Gabeba Baderoon

Reviews: The Dream in the Next Body

"Buy this book if you want to become a better person."

Keorapetse Kgositsile at the launch of The Dream in the Next Body, Boekehuis, Johannesburg, 20 April 2005. Keorapetse Kgositsile is the author of If I Could Sing (Kwela, 2002) and This Way I Salute You (Kwela, 2004) and winner of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize 2000, among numerous honours.

The Dream has been selected as a notable book of 2005 by the Sunday Independent. 'Independent booksellers select 2005's notable books'.

Kay Benno: Review of The Dream in the Next Body, New Coin Poetry Magazine, December 2005.

"Baderoon's obvious strength is the contemplative poem, such as 'Nothing Else', about a perfect bowl and the hidden gifts it brings and 'Pantomime' about a boy who finds 'the sweet navel of the night' at a performance. Also read 'This is Where it Started', 'The Forest' and 'My Tongue Softens on the Other Name', a poem about growth, care, persistence and life in a cold, dark, unlikely environment."

Grant Volt, South Africa Writing, Volume 1, January 2005:

"Very rarely is one able to experience poetry on this level."

Review by Robert Greig, 'Alive-with-possibility festival signals brave new world', Sunday Independent, 23 October 2005. 'This country's finest women poets, Gabeba Baderoon and Joan Meterlerkamp'.

Review by Charl-Pierre Naude, Volksblad, 10 October 2005. '...one of the best and most promising debuts in decades. ... Baderoon is a new kind of imagination in South African poetry.'

Harry Garuba: "Silence and the language of the body", Feminist Africa, Issue 4, 2005.

"There can be little doubt that Gabeba Baderoon's debut collection demonstrates that she has mastered the lessons of keen observation, acuity of vision and symmetry learned from the master tiler. But she is not only a skilled craftswoman; her work is infused with compassion and wisdom that bodes well for her future writings. It was for these qualities that she won the 2005 Daimler-Chrysler Award, South Africa's richest poetry prize, and also the only one that is awarded not only on the basis of the poems themselves, but the poet's ability to perform them. The Dream in the Next Body has set a benchmark for quality and intelligence in the Southern African poetic community."

Harry Garuba is Associate Professor in the Centre for African Studies and the English Department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Review by Michelle McGrane for LitNet, 29 June 2005 "GABEBA BADEROON DISPLAYS PROFOUND PSYCHOLOGICAL INSIGHT, POISE AND COMPASSION FOR HUMANITY"

Review by Matthew Crouse for Die Burger, 7 June 2005 "STEM OM AAN GEWOOND TE RAAK". [A Voice to which to grow Accustomed]

Article by Alex Dodd in the Sunday Times, 1 May 2005, under the heading The Sunday Times Recommends: The Dream in the Next Body.

Excerpts from the review by Jennifer Crocker, Cape Times, 6 May 2005

"AUTHENTIC VOICE FINDS POETRY IN THE ORDINARY"

"I found myself drawn into this collection from the first poem, and held by the power of the use of the right word, the perfect line for many hours."

"It was hard to choose a poem that was my 'favourite' but for technical expertise and a view on war that punches one with a silk-covered fist I would tentatively suggest that [Baderoon's] War Triptych: Silence, Glory, Love comes close to being the work that affected me most."

"In the first part, I. Accounting, she sketches the washing and dressing of a young woman. This poem was written after the publication of a newspaper article on the bombings on a holy day in Najaf, Iraq. For lines of absolute balance and a terrible beauty, consider this: 'The washer of bodies cut/away her long black dress./Blue prayer beads fell/to the floor in a slow accounting.'"

"In II. Father Receives News His Son Died in the Intifada, Baderoon finds a perfect rhythm to match her meaning: 'When he heard the news, Mr Karim became silent./He did not look at the cameras,/nor at the people who brought their grief./He felt a hand slip from his hand,/a small unclasping,/and for that he refused the solace of glory.' This, for me, illustrates the wonder of the way in which a good poem can encapsulate a world of meaning, war, death and loss, in a few lines. In this instance she is writing about death in the context of war and politics, but her eye sees further into a world of loss."

"The reader is arrested by the words: 'He felt a hand slip from his hand ...', you want to rise up and say: 'Yes, that is exactly what it is about, the space between being and being gone. The utter loss of another.'"

"Perhaps it is this understanding of the space between the words and the world that makes Baderoon's poetry a celebration and marking of our lives. There is an almost metronomic sense of meaning, of ties that bind and what happens to the unbound. This is further displayed in her poems about love and leaving."

"Consider the first stanza of Beginning: 'I turn a corner and see your face./ Our lives spool out from that glance./ I give up everything for this./I remember everything I've left behind.'"

"Whether it's the politics of war or the politics of sex and identity, she navigates her way sure-footed as a cat through words and emotions."

"Buy a copy of The Dream in the Next Body and celebrate one of South Africa's most exciting voices. It's a collection that will make you think, weep and laugh. It does what good poetry should do in every sense."

Rustum Kozain

Gabeba Baderoon's poems exhibit an assuredness of writing while maintaining a hesitant quality of voice, something entirely suited to her poems. They are quiet, gentle, even fragile, while often leading to powerful, epiphanic surprises. This gentleness suits, for instance, the gentle probing of the mother-daughter relationship ('The Call'), but Baderoon's poetic voice is never unsure of forming connections. One of my favourite stanzas must be from 'My tongue softens on the other name':

At night, on an upturned paint tin, he sits
in the presence of growing things.
Light wells over the rim of the stone basin
and collects itself into the moon.
Everything is finding its place.

And in her 'War Triptych' I found whiffs of Cavafy, yoking the apparently disparate into interesting connections.

Rustum Kozain is the winner of the Thomas Pringle Award for Poetry 2004 and is the author of a collection, This Carting Life (Kwela, 2005).

Prof. Sean O'Brien

In her poem 'I cannot myself', Gabeba Baderoon writes that to gain entry to a new country 'I must leave behind all uncertainties. / I cannot myself be a question.' Baderoon's work involves the steady, scrupulous contemplation of questions of identity and meaning. It is lucid, surprising and graceful. It balances the melancholy of departure and solitude with utopian suggestion that there will, in time, be grounds for general celebration.

Prof. Sean O'Brien is Professor of Poetry at Sheffield Hallam University. Ten Hallam Poets, edited by Steven Earnshaw, E. A. Markham and Sean O'Brien, published by Mews Press, Sheffield, 2005.

Comment by the British poet Don Paterson on TEN HALLAM POETS:

TEN HALLAM POETS represents one of the most astonishing constellations of poetic talent to have emerged in the last ten years - not just from the North, or from our Creative Writing programmes, but from the whole of the UK….This anthology is a fine tribute to Hallam's ability to nurture artistic confidence and seriousness. It eschews such contemporary parochialisms as 'voice' and 'relevance' in favour of a deeper commitment to truth, wit, argument, music and imaginative flight - as well as real, exciting originality of expression.

Robin Becker

"Prayer is a ligament," Baderoon claims in one poem, linking the physical body to metaphysical concerns. She notes the "sweet geometry" of the master tiler, attentive to the artfulness of work well done. Writing "the narratives which pave/your world", Baderoon offers delicate, erotic poems that explore daily life - in North America and South Africa - with the edginess of the exile and the lyricism of the celebrant.'

Robin Becker is author of The Horse Fair, and Professor of English and Women's Studies, Pennsylvania State University

David Acosta, Poetry Judge, City Paper Writers Contest, Philadelphia, January 2000:

´The elements that make up a great poem [include] technique, form, content, voice, sound and, most importantly, whether the poet makes fresh use of language to convey an idea, to give it shape and form, in essence, whether the poet creates a unique and fresh experience for the reader and conveys it through the unique power of language. A great poem leaves you unsettled, it challenges, reaffirms and touches you, holding power over you long after you´ve put it down. ...

"After Revolutions" contains all the elements which make up a great poem. It establishes in three stanzas of differing length a world where the subject must confront past actions in an uncertain present. It encapsulates with great economy of language a moment in time where the speaker and the subject become real, one feels for them and we recognize ourselves in them. It is elegant and contains an inner music without resorting to artificial rhyme schemes, and it stays with you long after you´ve read it. Ultimately its success is measured by its power to move us, to challenge us, to make us think anew.´

Joan Hambidge, Chairperson, Jury Panel, DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Poetry 2005

´[Gabeba Baderoon´s] is an original voice that finds the poetic in the ordinary with a fine sense of locality and space. She weaves political and social issues into her poetry without sloganeering. Her work tackles a wide range of themes, astutely shifting the focus from the outside to inside. She shows respect for the poetic tradition, writes with precision and uses striking metaphors. '

Reviews: A hundred silences

Our Recommended Books & Mags: "Gabeba is a sensual poet who uses blackbirds, salt, and sea waves." Andrei Codrescu, Exquisite Corpse, March 2008.

"It's a great time to be a poetry reader," Sean O'Brien, The Guardian Book Blog.

A hundred silences has been selected as a 'Book of 2006' by the Daily Independent newspaper in Nigeria:

"I am totally awed by Baderoon’s power of observation."- Wumi Raji

"Unimaginable Power of Observation" by Dorcas B. Molefe, 17 November 2006, in Mmegi/The Reporter, Botswana.

"This is a powerful and involving piece of art. Its merits lie in both its style and its themes. It is a powerful thinking tool and should be read by all. I was moved by it and you will be too."

Upcoming: A feature by Jacqui L'Ange will appear in the October 2006 issue (South African edition) of the Oprah magazine. On sale September 19.

Details to follow.

The Sunday Times recommends A hundred silences. 13 August 2006.

"... This award-winning collection shows her maturity as a writer and is a must-have for poetry lovers." - Chantelle van Heerden

Michelle McGrane recommends A hundred silences:

"...this new collection of elegant and beautifully crafted poems ensures Gabeba Baderoon's place among the most talented voices in a new generation of South African poets."

Litnet magazine: "Women Write: Michelle McGrane recommends ten recent releases by women writers"

Charl Pierre Naude in Die Volksblad, 17 July 2006.

"Gabeba creates a forbidden world"

"The best poems are characterized by a metaphysical leap that is nothing less than breathtaking (“Give”, “The mirror in the front room”, “The pen”). Other poems contain a paradox or insight that is simultaneously seamless and ordinary as well as absolutely surprising and fresh (eg. “Filming swans”, “Twin beds”, “You do not see what it is”, “The night before we married”).

Jacqui L'Ange, Cape Times, 2 June 2006.

"Reading Gabeba Baderoon ... you feel surrounded by the multi-dimensionality of the world, touched by all its infinite possibilities".

Gunther Pakendorf, Beeld, 4 June 2006.

"A beautiful collection of poems."

Joan Hambidge, Die Burger, 15 May 2006.

"My favourite poems are the opening piece 'Give', and the striking 'Twin Beds', in which the lovers' happy reunion is experienced as the joining of two beds, 'Sleeping in Hotels', in which the play of light and dark is skilfully conveyed, and many more!".

Shape Magazine

"This is what poetry is meant to be .... Truly magical."

Sarie Magazine:

"Every departure has its silences, memories and secrets. The poetry tells of lonely nights in hotels and the silences between words."

Review of A hundred silences, by Gunther Pakendorf in the Rapport, 4 June 2006.

Vivian Horler, Cape Argus, April 24, 2006 Edition 1:

"Some of her poems paint pictures and freeze action, while others cut to the essence of a moment. How about Fight: in the silence/you wish to take/ two steps back/inhale your words"

Review of A hundred silences, South Africa Writing, April 2006.

Feature on A hundred silences, Y Magazine, April/May 2006.

Review of A hundred silences by Joan Hambidge, Die Burger, 15 May 2006, "BADEROON BEWYS HAAR TALENT IN HANDVOL PUIK VERSE"

Reviews: Fiction

"Baderoon's exploration of the short story medium ... has all the haunting loveliness of her poetry."

Jacqui L'Ange, Cape Times, 21 November 2006. Review of Gabeba's fiction in the short story anthology Twist.

Reviews: Reading

'Stage versus Page': Cape Town Book Fair panel discussion with Lebo Mashile, Jeremy Cronin and Finuala Dowling: Mail and Guardian, 29 June 2007.

"Baderoon is tonight’s star, mesmerising her audience with intense gazes and melancholic punch lines."

Fred de Vries: "A moment of bliss, and then it’s all gone", a review of the Spier Poetry Festival 2007 in the BusinessDay Weekender, 10 February 2007.

"Gabeba Baderoon from South Africa gave a beautiful and spellbinding reading, an ambassador of grace from the reinvigorated writing worlds of South Africa where nothing to do with the word is taken for granted."

Colin Brown, director of the Bristol Poetry Festival.