Pillage

Plunder in many forms runs through these poems: of selfhood and of language, of love, of the body and of the earth, and of the poor. An opening poem fears that the poet can no longer hear a poem arriving, while others ask how anyone can be a single person, and touch on an ageing body and the Covid pandemic. A cycle of six love poems, dedicated as always to her husband, holds two bodies together against death. Other poems face violence done to women’s bodies, which also give life and voice, and recast the Mass as a meditation on a damaged planet. Black and white gazes are weighed together, like love and disgust for South Africa, alongside eight songs for figures such as Desmond Tutu and Lady Anne Barnard, and a poem on the 2015 student protests.

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About the book

Form

Poetry

Length

128 pages in the original

First published

2022 by Human & Rousseau

Author's age

70 when first published

ISBN

9780798183178 (original)

9780798183185 (Human & Rousseau, South Africa)