A review of Allan Kolski Horwitz's There are Two Birds at my Window, by Dorian Haarhoff

There is something of the archer in a poet – letting the arrow fly along the length of an arm. Horwitz’s poems land quivering in many targets.

 Arrows feature in the poems – in San rock art and in a bow drawn beyond breaking point. The 80-plus poems cover a wide range – Addis airport, whales in False Bay, hippos. There are odes to international figures – Neruda, Freud, Kazantzakis – and to South Africans – Abdullah Ibrahim, Ingrid Jonker, Josiah Madsunya – poignant poems.

Then there are the more overt offering - love poems and those that express the continued anger of the protest tradition: forced removals, maintenance courts, Steve Biko, refuges, census.  These perhaps find their strength in performance. Most poems reach their targets.    

(Published in Cape Times, September 14,2012)