If a Shakespearean actor, a Christian missionary and an isiXhosa praise poet walked into a bar, their conversation would sound something like the poems in this collection.

Siphokazi Jonas is a weaver of seemingly discordant worlds; growing up in an Afrikaans dorpie during the transition years of a newly democratic South Africa and going on annual holidays to a village made this a necessity. Her work as a spoken word poet often fuses poetry, theatre and film, and she brings this genre-mixing to the page by using the intsomi form to weave the narrative of her poems together.

Jonas’s poems explore the impact of linguistic and cultural alienation as a black learner in former Model C schools in the 1990s and early 2000s. She is not only a referee of the internal war between isiXhosa and English within her, but she pieces together a language for leaving and returning between the past and the present, and a possible future. Her poems ask questions about navigating tradition, religion, migration between rural and urban spaces, and how families choose to make their own culture. Weeping Becomes a River is a timely reflection on the cost of being the early test subjects of South Africa’s democratic project.

"Riku Lätti se poësie-debuut is meer as net nog ’n oulike digbundeltjie in Afrikaans; ek sien dit as ’n monumentale en omvattende deurgronding van alle fasette van die moderne mens se soeke na betekenis en — hier kom die grootste verrassing — selfs ons opvattings oor die teologie." – Koos Kombuis

"Aangrypende meditasies oor die heiligheid van onsekerheid. ’n Boek waarna ek telkens sal terugkeer om naby die aarde en werklikheid te bly om nie te gryp na die warm lug van dogma en onwetenskaplike verduidelikings van bestaan nie. – Dana Snyman

In this intimate and modern poetry collection, Zubayr Charles seeks healing amidst the shocks of personal and social rejection, navigating the paradoxes of identity and love.

Vivid, brave and witty, the sad boy’s starter pack is a reclamation of the self and a homecoming for the lonely and estranged. Invoking a strong sense of place, Charles’ Cape Town shapes what it means to be queer and Coloured. Charles’ poems explore the tension between desire and detachment, longing and all-consuming love.

This volume takes familiar, timeless themes by storm, forging them anew with luminous self-possession.

In Prins word die kompleksiteit van manlikheid ontleed; die oomblikke van teerheid word gevier en die vernietigende word gekritiseer. Alhoewel die bundel handel oor stories en karakters uit ’n bepaalde gemeenskap en agtergrond, skryf Pedro doelbewus weg van vooropgestelde idees oor coloured-laities. Hier, weerspieël dit die liminale, plofbare ruimte waarin die verteller homself bevind as digter en as coloured man.

The John Donne volume in the 21st-Century Oxford Authors series offers a wholly new edition of Donne's verse and prose. It consists of a selection of the compositions that circulated in manuscript or in print form during Donne's lifetime. In keeping with the approach of the series, the texts are presented in chronological order and the text chosen is, wherever possible, the text of the first published version. Each text is paired with a generous complement of historical and textual annotation, which enables the present day reader to access the excitement with which Donne's contemporaries, his first readers, discovered his famous and incomparable originality, audacity, ingenuity, and wit. The edition incorporates new directions and emphases in scholarly editing that are foregrounded in the 21st-Century Oxford Authors series, such as the history of readership and the history of texts as material objects.

This enthralling new translation of Dante's Inferno 'immediately joins ranks with the very best' (Richard Lansing). One of the world's transcendent literary masterpieces, the Inferno tells the timeless story of Dante's journey through the nine circles of hell, guided by the poet Virgil, when in midlife he strays from his path in a dark wood. In this vivid verse translation into contemporary English, Peter Thornton makes the classic work fresh again for a new generation of readers. Recognizing that the Inferno was, for Dante and his peers, not simply an allegory but the most realistic work of fiction to date, he points out that hell was a lot like Italy of Dante's time. Thornton's translation captures the individuals represented, landscapes, and psychological immediacy of the dialogues as well as Dante's poetic effects. The product of decades of passionate dedication and research, his translation has been hailed by the leading Dante scholars on both sides of the Atlantic as exceptional in its accuracy, spontaneity, and vividness. Those qualities and its detailed notes explaining Dante's world and references make it both accessible for individual readers and perfect for class adoption.

The Wordsworth volume in the 21st-Century Oxford Authors series is the most comprehensive selection currently available of the poetry and prose of one of the finest poets in the English language. The familiar poems from Wordsworth's 'Great Decade' are all included, but they are complemented by a more than usually generous selection of the best poems from his later years. The extracts from the Guide to the Lakes will be a revelation to many readers, as will the political prose of the Convention of Cintra. All of the material is presented in chronological sequence, so that the reader can see how Wordsworth's changing concerns were expressed in prose as well as poetry. Work which Wordsworth published is separated from that which he did not reveal, which will enable the reader to trace through successive published volumes the development of Wordsworth's public poetic self, while also being able to follow the growth of the body of poetry which, for whatever reason, Wordsworth did not choose to make public when it was written - The Prelude being the greatest and most obvious example.

In vloei/stof ontgin Gilbert Gibson temas soos die liefde/verhoudings, kinderherinneringe, geskiedkundige gegewens, geweld/oorlog, die belewenis van landskap, en die verloop van tyd/die dood op vernuftige wyse.

Soos in sy vorige bundels, bewys hy dat hy ’n meester is van die hermetiese digkuns – gedigte wat deur ’n spel met taal en vorm vervreemding teweegbring. Die leser word uitgedaag om die betekenis van die gedigte te ontsluit.

Die digter en literêre kritikus Louis Esterhuizen beskryf die bundel as volg: “Inderdaad digverweefde gedigte wat net soveel verhul as wat dit probeer onthul; verbrokkelde verse wat voortstu met verskuiwende betekenisvlakke en versplinterde (wan)begrip waartydens die leser genoodsaak word om ’n aktiewe rol te speel in die (re-)konstruksie van die teks.”

Gedigte met ongewone benaderings wat op mekaar inspeel.

Insigte in ‘n wye reeks onderwerpe. Verskeie terreine vir die eerste keer in Afrikaans ontgin.

Dit sal ‘n leser verryk en genot verskaf.

Krog is ’n internasionaal gerekende digter maar ook plaaslik geliefd. Vyftig jaar ná haar opspraakwekkende debuut, Dogter van Jefta, verskyn daar ’n splinternuwe versameling waarin meer as honderd gedigte uit haar elf bundels saampraat. Verse oor eerste liefde, oor moederskap, oor die landskap, en oor onreg; oplaas ook oor ouer word.

'n Vry vrou bevat gunstelinge uit Krog se oeuvre maar ook minder bekende dog ewe verrassende verse. Saamgestel deur Karen de Wet.

’n Oorsig van Breyten Breytenbach se digkuns is 'n voëlvlug oor 'n wye era: vanaf die jare sestig tot vandag, waarin beide Europa en Afrika hulself radikaal herdefinieer het. In hierdie herdefiniering staan Breyten Breytenbach, die digter, mens en denker soos ’n skakelende deurpos.

Elke gedig is soos ’n tekening of ’n skildery waarin tekens en betekenis in vloeiende verbande tot mekaar staan en waarin gunstelingtemas weer en weer ter sprake kom – elke keer uniek geskommel soos kwashale op die doeke van Jackson Pollock se skilderye of die stippels in ’n kaleidoskoop wat nooit ophou draai nie.

Die gedigte is chronologies gerangskik volgens die digter se lewensgang: jongmenslewe in Kaapstad, Parys, effektiewelike bannelingskap weens sy huwelik, terugkeer en tronkstraf, die buiteland. En oplaas ’n onrustige pendelaarslewe tussen noorde en suide van die aardbol, waarin volledige tuiskoms slegs in die arms van die liefde is.

Today's innovative poets no longer express their dissenting voice on the printed page but in the experimental realm of contemporary media, where holograms, video projections, and even biotechnology form the basis of a new syntax. Celebrated poet and artist Eduardo Kac's" Media Poetry" is the first anthology to document this radically new form, which is taking language beyond the confines of verse and into the non-linear world of digital interactivity and hyperlinkage.This unparalleled volume takes up all the exhilarating incarnations of media poetry, from real-time text generation and spatiotemporal discontinuities to immateriality and visual tempo, exploring the international group of revolutionary poets responsible for such innovations. By embracing the vast possibilities made available by new media, the artists featured in this anthology have become the poetic pioneers of the next millennium.

My prayers are my poems are my prayers.

I've always relied on logic to make sense of myself and the world.

A prescriptionist at heart, I've always looked to reason to find the rhyme, the practical to get to the mystical, the choreography to find the dance, the proof to get to the truth, and reality to get to the dream.

I've been finding that tougher to do lately. It's more than hard to know what to believe in; it's hard to believe.

But I don't want to quit believing, and I don't want to stop believing in . . . humanity, you, myself, our potential.

I think it's time for us to flip the script on what's historically been our means of making sense, and instead open our aperture to enchantment and look to faith, belief, and dreams for our reality.

Let's sing more than we might make sense, believe in more than the world can conclude, get more impressed with the wow instead of the how, let inspiration interrupt our appointments, dream our way to reality, serve some soul food to our hungry heads, put proof on the shelf for a season, and rhyme our way to reason.

Forget logic, certainty, owning, or making a start-up company of it; let's go beyond what we can merely imagine, and believe, in the poetry of life.

André le Roux se tweede digbundel verskyn 47 jaar ná sy debuut, Struisbaai-blues, wat kort ná publikasie in 1977 verbied is. Nou skryf hy met selfs skerper eerlikheid oor die liefde, begeerte, verlange en vreugde. Meer nog: oor die afslyt van die liggaam en die insig wat leefervaring bring. Hy tree in gesprek met mededigters soos Krog, Breytenbach, Bukowski, Van Wyk Louw, Cohen, cummings en Neruda, en steek kers op by die Oosterse meesters.

Le Roux se verse spreek van universele menslikheid en deernis, met bytende humor en selfspot. Hy verken ’n landskap van verval en vervreemding – nie sonder verset nie.

Jaco Barnard-Naudé se digdebuut betrek ’n wye verskeidenheid temas: queer identiteit, die trauma van kinderjare, en die verhouding tussen ouers en seun. Deurgaans vloei die digterlike geheue soos ’n leitmotiv deur die verse. Die bundel getuig van ’n soepel en gespierde taalaanvoeling, en tree dikwels in gesprek met ander digters, filosowe en musici. ’n Diep-gelade emosionele bewussyn vibreer regdeur die bundel – getuienis van ’n uitsonderlike nuwe digter-denker ter plaatse.

’n Toeganklike, innemende bundel waarin die digter in soepel, gevoelige taal sy persoonlike ervarings verwoord én in gesprek tree met digters wat hom voorafgegaan het. Die verse skroom nie om eerlik én openhartig om te gaan met sowel diep persoonlike belewenisse of maatskaplike en politieke kwessies nie, en telkens te verras met vernuwende perspektiewe. Water dien deurgaans as ’n metafoor vir vloei, verandering en aanpasbaarheid – die noodsaaklike element vir lewe in ’n digterlike heelal.