The Canary's Songbook

In The Canary's Songbook Karen Press explores the inescapable shaping power of personal and public histories in individual lives and political processes. The theme has deep roots in Press's native South Africa. The desire to find ancestors who can be invoked as sources of wisdom, or validations of unwisdom, is a central preoccupation of the poems, given force by Press's understanding of South Africa's continuing, painful dialogue with its own past. The Canary's Songbook affirms how universal such themes are, placing Africa on its own terms within a global culture whose attractions and corruptions touch all, and in which individuals struggle to make whole lives from the fragments they inherit. Karen Press's first Carcanet collection, Home (2000), was acclaimed by the South African Sunday Independent for its 'finely wrought poems... by one of our finest poets'.

Table of Contents:
The sea roaring softly I Broken bits of the past Knocking series That house When you're older you'll understand Séance Shrines Treasure trail Stones for my pockets The poem each woman poet writes Men wear the secret masks Living children and dead children II In Jakob's house III Ox blood poisons the ground with longing Visiting home He can't explain Outside and inside the temple Corruption - a lexicon Evolution: details How her mother prepared her Engineers of dreams IV In the cradle of humankind Every revolution begins in the streets Tannie Lettie plays the guitar Prometheus resigns from the Party Only a good man The personal assistant Redistributing it Preparing to govern Oral tradition Shopping Stop child abuse Wind parted the buildings Three-stringed necklace So very sick Triptych Flakes of the light falling V Book VI It seems that if you write This other place In doorways Between them In my sleep The hurting pillow Cured VII Walking songs for Africans abroad Everywhere in the Duomo Globalisation 1 Globalisation 2 Letters to the president Distantly heard signals Aching Collioure, September 2001 Soft Apprehension, north A certain history Wednesday morning in the Café Caprice He is often mentioned in books Reaching Siran Translation rights Ends that hang over the lake The work the poets do The canary's songbook

About the Author :
Karen Press lives in Cape Town. She has published eight poetry collections as well as mathematics textbooks and children’s books. Her poetry has appeared in journals in South Africa, Britain, the United States, Australia and Canada, and in translation in French, Italian, Turkish and Tamil. She co-founded the publishing collective Buchu Books and currently works as a freelance editor and writer.

Review :
'It is largely a poetry of whispers, of hints, of indirect statement, yet with cables as strong as steel for its backbone.' - South African Sunday Independent