New Country

For days I looked for my poems in the streets, and since I could not find them, light fell like a flower on the lonely square. The light sounded the drum of a thud, beauty came grovelling forward begging, and children went for days without food. Poetry is a simple way to remind us of our humanity.

It guards against placing blind faith in the sciences which are constricting to the human spirit. In poetry, we discover our basic selves. Intensely lyrical and deeply expressionist, the poems of New Country register the intuitiveness of Mxolisi Nyezwa's vision of his land and his life. Nyezwa has carved for himself a voice and a style that is entirely his own and unlike any South African poet before him.