Finuala Dowling is a brave new voice in South African poetry, filled with vitality, wit, unexpected rhythms and fresh ideas. Mainly personal in content, the poems have a resonance way beyond their immediate setting.
Some are satirical and some are downright funny, like the Kalk Bay women who walk — “they walk, that’s what they do”. But beneath the sometimes flip and whimsical surfaces there is a keen and inventive mind at work.
Often, too, there are moments of great poignancy and profound compassion, as in To the Doctor Who Treated the Raped Baby and Who Felt Such Despair. Always accessible, Dowling’s poetry is never shallow.