LITMIR.BIZ

Breyten Breytenbach se nuwe bundel is in ’n sekere sin ’n terugskouing op die lewe en die digkuns van die digter en het sterk outobiografiese elemente. Die tema van verganklikheid en oud-word loop sentraal, en daarmee saam die wisseling van plek en landskap. Die deernis en empatie met die mens en sy vreemde lewensverlope is aangrypend. Nog selde by hierdie digter het die landskap so ’n primêre en so ’n verhelderende rol gespeel as in hierdie bundel.Eerlike en ongesmukte poësie, kompleks én eenvoudig. By uitnemendheid ‘n “wóórd”-bundel, een wat die taal self bemagtig.

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Gabeba Baderoon’s debut poetry collection attempts to probe the realm of the unsaid and the ripples that move between words, between people, between bodies. Sometimes the verses trace and explore details that have brought the poet to, in her own words, «arrested instants of loss or witness that break open the surface of the world». It is a collection of poems that brings one to be silent, to be still. By writing the author attempts to «see again». Like «when we are about to fall asleep … and the mind suddenly finds itself encountering a memory – a connection … a small meditation.» Sean O’ Brien says of her work: Baderoon’s work involves the steady, scrupulous contemplation of questions of identity and meaning. It is lucid, surprising and graceful. It balances the melancholy of departure and solitude with the utopian suggestion that there will, in time, be grounds for general celebration.

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A Hundred Silencesis the third collection of poetry by Gabeba Baderoon – recipient of the DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Poetry in 2005. In this new selection of poems the poet explores how every room has its own silences, its own memories and secrets. She speaks of the quiet, gnawing loneliness of hotel rooms in ‘Sleeping in hotels’, of the ache of longing and how sometimes ‘love is in the going away’. She also does not steer away from what is not said, from the silences between words, and how anger can spark ‘the taste of blood never too far … eyes watchful/heavy as bruises’. It is an eloquent, tender collection of poetry, affirming Baderoon as one of the most exciting new voices in South African writing.

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This Carting Life collects poems that span more than ten years of writing. A fair number of these poems have been published previously in either journals or anthologies, primarily in South Africa, but also abroad in the USA and, in some cases, in translation in France. Within the admittedly small market of poetry (as opposed to other forms of South African literature), the author has some reputation and has recently been awarded the Thomas Pringle Award for a poem published in New Contrast. As the title suggests, a recurring general theme in the volume is that of the personal, romantic and political losses attendant on a form of wandering. These find more specific meaning in the contexts of South African national history, religion (Islam) and music. While the poems are sometimes insistently political, the author’s style is also marked by an insistence on poetry as a craft. The poetry shows the author in control of his language and rhythms and the volume attempts to shift our preconceptions of political art in South Africa.

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In this new collection Rustum Kozain, who won both the Ingrid Jonker Prize (2006) and the Olive Schreiner Prize (2007) for This Carting Life, raises his own bar. Groundwork retains strong connections with Kozain's early work, but it does so while simultaneously introducing a group of poems that indicate the promise of work to come. His voice has strengthened and has a new confidence, making the poems (paradoxically) lighter – though they are not without his trademark seriousness. This is a thoughtful, pitch-perfect collection that resonates with the reader long after the last poem is read.

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Hierdie keur uit al ses digbundels van Adam Small gee ’n beeld van sy onmisbare plek in die verruiming van die Afrikaanse letterkunde. Die meerderheid van die gedigte kom uit Kitaar my kruis en Sê Sjibbolet. Die keur weerspieël deurgaans Small se meelewende kyk in die lotgevalle van die bruin Kaapse werkersklasmense. Dit wys ook sy knap beheersing van humor, ironie en satire om gesagsfigure te hekel, en bowenal sy kreatiewe ontginning van alledaagse spraakvorme, rympies, liedjies en veral sy aanwending van Kaaps waaroor hy in die naskrif by Kitaar gesê het: “Kaaps is ’n taal . . . ’n taal waarin mense hul eerste skreeu skreeu en hul doodsroggel roggel.”

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Met dié nuwe bundel verse vestig Ronelda S. Kamfer haarself opnuut as hoogs talentvolle en dénkende digter in Afrikaans. Die landskappe Klippenkust en Skipskop figureer in dié gedigte, en ook die karakters Klippie Klip-kop en Sara-Slim-meisie, en Herrij Autshumao en Van Riebeeck. Skeepswrakke onderwater word simbool van verledes wat nooit opgediep is nie. En “oorvertel” van die geskiedenis word uiteindelik “andervertel”, met ironie, fyn humor en ’n spel met taal. grond/Santekraam is ’n uitsonderlike bundel, en verryk die huidige kanon van Afrikaanse poësie.

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Kamfer se gedigte is vreesloos, en skroom nie weg van taboe-onderwerpe nie. Sy skryf veral oor tragedies wat alledaags geword het in die wêreld waarin sy haar bevind – dwelms, druglords, en kinders wat doen wat hulle nie hoef te doen nie . . . Haar gedigte is tegelyk toeganklik en onkonvensioneel – sy is ‘n sterk, sterk nuwe stem in Afrikaans. ‘n Vonds.

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Notes from the Dementia Ward is Finuala Dowling’s third collection of verse following on the brilliant and popular I Flying and Doo-Wop Girls of the Universe. This new collection deals in part with the tragic-comic effects of the inexorable and distressing collapse into senility and the way in which memory and yearning come to the fore as a mix of poignancy and wit. The balance between the grim and the touchingly comic is delicately maintained and the subject is imbued with dignity and grace. The dementia poems are interlaced with wry, ironic and compassionate poems that are the hallmark of this remarkable poet.

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Waar sy debuut hoofsaaklik handel oor die verbrokkeling van ’n huwelik in Duitsland – sy “break-up album” – is Al is die maan ’n misverstand ’n tuiskoms, nie net op eie bodem nie, maar ook in ’n nuwe verhouding. Tog is Marais se poësie allermins geluksalig – verlorendheid is steeds die gevoel wat sy digterlike instink onderlê. Hier is praatverse, verse wat doelbewus ingeskryf is teen die gedrae en verhewe metriese trant wat tradisioneel die Afrikaanse poësie kenmerk. Soos die poësie van Raymond Carver is dit verse wat klink soos ’n intieme gesprek, verse wat die indruk laat dat dit omgee vir almal van ons se verlangens en verlorenthede. Die subtiele krag van Marais se poësie lê in die wyse waarop dit as’t ware die leser se vinger neem om die teksture van gevoel na te trek. Met sy debuut het hy die onweerstaanbaarheid van hierdie tegniek gevestig en in sy tweede bundel voer hy dit tot nog oorrompelender uiterstes.

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