On Days Such as This - Dendy, Gail

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Résumé :
From the unusual opening poem (conflating birth with a car crash) to its close (an abandoned suitcase representing an entire lifetime), this book weaves its stories backwards and forwards through time and place. There is insight, sensuality, reflection, surprise, and humour as discovered through various personae - be it a tender mother, a heartbroken widow, or a male poet wrestling with writer's block, as well as in objects such as an old chest of drawers, a bronze-age trumpet, or a piece of string. This compelling collection demonstrates technical and linguistic mastery and genuine philosophical depth. In language that is a joy to read, the poems illuminate the capacity for love, loss, hope, and passion which exists in each and every one of us.

Biographie:
Gail Dendy was first published by Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter and shared a poetry collection with Peabody Winner and Oscar Nominee Norman Corwin. Her collections have appeared, variously, in Britain, South Africa and the United States, and many are held in the National English Literary Museum, Grahamstown; the New Alexandria Library, Egypt; and The Poetry Library, South Bank Centre, London. Gail has also written plays, short stories, a novel, radio poetry programmes, radio news bulletins, and academic papers and journal articles. Accolades include, inter alia: Winner: SA PEN Millennium Competition (Playwriting); Finalist: Herman Charles Bosman Award (Poetry), South African Science Fiction Society Award (Short Story); Shortlisted: Thomas Pringle Award (Short Story), Sol Plaatje/European Union Poetry Award 2011 and 2012; Longlisted: Plough Poetry Prize (UK). She achieved 'Highly Commended' in the Poetry Space Competition (UK) in 2014 and 2015 and for her unpublished novel/fictionalized memoir in the Dinaane Debut Fiction Award 2014. Long listings include The Twenty in 20 Project (the aim of which was to identify the best South African English-language short stories of the first two decades of democracy), Short Story Day Africa 2014, and the Sol Plaatje/European Poetry Award 2014 and 2017.