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avoryfaucette's review against another edition
3.0
I heard de Kok read once, and I bought the book. She has a great sort of immediacy - the poems are very to the point, and they depend on visceral emotional responses. Many of the poems in this collection deal with the situation in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent, including Truth & Reconciliation. My favourite is a very simple poem, and it ends like this:
and may the unfixable broken bone
loosened from its hinges
now lying like a wishbone in the veld
pitted by pointillist ants
give us new bearings.
Update: reading this again ten years later, it feels a bit flat to hear a white woman's reflections on life in South Africa, but her language is still quite striking.
and may the unfixable broken bone
loosened from its hinges
now lying like a wishbone in the veld
pitted by pointillist ants
give us new bearings.
Update: reading this again ten years later, it feels a bit flat to hear a white woman's reflections on life in South Africa, but her language is still quite striking.
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