Jacques Coetzee is a member of PEN SA.
Fairhead and Coetzee have produced a collection that is distinguished by its crafting as well as its beauty. Their voices gather resonance in conversation, until the poems reveal a hunger for shared experience, and a receptiveness to the intimacies of each moment. Reading these poems at one sitting is akin to stumbling onto a recital by two very accomplished soloists—perhaps in a clearing, in a forest. This is a brave and beautiful book, and the cumulative impact of the poems is nothing short of astonishing.
About the authors
Barbara Fairhead was born in the UK in 1939, and has lived in South Africa since 1948. She is an artist, a sculptor and a writer of fiction, as well as being the lyricist for the band Red Earth & Rust.
She has published two books of poetry: And Now You Have Leapt Up To Swallow the Sun (1997) and Word and Bead: The Presentation of a Journey (2001). Of Death and Beauty, her first novel, was published in 2013 by Sunstone Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Its sequel, Whereof One Cannot Speak, will be published later in 2017.
Jacques Coetzee matriculated from the Pioneer School for the Blind in Worcester. He completed a master’s degree in creative writing at the University of Cape Town, for which he submitted a manuscript of poems called Singing Through. He has worked as a busker at the Cape Town Waterfront, and tutored English literature to first- and second-year university students.
He is the singer and one of the main songwriters in the band Red Earth & Rust, which has released four albums of original songs to date.
Date of Publication: 2017
ISBN: 9781928215509
Publisher: Modjaji Books