Light and After

Deeper and richer than before, Kobus Moolman's voice in the poem cycle 'Light and After' gathers strength to climax in the third section 'Anatomy'. Sometimes terse and astringent, sometimes luxurious, the poems are always specific, rooted in the cycles of earth and body. This is a beautiful work, distinctively South African in its imagery and diction. - Joan Metelerkamp Moolman's strengths as one of the leading voices in South African poetry come through when he's most vulnerable - when he battles the varied manifestations of ordinary life. - Mxolisi Nyezwa, reviewing "Separating the Seas" 'Anatomy' is searing, honest and brave. It opens to the reader in progressively intimate revelations that enable one to experience the narrator's visceral reality. - Liesl Jobson, Judge's report, DALRO Prize awarded to Moolman's 'Anatomy' for best poem in New Coin 2008 Beneath the bare trees stripped to sky, and smelling of dust, two old hands hold, fold and rehold a thin sheet of earth 'Where is the wind? And why is the wind never a tree anymore?' the hands ask, folding. 'The bare branches of the bare trees no longer hold anything. All falls through the thin earth. Why, even the sky,' the hands say, 'has dropped all of its clouds.' Kobus Moolman has published three collections of poetry: Time like Stone, Feet of the Sky and Separating the Seas, as well as several plays. He has been awarded the Ingrid Jonker prize, the PANSA award, and the DALRO poetry prize. He teaches creative writing at the University of KwaZulu Natal in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa