The Mushroom Summer of Skipper Darling

The debut collection from one of Southern
Africa’s most astute critics of poetry, born in 1935, is a treasure. A
collection that accomplishes that rare thing in poetry: of being an
immediate pleasure even as it demands re-reading and slow contemplation.
With classical form and meter meeting modern sensibility and local
image, The Mushroom Summer of Skipper Darling fills a gaping
absence in South African letters, and will kickstart an appreciation
anew of a strong, steady and significant influence on this country’s
literature.

“I have tried to write poetry ever since I can
remember,” says the author, “with varying degrees of success, having
published poems intermittently over the years. As an academic I found
that the critical faculty sometimes interfered with the creative in both
the writing of my own poetry and the appreciation of others’. In
retirement, the critical and the creative seem to have become more
cooperative.

“A poem can come from anywhere, but more often than
not these days it will spring out of, give admission to and offer a
release from, memory. Quite often a poem turns out to be my half of a
conversation, and I can only hope that my imagination admits the reader
to a realm where words mean what they say. While understanding may not
come at once, a poet hopes to offer enough to catch and hold the reader
on first reading.”