Letters Of Alchemy is a journey which unveils various cycles of growth from the darkness of fear, grief and heartbreak to the light of love, self-awareness and empowerment - expressed through the art of poetry and prose.

This thought-provoking collection of words pulls the reader into new worlds of expanse bringing strong images, memories and feelings to mind resulting in a visceral adventure. For best results, savour each sentence and brace yourself for a heart- and mind-opening experience.

Shakeela Kingzley is a South African writer and filmmaker who has profound love for the arts. She received her BA Degree in Motion Picture Medium in 2010 and has since worked in the South African film industry and explored the world whenever adventure called her soul.

“Writing this piece of art was a beautiful journey in itself. In my mindfulness I discovered that I am a translator - when I receive the visuals I need to translate it into the English language as best I can so that when you read it you see it and feel it.” - Shakeela Kingzley

This groundbreaking, multi-genre anthology answers the question: what did the literary landscape look like in South Africa at the start of the twenty-first century?

It documents a slice of this landscape by bringing together the writings of over twenty contributors through literary critique, personal essays and interviews. The book tells the story of the seismic shift that transformed national culture through poetry and is the first of its kind to explore the history and impact of poetry by Black women, in their own voices. It straddles disciplines: literary theory, feminism, history of the book and politics – thus decolonising literary culture.

Our Words, Our Worlds covers expansive reflections: from the international diplomacy-transforming poem, ‘I Have Come to Take You Home’ by Diana Ferrus, to the pioneering publisher duduzile zamantungwa mabaso; from the self-confessed closeted poet Sedica Davids, to the fiery unapologetic feminist Bandile Gumbi; from the world-renowned Malika Ndlovu, to the engineer and award-winning Nosipho Gumede; from the formidable foursome Feela Sistah, to feminist literary scholars V.M. Sisi Maqagi and Barbara Boswell. The collective contributions are a testimony to the power of creativity and centrality of poetry in a changing society.

This book is an assertion of Black women’s intellectual prowess and – as Gabeba Baderoon puts it – black women’s visions of ‘a world made whole by their presence’.

From Rupi Kaur, the top ten Sunday Times bestselling author of Milk And Honey, comes her long-awaited second collection of poetry.

Illustrated by Kaur, The Sun And Her Flowers is a journey of wilting, falling, rooting, rising and blooming. It is a celebration of love in all its forms.

Die gedigte handel onder meer oor 'n byna uitgestorwe plattelandse lewe met tradisionele gebruike en ambagte. Tog word dit haarskerp en klokhelder verwoord sodat ook die moderne stadsmens aanklank daarby kan vind. Maar hy skryf ewe meevoerend oor die stad (Kaapstad).

Daar is ook aktuele gedigte oor Suid-Afrikaanse toestande, tydlose verse oor die dood en prikkelende maar ook skreiende uitbeeldings van die liefde. Die verse het 'n eie, unieke klank en styl. Die minimalistiese woordgebruik is besonder suggestieryk en skep dikwels meerduidighede - betekeniseggo's wat naklinkend in die leser se kop bly draai.

Die beelde en klanke klou inderdaad aan jou soos knapsekêrels.

In this quite extraordinary sequence of poems, P.R. Anderson discombobulates and re-assembles the image and idiom of the various nations, landscapes and earthscapes of central South Africa.

From first peoples, to those who took and settled on their ancestral lands, and to those for whom that land would come ancestral, In a Free State encompasses and compresses centuries of human drama into a fleeting and temperamental poetic narrative.

Yet this is no drudge, nor is it a historical yarn. With an easy mastery of form and metre, coupled with swashbuckling metaphorical and -textual flourish, Anderson's new "music" is a bold and visionary work. A piece of South African poetry - and South African storytelling - unlike any other.

Although Olga Kirsch’s is the only Jewish voice in Afrikaans poetry, it is scarcely known among members of the South African Jewish community. Olga Kirsch was, after Elisabeth Eybers, only the second woman to publish a collection of poetry in Afrikaans.

The aims of this biography are to reverse this slide into obscurity and to show why her work is important not only in South Africa but also in Israel.

It does not only investigate Kirsch’s role as Afrikaans Jewish poet but also examines her as an example of a cross-cultural, multi-lingual immigrant poet. As such some of her English and Hebrew poetry are included in this work.

A heart-wrenching story from the international bestselling author of The Kite Runner, brought to life by Dan Williams's beautiful illustrations

On a moonlit beach a father cradles his sleeping son as they wait for dawn to break and a boat to arrive. He speaks to his boy of the long summers of his childhood, recalling his grandfather's house in Syria, the stirring of olive trees in the breeze, the bleating of his grandmother's goat, the clanking of her cooking pots. And he remembers, too, the bustling city of Homs with its crowded lanes, its mosque and grand souk, in the days before the sky spat bombs and they had to flee.

When the sun rises they and those around them will gather their possessions and embark on a perilous sea journey in search of a new home.

Drawing on fifteen centuries of poetry from all over the world, the third edition of Seasons Come To Pass continues to make poetry relevant and accessible to students in Southern Africa.

The anthology includes unusual, erotic, witty, and political poems, presented in chronological order. A wide range of poets is included, from classics and old favourites to fresh new voices.

This anthology offers support and guidance by providing a clear overview of the important movements in the history of the English language and its literature, as well as detailed notes on critical analysis and techniques for writing essays and exams. The aim is to encourage students to develop the confidence to express their ideas in writing. Practical examples are given of how to come to grips with poetry, and develop critical and analytical skills. Poems are brought alive through supporting notes that tackle contemporary and controversial concerns.

THESE POEMS AND NOTEBOOKS ARE THE LAST WORD FROM THE LATE, GREAT LEONARD COHEN.

The Flame is a stunning collection of Leonard Cohen's last poems and writings, selected and ordered by Cohen in the final months of his life. The book contains an extensive selection from Cohen's notebooks, featuring lyrics, prose pieces and illustrations, which he kept in poetic form throughout his life, and offers an unprecedentedly intimate look inside the life and mind of a singular artist and thinker. An enormously powerful final chapter in Cohen's storied literary career, The Flame showcases the full range of Leonard Cohen's lyricism, from the exquisitely transcendent to the darkly funny.

By turns devastatingly sad and winningly strange, these are the works of a poet and lyricist who has plumbed the depths of our darkest questions and come up wanting, yearning for more.

A revised and updated edition of this much-loved poetry anthology which was first published in 2002. This new edition of The New Century of South African Poetry now includes 125 new poems, with the addition of a fifth section covering works produced by poets who have made their mark since the early 2000s. New Century includes pieces in divergent styles by a wide range of authors - from traditional songs by Khoisan poets to poems by established figures such as Roy Campbell, N.P. van Wyk Louw, Mazisi Kunene, Douglas Livingstone, Mongane Wally Serote and Antjie Krog. Popular poetic forms like maskanda, kiba, praises and rap share the pages with current poets such as Gabeba Baderoon, Rustum Kozain, Danie Marais, Nick Mulgrew and Koleka Putuma…

In hierdie bundel durf die skrywer Danté Alighieri se briljante werk aan. Hy bewys homself as uitmuntende vertaler.

Danté se lang reis kan tematies verbind word met Israel se uittog verhaal. Met sy La Divina Commedia beoog Danté om die boosheid van die mens aan die kaak te stel en roep hy die mens op om saam te werk aan die skepping van ’n beter samelewing van vrede en orde onder leiding van ’n goeie keiser en pous.

Jerzy Koch, vertaler, digter, akademikus, is hoof van die Afdeling Nederlandse en Suid-Afrikaanse Studies by die Fakulteit Engels van A. Mickiewicz-Universiteit in Poznań. Hy doseer veral Nederlandse literatuur, koloniale literatuur en Afrikaans. Hy is ook die skrywer van ’n omvattende literatuurgeskiedenis oor Afrikaans. Hy besoek Suid-Afrika gereeld sedert 1992 en het die Afrikaanse taal sodanig sy eie gemaak dat hy dit vlot praat en gedigte daarin skryf.

Hy het werke vertaal van H. Claus, J. Bernlef, H. de Coninck, S. Hertmans, G. Kouwenaar, Lucebert, H. Mulisch, Multatuli, L. Nolens, P. Rodenko, F. Timmermans e.a. Vir sy vertaal-oeuvre het hy in die Lae Lande die M. Nijhoff-prys ontvang. Hy het ook Ingrid Jonker (1993) vertaal en sy onlangse vertalings in Poolse is bloemlesings uit Antjie Krog (2017) en Breyten Breytenbach (2018) se gedigte.

In sy digbundel Pleks van plaas skryf hy onder meer oor sy familiegeskiedenis in Pole, maar die grootste deel van die bundel word in beslag geneem deur verse oor Suid-Afrika. Indrukwekkend is veral die seegedigte. Dit is nie net die branders wat sy “oor vang en oorrompel” nie, maar ook die Afrikaanse taal.

In Mede-wete,’n aangrypende nuwe digbundel deur Antjie Krog, word temas soos taal, geheue en gewete met ’n nuwe intensiteit en beleënheid hanteer. Dit is haar eerste digbundel in 8 jaar.

Dié gedigte laat blyk duidelik haar diep verknogtheid aan haar geboortegrond en haar volgehoue betrokkenheid by en passie vir die land se komplekse geskiedenis en samelewing. Terselfdertyd herdefinieer sy haar identiteit as Afrikaanse digter. Te midde van verse waaruit haar woede en afkeer ten opsigte van sosiale ongeregtighede spreek, is daar ook boeiende familieverse, verse oor die generasies vorentoe en terug waarin die stemme en gesprekke opklink wat ons elke dag hoor. Ook verse oor oudword en afskeid, waarvan die huldigingsvers vir Mandela ’n hoogtepunt is.

Maar dit is verál weens die ontwrigting van taal juis om nuwe betekenis te skep dat Antjie Krog ’n opwindende digbundel lewer.

Funeral service and insurance provider AVBOB, through its sponsorship of the AVBOB Poetry Project, gave South Africa the gentlest, most inclusive act of bereavement support in the form of an online poetry competition in all 11 official languages.

Poets submitted words of loss and consolation in all 11 mother tongues. Editors in all languages were carefully selected to curate the collection of poems entered, and they too were transformed by the process.

This is a poetry portal for all South Africans – a cathartic space where amateur and accomplished poets can use their craft to comfort others.

Van Bientang het net die naam van 'n restaurant in Hermanus oorgebly: Bientang's Cave, asook 'n weggooi-opmerking: die laaste Strandloper. Uit hierdie gegewens sny die digter se verbeelding spoor in 'n kontra-epos. Wie was Bientang? Te midde van historiese geskrifte, kontemporêre angste en oorlewerings verskyn buitelyne om haar vir oomblikke binne bereik te bring. Die toonaard van die bundel is egter verlies oor 'n verlede wat geen spoor laat in die opgeskryfde geskiedenisse van die land nie. 

Carlo Rovelli, Italian physicist, says that "the world is not a collection of things, it is a collection of events." Poet Diane Louie thinks of prose poems as little events. They are happening and happenings. They draw on experience, image, metaphor, and all the properties of language to create little worlds-in-motion-in motion being the operative words: spinning while orbiting, actively shifting our point of view. More genus than hybrid species, prose poems can straddle the obvious limits and less-obvious liberties of perception. This active characteristic of spanning and connecting is especially relevant in a time of cultural polarization. Marrying, even uneasily, the inquiries of science and spiritual longing can illuminate what they-and we-have in common: a desire to understand our presence in a universe that does not yield ultimate answers.

The third edition of the definitive collection of Chaucer's Complete Works, reissued with a new foreword by Christopher Cannon. Since F. N. Robinson's second edition of the The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer was published in 1957, there has been a dramatic increase in Chaucer scholarship. This has not only enriched our understanding of Chaucer's art, but has also enabled scholars, working for the first time with all the source-material, to recreate Chaucer's authentic texts. For the third edition, an international team of experts completely re-edited all the works, added glosses to appear on the page with the text, and greatly expanded the introductory material, explanatory notes, textual notes, bibliography, and glossary. In short, the Riverside Chaucer is the fruit of many years' study - the most authentic and exciting edition available of Chaucer's Complete Works.

In Geographic Tongue, an important addition to the Pleiades Press Visual Poetry Series, Rodney Gomez weaves together themes of loss, identity, ethnicity, heritage, and the mechanics of contemporary life to create a collection as lyrically arresting as it is aesthetically stunning. These visual poems, crafted with both restraint and vitality, are visceral in their depiction of cruelty and grief at the United States-Mexico border. And yet, this charged landscape also gives rise to moments of tenderness, stillness, and wry humor. Gomez's visual design is at once vivid and haunting, drawing together collage, diagrams, and abstract imagery into a bright, geometrically precise collection. His text casts such a powerful spell that in its absence, silence is heard as clearly as any phrase. Gomez writes, ""You do not have to speak to speak truth,"" and this lucid assertion is borne out in the collection as a whole. In its art, and in its silence, the poems of Geographic Tongue are undeniably and indelibly authentic.

Ken Barris, who lives and works in Cape Town, has published several novels, a collection of short stories and of poetry. His short stories and poems have appeared in many anthologies. He won the Ingrid Jonker Prize for poetry, the Vita Award for a collection of short fiction, and the M-Net Book Prize for his first novel, The Jailer’s Book. In 2003 he was shortlisted for the Caine Prize.

This Tilted World Is Where I Live gathers one hundred poems by Henry Taylor, drawing on over fifty years of published work by this witty, adept, and vital literary voice. Seventy-five poems appear from his previous books, spanning from The Horse Show at Midnight (1966) through The Flying Change (1985), which won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, to his latest volume, Crooked Run (2006). The book opens with twenty-five recent poems collected for the first time. From the beginning, Taylor has worked in both traditional and more open forms, avoiding rigid allegiance to either mode as he has responded to the world around him, from the horse farm in Virginia where he grew up, to the deserts around Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he and his wife Mooshe have lived for the past several years. In tones and moods ranging between grief and explosive hilarity, these poems confront a consistent set of themes. Taylor has long been drawn to considerations of what we mean by loving one another, how violence can intrude without warning into innocent lives, and how the things we have always seen can change with the passage of time. Gwendolyn Brooks once wrote that he ""is a truly important poet. Familiar and strange."" This Tilted World Is Where I Live offers an invaluable encapsulation of Taylor's knack for crafting poems that are not only fun but also instructive in the art of paying attention- of which he is a master.

The story of Troy speaks to all of us - the kidnapping of Helen, a queen celebrated for her beauty, sees the Greeks launch a thousand ships against the city of Troy, to which they will lay siege for ten whole years. It is a terrible war with casualties on all sides as well as strained relations between allies, whose consequences become tragedies.

In Troy you will find heroism and hatred, love and loss, revenge and regret, desire and despair. It is these human passions, written bloodily in the sands of a distant shore, that still speak to us today.

The Mouths of Grazing Things is an unflinching, lyrical meditation on nature's forced exodus from the human, and the forms of longing, estrangement, magnetism, and self-otherness that ensue. Arrestingly tender and fiercely protective of where nature lurks in and out of us still, Boyden translates for a new landscape where a brain in a jar is anchored by an apple, a fly-tying fisherman finds love songs to fish scattered among the barber's sweepings, and the players at ""the most dangerous playground in the world"" prepare for anything with one fist clenched and the other full of sugar. In poems built to survive an unsafe journey, this book delivers the now-beyond, the almost-was, the near-forgotten, and the just-in-time.

This Tilted World Is Where I Live gathers one hundred poems by Henry Taylor, drawing on over fifty years of published work by this witty, adept, and vital literary voice. Seventy-five poems appear from his previous books, spanning from The Horse Show at Midnight (1966) through The Flying Change (1985), which won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, to his latest volume, Crooked Run (2006). The book opens with twenty-five recent poems collected for the first time. From the beginning, Taylor has worked in both traditional and more open forms, avoiding rigid allegiance to either mode as he has responded to the world around him, from the horse farm in Virginia where he grew up, to the deserts around Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he and his wife Mooshe have lived for the past several years. In tones and moods ranging between grief and explosive hilarity, these poems confront a consistent set of themes. Taylor has long been drawn to considerations of what we mean by loving one another, how violence can intrude without warning into innocent lives, and how the things we have always seen can change with the passage of time. Gwendolyn Brooks once wrote that he ""is a truly important poet. Familiar and strange."" This Tilted World Is Where I Live offers an invaluable encapsulation of Taylor's knack for crafting poems that are not only fun but also instructive in the art of paying attention- of which he is a master.