Small players feel the whiplash

Since 1994 there has been an increase in the number of small, independent publishers in South Africa. A more recently established venture in Cape Town is unique in that it focuses solely on southern African women’s writing, and one of its titles, Whiplash, by Tracey Farren was last week short-listed for the prestigious 2009 Sunday Times Fiction Prize.

Modjaji Books was launched in 2007 by writer Colleen Higgs, when she published Megan Hall’s debut poetry collection Fourth Child, which went on to win the Ingrid Jonker poetry prize. Higgs had been working as project manager at Cape Town’s Centre for the Book at the time, and felt she was ready for a new challenge.

She explains how by managing the centre’s award-winning Community Publishing Project, she was constantly giving advice to others about how to go about publishing.

“I wrote the book, A rough guide to small-scale and self-publishing, as part of my work, and as a way of putting down the frequently asked questions and the basics of publishing,” Higgs says. “My work was an in-depth research project into publishing - all the aspects from commissioning, finding authors, production and printing, design, marketing and distribution. I built up good networks and started to feel that starting my own press was doable. I needed a new challenge and wanted to be able to work more flexibly.

“Most small presses are run by men, so I wanted to do something for women, to open up a different aesthetic. Publishing is full of gate-keeping, it has to be. Resources are always limited and there are lots of writers looking for a break. I wanted to give a new set of writers - and a new set of aesthetics - a chance.”

Higgs acknowledges that small press publishing is fraught with difficulties, but this is something that goes hand-in-hand with an approach that does not cater for a commercial market. Indeed, Higgs sees the role of Modjaji Books, as a small publisher, as being concerned with publishing new voices and taking risks. She aims to “publish purely out of love or passion and because I resonate with a writer or her work. Not because she is marketable or worthy.”

Whereas small publishers have traditionally focused on publishing poetry, Modjaji Books is also devoted to publishing a fair amount of fiction. “Fiction is more successful,” she says, “but you still have to get the numbers right in terms of print run and how much to spend on a particular book. Publishing is a calculated gamble. I don’t want to only publish poetry. I’m interested in short fiction, essays, novellas, books that experiment with form. One forthcoming title, Hester se Brood, by Hester van der Walt is a recipe book, but not in the conventional sense. It is also a memoir, an exploration of the meaning and history of bread and bread-baking.”

Last year Modjaji Books published the controversial novel, Whiplash, which has been short-listed for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize. Dealing with prostitution in Cape Town, the novel had been rejected by several commercial publishers before finding a home at Modjaji Books. The decision to take on its publication resulted in Higgs taking the leap and resigning from Centre for the Book to focus on publishing fulltime. This was courageous, especially since many take the view that it is near-impossible for a small publishing venture to generate a full-time income, and that it should be best treated as a part-time hobby.

Higgs muses: “I haven’t earned a salary for myself out of Modjaji Books so far, although it has begun to cover its own expenses, including phones, petrol, printing costs, design and so on. I hope as I build the list and develop better strategies for getting the books into stores and build up my direct sales too, that it will begin to become sustainable. I’m beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel for next year. In the meantime I also do freelance work, give advice about publishing for which I charge an hourly rate, do manuscript assessments for writers, do some journalism and other work. I’ve also cut back on luxuries, though it is enough of a luxury to do what I am passionate about, to have flexible time to spend with my child, and to be my own boss.”

The issue of financing publications is always paramount, and obtaining funding is not always as easy as it may initially seem. Higgs says that so she has not been successful in obtaining state funding, “but I have received funding from the Cape 300 Foundation for poetry collections by Joan Metelerkamp and Sindiwe Magona, which are to be launched at the Cape Town Book Fair, along with collections by Fiona Zerbst and Helen Moffett, also published by Modjaji. I keep writing proposals and look for sponsorship opportunities. Hester se Brood is a likely candidate for sponsorship. I am also looking for sponsorship for an anthology of short stories that Modjaji Books gathered last year. I want to pay an editor to work with the writers and I need funds to pay for the printing of that book.”

Marketing and promotion can also be particularly difficult for a small publisher with limited finances, but again Higgs turns to innovative, relatively inexpensive means, such as blogging on the Book SA website or promoting on Facebook.

“I have found online marketing to be very successful. All of the events and launches I have organised have been very well attended. We sold over 80 copies of Whiplash at the launch, even a large publisher would have been pleased with that. I use Facebook to build relationships with people who are interested in my work and in whose work and profiles I am interested. Recently I have started on Twitter, which I find far more useful as a way of learning things, but do also use it to share ideas and finds and to market what I am doing, or just to build awareness of Modjaji Books”.

In the midst of this, however, the economic downturn has put the dampers on publishing worldwide, and in SA many publishers and bookstores are adopting a cautious approach. Tremendous challenges are raised for small publishers in particular.

Higgs sees two main challenges ahead: “The first is how to increase the profitablity of what I am doing, to make it sustainable. Secondly and related, is how to get the attention of book sellers while I don’t have a sales representative who is dedicated to promoting my titles. I wish all booksellers kept up to date with Book SA, but I fear many don’t. I also think that they often have conservative tastes about what their readers will like. Small presses need to hand sell and build relationships with independent booksellers and readers and hope for the best with the rest.”

Always resilient and determined, Higgs is already committed to several more titles in the next 12 months. “I plan to publish Hester se Brood, four collections of short stories – by Arja Salafranca, Lauri Kubuitsile, Meg van der Merwe and Wame Molefe, as well as a novel by Makhosazana Xaba,” she says.

“I am also hoping to compile a 2010 South African Small Publishers’ Directory in collaboration with the Publishers’ Association of South Africa and the British Council, which will represent small publishers at the London Book Fair next April. I am just waiting to hear about the funding for that.”

(Published in Busness Day, June 12, 2009)

Photo of Colleen Higgs: BookSA

Fair trade in South Africa

The Cape Town Book Fair, which will take place from 13th June to 16th, is now is its fourth year. Organised in collaboration with the Publishers’ Association of South Africa and the Frankfurt Book Fair, this year there will be a total of 250 exhibitors from 29 countries...read more here

Drawing 22

Drawing 21

South Africa unbowed

South Africa may have so far escaped the worst of the global economic crisis, but its effects are certainly being felt. Businesses are struggling and redundancies are on the increase. Late last year, the local book trade got a bit of shock when the Fascination Books chain went into liquidation. After all, with its 43 stores and 400 staff, Fascination was ranked the third-largest book chain in South Africa.

But one also has to contextualise the situation. First, Fascination Books was an independently owned chain and had been struggling financially for some time. Second, it focused on Christian and Afrikaans titles, thus aiming at a niche market. The books it stocked were also mainly remainders, with very few new titles. Yet while Fascination’s collapse is obviously not indicative of the state of the book market as a whole, some booksellers have viewed it as a wake-up call.

For the year ahead, local publishers are taking a cautious approach. Stephen Johnson, managing director of Random House Struik, says that there are no plans to cut back on existing projects, but new projects will be considered very carefully. Random House Struik has not seen a drop in sales of big titles, but as far as backlists are concerned, there has been a decline in orders.

Bridget Impey from independently owned Jacana Media takes a similar view in that while the publisher does not intend dropping the number of books it plans to put out, at the same time there can be no question marks about the success of a prospective title and there cannot be nice-to-haves. Whatever Jacana publishes this year has to work and there can be no risk-taking.

Impey does, however, point out that the book industry is protected slightly during an economic downturn, as while consumers will have to cut back on expensive luxuries such as overseas holidays, they can still buy books. “It’s the lipstick effect,” says Impey. “It makes you feel good and it doesn’t cost much.”

This cautious, but certainly not pessimistic, approach is also evident among the bookstores. Andrew Marjoribanks, managing director of the Wordsworth book chain in the Western Cape, says that bookstores in South Africa, unlike those in the UK for example, do not have to contend with competition from the supermarkets, so there is a bit of a cushioning effect.

Exclusive Books marketing manager Batya Green-Bricker also says that the national chain has not experienced much of a drop in sales. Book clubs are ordering fewer titles, but are definitely still ordering, and there has been an increase in sales of popular, bestseller-type titles. Book buyers are playing it safe, says Green-Bricker, buying well-known, established authors such as Wilbur Smith rather than new names.

So for most of the book trade, it looks like business as usual, but with caution required all round.


(Published in the print edition of The Bookseller, April 10, 2009)

Interview with Philip Hammial

This is an interview I conducted with Australian poet, publisher and artist Philip Hammial for the fifth issue of Green Dragon in 2007.

Philip Hammial was born in the US and emigrated to Australia in 1972. Two of his 20 collections of poetry have been shortlisted for a New South Wales Premier’s Award. He is also a sculptor and the director of The Australian Collection of Outsider Art.

GC: You were born in Detroit, but after graduating from university you travelled the world for 10 years then settled in Australia. It was a very different time and world travel seemed a lot easier to do. It was part of the whole counterculture scene. How did you relate to that, and why did you choose Australia in which to settle?

PH: At 12 I decided I wanted to see the world, this after reading the adventures of Colin Glencannon, Scot engineer on a tramp freighter; Richard Haliburton’s adventures & hearing Lowell Thomas’ radio reports on his trip into Tibet on foot shortly after the end of the Second World War. So when I graduated from high school I decided to get a job on a salt-water freighter only to discover I was too young. Telling a visiting uncle about this problem, he suggested I join the US Navy, which I did, the next day. Three years (1954-57) in the engine rooms of two ships, it was a great beginning.

I then went to college (university later) & spent two summers hitchhiking around Europe, staying in youth hostels & cheap pensions & reading the collected works of Nietzsche. My third trip (with my first wife) lasted two years. We went around the world for US$1000 each, $500 a year. The US dollar was very strong, & there were black markets in Turkey, Pakistan and India. Anyway, I’ve managed to travel in 74 countries for a total of 10 years – India (4 times), Tibet (twice), China (4 times), much of Africa.

I left the US for the last time in 1969 for two reasons; to travel & because I was totally disgusted with the domestic security & foreign policies of the US government &, needless to say, still am. After living in Bali for a year (money almost gone & not possible to again renew our visas) we flipped a coin – Japan or Australia – to see where we would go to work. Tails, we arrived in Australia on tourist visas in 1972 with $100 between us.

A predictable question: when did you start writing and why? I’m curious about your work in sculpture. You said this started up when you had a broken leg and was stuck at home. Why sculpture and not other visual art forms?

Having had a successful career as a juvenile delinquent and three years in the navy (where I came to the realisation that I was a pig-ignorant fool & probably headed for prison) I managed, in spite of my poor high school grades, to get admitted to a small college in Michigan. It was there, thanks to some inspiring teachers, that I started writing poetry, plays, short stories & a novel as well as painting & playing a sax. Couldn’t do it all, so eventually settled on poetry & sculpture. Yes, the broken leg, in three pieces. In plaster from one foot to armpits & taking painkillers, I was too groggy to write poetry. A compulsive creator, what to do? One day my mates loaded me into my Plymouth sedan & took me to a tip where, with me pointing to objects, they filled the boot, then spread all of those wonderful bits & pieces over a big table in the basement of our house in San Francisco. Hobbling around on crutches, three or four months later I had 40 pieces of sculpture. Not sure why sculpture, probably because I discovered I’m not much of a painter. Also, like poetry, I can make a piece of sculpture in one hit – an hour or two & it’s done.

You started up Island Press in the middle 1970s – what is your experience of publishing in Australia? What is the attitude of commercial publishers towards poetry?

Publishing poetry in Australia is a mug’s game. One would have thought after all these years that I’d have smartened up & done something worthwhile. I think I finally have – no plans for any further publications. Since the time of Bob Hawk, both Labour & the Liberals have been cutting funding to the arts, with poetry right at the bottom of everyone’s priorities. In any case only a handful of Australians read poetry. Most of my friends are visual artists & musicians & only two or three of them have poetry books on their bookshelves. What hope for the rest of the population?

I’d guess that only one in ten thousand homes would have even a single volume of poetry tucked away on a bookshelf.

We’re a nation of sports spectators. With four or five exceptions, finding a book of Australian poetry in a Sydney bookshop is like finding a needle in a haystack. If, as a person from a small poetry press (not a bona fide rep), I walk into a bookshop in Sydney with books to sell I’ll be out the door before you can say Jack Robinson. Island Press had a distributor for three years. That distributor was worse than useless & took a 65% cut. In the whole of Australia there are, as far as I know, only four distributors that will touch poetry, all of them useless. The large Australian
publishers no longer publish poetry; there’s no money in it.

What are your feelings about literary journals in SA that you have seen? What are literary journals like in Australia?

I’ve only seen Green Dragon & Carapace. As I know that you & Gus are publishing on a shoestring you have my sympathy & respect. Literary journals in Australia cover the whole range from elegant to awful, from journals with very good writing to very bad writing. The big academic journals keep battling on. Most of the small magazines have gone under for the reasons listed above, many of them only lasting for one or two issues. To get funding for a magazine from the Literature Board one must prove that one has at least 500 (if I remember correctly) subscribers, a very difficult if not impossible task.

Many small publications in SA are dependent on funding of some sort, whether public or corporate funding. Corporate funding can be a bit dodgy as the companies are likely to want marketing leverage, which risks interfering with the publisher’s integrity. However, obtaining government funding isn’t always that easy, either. What is the situation with regards to funding in Australia?

I can’t think of a poetry publisher who would even think of approaching the private sector for funding. It would be a waste of time. Australian companies aren’t known for their generosity. A few support sports, but the arts ... It’s possible to get subsidies for poetry from the Literature Board of the Australia Council if one has a good track record. Island has received several subsidies over the years, from AUS$500 to $2500 per title for up to four titles. Today it costs about $2300 to publish 500 copies of a good quality 80-page book with a two- or three-colour cover. A book of poetry now costs about $20. Why would anyone buy 80 pages of poetry when one can have a 300-page novel for the same price? As I said above, the federal government only just supports the arts (the Australia Council) & most of that funding goes to the Opera House. Poetry gets the crumbs. By way of contrast, the government of France devotes 4-point something of its annual budget to the arts. Australia? – less than 1%.

A concern in SA is the issue of poetry audiences – how poetry should be shared with an audience. Poetry performance is popular, with the emphasis on active engagement with a physical audience – not the same as publishing a book of poems and hoping someone will read it. You have had texts set to music by Australian world musician Colin Offord; in a sense, this is like poetry returning to its origin, with its basis in song, not as words on the page.

I’m all for getting poetry out to an audience by any means – performance, books, CDs. But Australian poetry audiences, unlike audiences I’ve experienced in Durban, Tokyo, Paris, NYC and Quebec, are usually small, very small, & lazy. To get through to them one must spoon-feed them pabulum. And don’t expect any feedback, positive or negative, after a reading. Much too cool & sophisticated. Australian poets are terminated by indifference. As for performance poetry in Australia: the few performances I’ve seen have been by testosterone-driven adolescents, not my cup of tea.

Your poetry shows the influence of surrealism, and the blurbs on your books usually refer to the influence, but you have said to me you dislike the label, because in Australia the critics use it as an excuse to classify surrealist, or surrealist-inspired, work as outdated. I’m not sure if the situation is different anywhere else in the world, but at the same time it also hints as an establishment conspiracy against any work that is prepared to take risks with language and challenge the status quo.

I’m not a fan of conspiracy theories; but, yes, I dislike the label because (A) surrealism as a movement was officially disbanded in 1967, (B) I don’t practice automatic writing or play surrealist games & (C) it allows my poetry to be dismissed – don’t read Hammial; he’s a surrealist, i.e., difficult, incomprehensible. Australians, like most people, are deeply conservative. And so are most of our poets. We’re still basically a colony. We still kowtow to the Queen of England. We still suffer from the Great Cringe (if it comes from overseas it’s better) and the Tall Poppy Syndrome (stick your head up above the crowd & it will be cut off).

This may explain why 98% of Australian poetry is derivative, based occasionally on a British model & usually on a US model – Iowa, Black Mountain, NY, New Lyric, L*A*N*G*U*A*G*E, etc. Our poets, especially the males who fear ridicule from their mates, play it safe, very safe. Where is the excitement, the journey, the sense of adventure? Not here. Also, for whatever reasons – the old copyright laws, high cost of books, lack of information – only a handful of Australian poets have done any in-depth reading in the original or in translation of poets who write in languages other than English.

Your poetry is often a collage of elements: bits of autobiography, word play, but also social comment and political criticism. Your poetry clearly engages with the world around you, dealing with your concerns about the environment, violence, abuse of power and political manipulation. What is your approach when writing?

As a young poet I wrote most of my poems in what might be described as a deep trance, much thrashing about, 20 to 30 poems in one one-hour session. Now, in my dotage, I’m lucky to get two poems from a light trance. In any case, most of my poetry comes from the unconscious or, if that term is problematical, from the subconscious. There’s little or no conscious input. The social commentary, autobiographical bits, word play, etc. simply come up with the rest of the material. That said, most of my prose poems are consciously made, usually in two or three minutes.

A few years back you published a book of prose poems, Swan Song. You use the prose-poem form fairly often, but it tends to be somewhat neglected these days. In various respects I feel there is more freedom in the writing of prose poetry, less of a concern with structure and form that one deals with in verse poetry.

Prose poems are much in evidence in Europe, Latin America, North America, Japan and Australia. I don’t concern myself with structure. It simply happens. I’ve been writing for so long that the poems come out finished in whatever form they need to take.

You formed, with Anthony Mannix, the Australian Collection of Outsider Art, and have organised exhibitions throughout the world. What has drawn you to outsider art? I have noted both you and Mannix have quoted Henri Michaux: “He who hides his madman dies voiceless.”

We have organised 26 exhibitions & only in France, Germany, Belgium, the US & Australia. Contemporary mainstream art the world over all looks to me as though it was produced by the same three or four art school clones. Outsider Art/Art Brut on the other hand speaks to me powerfully. It intoxicates me. It doesn’t cringe. It’s not derivative. It doesn’t care if it’s accepted. It simply is because its makers are compelled to make it. Having worked in a psych hospital, become close friends with several “mad” artists and studied the productions of the “insane” for many years I think I have a fair notion of what it’s about. With respect to poetry: for me most English language mainstream poetry is too sane, too controlled, too predictable, too entrenched in “ordinary” reality, too concerned with craft, too polished.

What about aboriginal art? Has that had an influence on your work?

Not at all.

You came to SA in 2000, to read at the Poetry Africa event in Durban. What were your responses to SA? What did you feel about SA socially and culturally?

As I was only in Durban & only there for ten days my responses would be hopelessly superficial. Instead, let me tell you about my response to the Poetry Africa festival itself. It was wonderful, one of the best experiences of my life. Peter Rorvik & his staff deserve our utmost praise & support. The events were in great venues, very well organised, started on time, employed sate-of-the-art technology ... And what beautiful audiences. People arrived on time, didn’t make noise, listened to the poetry, were very respectful, gave feedback at the end of the readings & even bought books. What more could a poet want? And what an excellent idea – to take poets to schools, rich & poor, to a prison & to a street kids’ refuge.

I’m still in touch with some poets I met at Poetry Africa 2000. US Poet Laureate Rita Dove & her husband Fred stayed overnight at our place in the Blue Mountains on a recent trip to Australia. I’ve had letters from Thomas Tidholm (Sweden), Susan Kigali (Uganda), Peter Kantor (Hungary), & Benjamin Zephaniah (UK) & have traded a couple of books with Kelwyn Sole. I often wonder how Otis Fink is going. He was doing good but potentially dangerous work. And Eric Hadebe, where are you? I’d love to hear from you.

A poetry festival like Poetry Africa has never happened in Australia & probably never will. Our pathetic Sydney Poetry Festival, which only happens every other year, only had a budget last year of AUS$30 000 & only drew an audience of about 200 over a three-day weekend. And the Sydney Writers Festival is all about money, about promoting trendy, flavour-of-the-month books. Poetry is ignored, a few poets, always the same poets, being invited to sit on a few panels.

What are your feelings about the future of poetry, and of poetry publishing, in Australia?

When I arrived in Australia in 1972 the future of poetry/ poetry publishing was bleak. It still is.

Forthcoming publication from Dye Hard Press: Green Dragon 6

Contributors to this forthcoming issue of the newly relaunched Green Dragon are Alan Finlay, Arja Salafranca, Haidee Kruger, Janet van Eeden, Joop Bersee, Kelwyn Sole, Kobus Moolman, Tania van Schalkwyk, Megan Hall, Cecilia Ferriera, Anton Krueger, Allan Kolski Horwitz, Goodenough Mashego, David wa Maahlamela, Vonani Bila, Mphutlane wa Bofelo, Aryan Kaganof, Neo Molefe Shameeyaa, Colleen Higgs, Gus Ferguson, Brent Meersman, Kai Lossgott, Daniel Browde, Ingrid Andersen, Gary Cummiskey, Mick Raubenheimer and Mxolisi Nyezwa. Lyrics from Durban folk group The Litchis.

ISBN:978-0-620-43490-4

Publication scheduled for May/June.
Pricing to be confirmed.

Forthcoming publication from Dye Hard Press: Who was Sinclair Beiles?

Who was Sinclair Beiles? edited by Gary Cummiskey and Eva Kowalska

ISBN:978-0-620-42792-0

In 1960, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Brion Gysin and Sinclair Beiles collaborated on the now legendary collection of cut-ups, Minutes To Go. Readers of Beat literature know of Burroughs, Corso and Gysin, but who was Sinclair Beiles?

Sinclair Beiles was a South African poet and playwright, born in Uganda in 1930. He moved to Paris during the 1950s, where for a time he was an editor at Olympia Press and a resident at The Beat Hotel. He later spent several years in Greece and his first poetry collection, Ashes of Experience, won the first Ingrid Jonker poetry prize in 1969. Many other collections followed, published either overseas or in South Africa, to where he returned in the late 1970s. Beiles died, ignored by the mainstream South African poetry anthologies, in Johannesburg in 2000.

Who was Sinclair Beiles? brings together a collection of interviews, memoirs and essays about Sinclair Beiles and his work, by Gary Cummiskey, dawie malan, George Dillon Slater, Earle Holmes, Eva Kowalska, Alan Finlay and Fred de Vries. The book also includes previously unpublished photographs of Sinclair Beiles.

Beiles's work is in danger of sliding into obscurity forever, and it is time for a renewed interest in, and reassessment of, his contribution to South African literature.

Publication scheduled for May 2009. Pricing and availability to be confirmed.

Poetry Africa 2008

Poetry Africa 2008

Poetry Africa 2008

Poetry Africa 2008

Drawing 20

Drawing 19

Drawing 18

Lyrical, intensely personal collections

Review of New Country, Mxolisi Nyezwa, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press and Tongues of their Mothers, Makhosazana Xaba, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press

New Country is the second collection of poems by Mxolisi Nyezwa, and continues with the sensitive lyrical voice of his debut collection, song trials, published in 2000. Nyezwa’s work is characterised by intensely personal meditations, expressions of sadness and loneliness, often set against a semi-rural landscape.

The opening poem, for days i looked for my poems, sets the tone of the book:”for days i looked for my poems in the streets,/and since i could not find them,/light fell like a flower on the lonely square./...beauty came grovelling forward/begging,/and children went for days/without food.”

Nyezwa’s poetry generally focuses on the mystery and beauty of the commonplace, as he states in i have a strong fascination: “i have a strong fascination/with simple things./the woman in the waves/bending forward. the human disease./the lasting ember.’’

There are also poems which touch on physical intimacy, such as woman and the simply titled a poem, which reads: “here she comes/today much nicer/today beneath my roof/her house my shelter/talking of chaucer/and french caviar.” But still the overall sense of the collection is that of longing, as in the beautiful poem sana: “the earth is grey and warm in places./the wind blows./far away in Soweto, someone is singing./a heart is dancing./i sing quietly of the woman i love.”

Many of the poems are brief, although there are a few longer poems, such as new partner and like the sea on black stones. The strongest long poem is sky, which contains with the despairing vision of a sky that “lives to reach mankind/with a sad tale/to tell.” Later in the poem, the sky is called “a vast creature/which fumes at night/as men walk/unaccompanied and sad,/ in the streets,/ or toward the blinding alley./like hobos/or gypsies without food./at dawn/with no clear destinations./no homes./no fires.”

But Nyezwa’s poetry of loneliness does not exclude the outer world of social problems and political events. There are references to Steve Biko and Luthuli, to imprisonment and torture. Two poems deal with Zimbabwe and one with the Rwandan genocide: “at each place i meet my black sorrow,/and from my pocket retrieve my smile./i have free-fallen, buried my head beneath the sand,/ i have seen the earth tumble,/the heavens tripping and fall.”

Nyezwa’s subjective lyricism is strongly influenced by the Spanish modernist poets, which sets him apart from most other contemporary black South African poets.

Another second collection from University of KwaZulu-Natal Press is Makhosazana Xaba’s Tongues of their Mothers. While also lyrical and personal, Xaba’s work is far warmer and lighter, as she invites the reader to share her intimate space, as in the opening poem Wishing, which starts: “To my right, a wine glass and a heater./To my left, a peeled naartjie on a saucer./Between my legs, a packet of macadamia nuts./ In front, a TV screen...”

Xaba is however not unaware of the dangers of “exposing” herself to readers; the second poem in the collection deals with the fear of publication, which she describes as “more like the fear/of having your faecal tube/turned inside out into the light/of the midday sun...”

Xaba sometimes takes us into the intimacy of her relationships, as in Your Clarinet, At the Longtable Restaurant, Cotton Socks, or Come, which opens with the startlingly physical: “I want to sit on your lap/ with my legs around your waist.” There is also the poem Locked, which economically portrays the tension in a relationship: “They sit in the kitchen/a small mosaic table between them./Two blue serviettes,/two silver forks, two plates,/hot chicken curry, untouched.”

Her delight in words is evident in the poem To my Librarian, which consists mainly of a list of authors’ names and book titles, and the witty My Book, which begins:’ My book has never been too tired to go to bed with me./It never has a headache or needs down-time to discuss the day.’

But Xaba’s collection also contains some sharp social, political and feminist commentary, such as March 2006 (the date of the Jacob Zuma rape trial), For Fanny Ann Eddy (a lesbian activist murdered in Sierra Leone) , Tongues of their Mothers, and Call me Not , a Woman of Colour.

Xaba’s work may be sensitive and measured, but she can also hit hard and does not draw back from unpleasantries, as in Hills of Montrose, which begins: “The stench of these toilets no longer makes me vomit; looking through the window curbs the urge.” There are also the two somewhat uncharacteristic Farting Knees poems, the first of which begins: “When I vomit/it will be through my forehead/because my ears oscillate...”, and the second Farting Knees poem, which opens with: “When I vomit/it will be through my forehead./ Be warned, stand far off/because the vomit will not spare you.”

What more can I say?

(Published in The Weekender, February 7 2009)