Narreskip

A worm-eaten ship sails in, carrying a scribe nobody elected, who logs how the cadres on board loot and gorge and choose the slyest among them to steer. In mock-antique language, the poems lampoon present-day drunks and idlers, and one takes a medieval fox to a castle very like Nkandla. Others mourn ancient art smashed by zealots, a winged lion of stone wrecked by an idiot wielding a drill, and a reading room lost to fire. Closer to home come burglaries and killings, the trade in body parts for muti, lockdown quatrains, dogs and dying gardens, loan sharks and drinking songs, and a Hillbrow childhood set against the city’s decay, until a last poem concludes that evil remains as cruel as ever.

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About the book

Form

Poetry

First published

2022 by Protea Boekhuis

ISBN

9781485313458 (original)