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Chapman releases updated edition of The New Century of South African Poetry
by Softcopy
SOFTCOPY REPORTER
Arts and Design Retired Professor, Michael Chapman has released a revised and updated edition of his poetry anthology book, The New Century of South African Poetry.
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The first edition of the book was published in 2002 and featured 450 poems that range from traditional San songs to established figures such as Roy Campbell, N.P. van Wyk, Mazisi Kunene, Douglas Livingstone, Mongane Wally Serote, and Antjie Krog along with maskanda, kiba, praises, and rap.
The new edition includes an extra 125 new poems and an addition of a fifth section covering works produced by poets who have made their mark since the early 2000s. It also includes pieces in divergent styles by a wide range of authors – from traditional songs by Khoisan poets to poems by established figures such as Roy Campbell, N.P. van Wyk Louw, Mazisi Kunene, Douglas Livingstone, Mongane Wally Serote and Antjie Krog.
Popular poetic forms like maskanda, kiba, praises and rap share the pages with current poets such as Gabeba Baderoon, Rustum Kozain, Danie Marais, Nick Mulgrew and Koleka Putuma who bring with them fresh considerations on issues such as black consciousness, green politics, female subjectivity and middle-class sensibilities. In the revised introduction for the new edition, Professor Chapman identifies a key feature of the poetry: its accessibility to a wide readership.
Professor Chapman is an English literature scholar and a well-known figure in South African letters. Apart from being a Retired Professor in the faculty, he was Acting Head of Department for the Video Technology department. He is an Emeritus Professor of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His numerous publications include A Century of South African Poetry (1981), Southern African Literatures (1996), Art Talk, Politics Talk (2006) and Green in BlackAnd-White Times: Conversations with Douglas Livingstone (2016). In 2018 he was awarded the Human Sciences Research Council Medal for the Social Sciences and Humanities.
Arts and Design Retired Professor, Michael Chapman
