ISBN 9781920590536
Pages 66
Dimensions 203 x 133mm
Published 2014
Publisher Modjaji Books, South Africa
Format Paperback

Now the World Takes These Breaths

by Joan Metelerkamp

As we have come to expect with Joan Metelerkamp's work, these poems can be read individually or, more rewardingly, as a body, from cover to cover. Formal but fluent, the 'sonnets' ('soundings') of this sequence marry cycle and narrative, old and new, secular and sacred, momentary and eternal. This is a strange and immediately familiar book -: at its simplest it traces the story of a mother's 'letting-go' her grown children, a daughter's relocation to the Northern hemisphere, a wedding, shadows of deaths and losses, sparks of joy. It recalls the story of Demeter and Persephone, but goes on from there in immediately accessible South African, contemporary terms. Above all, it celebrates!

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About the Author

Joan Metelerkamp

Joan Metelerkamp grew up in KwaZulu-Natal. After university studies in English and Drama she worked in educational theatre and taught English at the Universities of the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. For twenty years she lived on a family farm outside Knysna with her husband and two children. In 2016 she moved to Devon, England, where she trained to be a teacher of the Alexander Technique. She now lives with her daughter and her family in Massachusetts, USA.

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