artist. During the 1960s and 1970s, Jensma published three collections of poetry; in addition, he created graphics and reproductions of woodcuts. He disappeared from Johannesburg without a trace in 1993, and has not been seen since.

Early years Wopko Pieter Jensma, born in Ventersdorp on 26 July 1939, was the eldest of three children of Dutch immigrant Pieter Duurt Jensma, who came to South Africa in 1928, and Anna S.C. Coetzee. He has a sister, Elsa and a brother called Andries. Jensma spent most of his childhood in Middelburg, Eastern Cape, where his father worked at the Grootfontein College of Agriculture. At school he participated in rugby, among other things. He scored the winning goal in a rugby match against the neighboring town of Hofmeyr, this event was published in the town newspaper 'Die Midlander', a report which Jensma later used on the cover of his poetry collection "I Must Show you my Clippings". His mother died in 1948, after which his father married Francina Coetzee, a young woman from the area.

Background Jensma's art is ethnic, based on a theme unique to himself, lino-printed images of animals drawn as characteristics of people. His poetry was characterized as having a jazzlike feel to it; he described his words as his jazz instrument and his expression being his rhythm. No information of what became of him is known.