Link Love: The Common Literary Journal Shares Its South African Poetry Edition Online
The fourth issue of The Common literary journal, published last year, features a 90-page collection of South African poetry, compiled by Kelwyn Sole. The journal contains work from 24 South African poets that was previously unpublished or had been published in the last three years. These poems are now being shared on The Common‘s website.
Here’s a selection of poems from ten of our Books LIVE members, as well as Sole’s introduction to the issue:
Liberation in South Africa and the first free elections, in 1994, unleashed a social and cultural energy and sense of possibility. In the two decades since then, there has been an explosion of innovation in South African poetry, with a number of poets experimenting with fresh perspectives and themes. In a society still bearing the effects of deep division—most obviously, but not only, racial—poetry has become one of the cultural media through which individuals from previously antagonistic groups can share and explore their feelings and emotions, thereby, at times, creating bonds of mutual sympathy. At the same time, the social and political foci of pre-liberation poetry have remained but have been transformed and augmented by a number of fresh areas of concern.
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“Tin Roof” by Sole:
Autumn works away like a carpenter
dismantling the promises of spring—our shelters brought so slowly down
it’s hard to recollect when each wall
“Why I Am Not an Engineer” by Robert Berold
I am not an engineer. but I studied
to be one. those days, the ’60s, we
went to varsity in shorts and long socks and
threw paper aeroplanes in class. chem.eng.
was a tough course. the theoreticians did well
but the real engineers, the guys who drank beers
and fixed their own cars, failed.
“Widowhood in the Dementia Ward” by Finuala Dowling
“Oh my God, I’m so pleased to see you,”
she says from her nest of blankets.
“I’ve been meaning to ask—
How is your father?
How is Paddy?”
“12 Anxieties for April 12th” by Liesl Jobson
On my side of the glass
POLICEMAN KILLS CAT
are burglar bars
on the other side
“DR DEATH” ACQUITTED
a grille
“He Pleaded Ignorance” by Kobus Moolman
He did not know what the sky was made of.
He did not know what fire tasted like.
He did not know how far away from the earth the truth was.
“This is the Sea” by Rustum Kozain
There is that sea, deep sometimes
as the heart at dusk,
the shine on its face soon to fade.
There is that caravel drifting in
and all it brings: a load of good
and the bad unreckoned by the quartermaster.
“Suspension” by Malika Ndlovu
1st May, 12h38
I’m navigating in and out
Of mental combat
Trying to figure
Exactly what station I’ve pulled into,
How to answer that simple question
How are you?
“Farting Knees II: Talking to My Lover” by Makhosazana Xaba
When I vomit
it will be through my forehead.
Be warned, stand far off
because the vomit will not spare you.
“Remembering S-21, Cambodia” by Fiona Zerbst
This was a school
before it was wire and silence.Oleander
scented the sunlit courtyard.
Book details
- Absent Tongues by Kelwyn Sole
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EAN: 9781920397401
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- A hundred silences by Gabeba Baderoon
EAN: 9780795702280
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- All the Days by Robert Berold
EAN: 9780958491556
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- Handsome Jita: Selected Poems by Vonani Bila
EAN: 9781869141264
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- Imprendehora by Yvette Christiansë
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EAN: 9780795702907
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- Other Signs by Ingrid de Kok
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EAN: 9780795703973
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- The Girl Who Then Feared to Sleep: & other poems by Angifi Dladla
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EAN: 9780620277778
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- Homemaking for the Down-at-Heart by Finuala Dowling
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EAN: 9780795703201
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- Glass Jars Among Trees: Prose and Poetry edited by Alan Finlay, Arja Salafranca
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EAN: 9781919931234
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- 100 Papers by Liesl Jobson
EAN: 9780981406817
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- One Eye’d Leigh by Katharine Kilalea
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EAN: 9781857549928
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- Groundwork by Rustum Kozain
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EAN: 9780795704307
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- Lush by Haidee Kruger
EAN: 9781869192051
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- Tilling the Hard Soil: Poetry, Prose and Art by South African Writers with Disabilities edited by Kobus Moolman
Book homepage
EAN: 9781869141905
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Scribd.com book preview:
Tilling the Hard Soil: Poetry, Prose and Art by South African Writers with Disabilities
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