The Lava of This Land

Denis Hirson is the author of the prose memoir The House Next Door to Africa and a coeditor of The Heinemann Book of South African Short Stories. He lives in Paris.

Acknowledgments
Introduction

Section I

Stephen Watson
Song of the Broken String
Our Blood Makes Smoke
Rain in a Dead Man's Footsteps
The Rain that Is Male
The Sound of the Stars
The Sun, the Moon, and the Knife
The Nature of /Kaggen

Sydney Clouts
Firebowl
Hotknife
Stick Song
North Wind
Within
After the Riot
Poetry Is Cast Out

Ingrid Jonker
"I went searching by way of my body . . ."
Tokoloshe
Bitterberry Daybreak
Pregnant Woman
Homesickness for Cape Town
The Child Who Was Shot Dead by Soldiers in Nyanga

Sob. W. Nkuhlu 
The Land of the People Once Living

St. J. Page Yako
The Contraction and Enclosure of the Land

Dennis Brutus
Nightsong: City
Cold

Arthur Nortje
Waiting

Adam Small
Come, Let Us Sing
from Great Krismis Prayer
Preacher
On the P'rade
Gesondheid!
Five quatrains from Black Bronze Beautiful

Section II

Mongane Wally Serote
Alexandra
City Johannesburg
I Will Wait
Ofay-Watcher Looks Back
For Don M. --Banned
Milk and Corn
Hell, Well, Heaven
Two extracts from No Baby Must Weep

Breyten Breytenbach
"I will die and go to my father . . . "
my heritage
"how drowsy we were wrapped in coolness . . ."
the truth
plagiarism
your letter
december
For Françooi Viljoen

Wopko Jensma
Spanner in the What? Works
Cry Me a River
Our King
My Hands
Confidentially Yours
Now That It's Too Late
My Brother
Joburg Spiritual

Eva Bezwoda
"A tooth dressed up in jackboots . . ."
"Sometimes the mouth's a locked cell . . ."
The Bullet
Villages
Ice Floes
"He lay with her . . . "

Njabulo S. Ndebele
Be Gentle
The Revolution of the Aged
The Man of Smoke

Mbuyiseni Oswold Mtshall
Boy on a Swing
Men in Chains
Amagoduka at Glencoe Station
The Detribalised
Talismans

Mandla Langa
The Pension Jiveass

Mazisi Kunene
Death of the Miners or The Widows of the Earth
The Political Prisoner
The Tyrant
A Note to All Surviving Africans
To My Friend Solomon Hailu

Sheila Cussons
Clothed Nakedness
Organ
The Barn-Yard
Yellow Gramophone
Pearl

Wilma Stockenström
Africa Love
East Coast
Koichab's Water
The Rock
Confession of a Glossy Starling
The Skull Laughs through the Face Cries
Housebreaking of the Mamba

Jeni Couzyn
Three sections from Christmas in Africa

Section III

Oupa Thando Mthimkulu
Like a Wheel
Nineteen Seventy-Six

Motshile Nthodi
Staffrider
South African Dialogue

K. Zwide
Wooden Spoon

Sipho Sepamla
Da Same, Da Same

Mafika Gwala
Gumba, Gumba, Gumba
Bonk-abajahile
Kwela-Ride
Tap-Tapping
One Small Boy Longs for Summer

Chris van Wyk
It Is Sleepy in the "Coloured" Townships
Candle
The Road
We Can't Meet Here, Brother
In Detention
A Riot Policeman

Peter Horn
The Eruption of Langa, 30th March 1960

Stephen Gray
Local History
Song of the Gold Coming In

Patrick Cullinan
To Have Love
The First, Far Beat
The Dust in the Wind
North
Sir Tom
Etruscan Girl

Don Maclennan
Letters 
"Winter sunlight, clean as a cut orange . . ."
Funeral III

Douglas Livingstone
Gentling a Wildcat
A Piece of Earth
Mpondo's Smithy, Transkei

Section IV

Jeremy Cronin
"To learn how to speak . . ."
"Our land holds . . ."
White Face, Black Mask
Poem-Shrike
Motho ke Motho ka Batho Babang
Walking on Air
I Saw Your Mother
Your Deep Hair

Gcina Mhlophe
The Dancer

Douglas Reid Skinner
The Body is a Country of Joy and Pain
Law and Order

Donald Parenzee
The Raining 
Interview
Changes at the Settlement

Andries Walter Oliphant
Childhood in Heidelberg
Poem for My Mother
After Life
Song of the Unemployed
The Hunger Striker
Blue

Imgrid de Kok
Small Passing
Our Sharpeville
Sun, Aloe, Rain
To Drink Its Water
This Thing We Learn from Others
Brush Stroke
Inner Note
Ground Wave

Stephen Watson
North-West Cape, 1985
Descending, Late

Phil du Plessis
Easter Transit

Petra Müller
Three sections from Foretelling

Antjie Krog
Ma
Song of the Cyclists
a one-dimensional song for the northern free state, more specifically middenspruit
lovesong after the music of K. E. Ntsane
"I don't glance at your grizzled hair . . ."
transparency of the sole
refused march at Kroonstad Monday 23 Oct 1989
land

Karen Press
Dispossessed Words
Tikolosh
Statues
Heart's Hunger
Needlework
The First Thirty-Seven Years
Can't Stand, Can't Dance
from Tiresias in the City of Heroes

Robert Berold
Dark City
Two Meditations on Chuang Tsu
Praise Poem
There Is a River in Me
meet me
Those Days

Kelwyn Sole
Poem from Botswana
Presence
Mankunku
The National Question
Woman, Trespassing in a Garden
Homecoming
Housing Targets

Section V

Tatamkhulu Afrika
Tamed
The Funeral of Anton Fransch
The Trap
The Mugging
Who Were You?
Cat on a High Yard Wall
Remembering
Solitary Child
Nightrider

Joan Metelerkamp
Sunday Night -- On My Own -- After the Uitenhage Shootings
Trees Sky Space
Dove

Lisa Combrinck
Ghazal
In the Moonlight

Cathy Zerbst
Magnolia Blue

Johann de Lange
Koos Prinsloo (1957-1994)

Ari Sitas
Evening Tides I
Ethekwini
Six sections from Slave Trades

Sandile Dikeni
Track of the Tracks

Rustum Kozain
Family Portrait
from Brother, Who Will Bury Me?

Mxolisi M. Nyezwa
barracks
things change
I cannot think of all the pains

Lesego Rampolokeng
After Bra W's Flowers
In Transition
For the Oral
Wet pain . . . tread with care

Seitlhamo Motsapi
shak-shak
enia
sol/o
mushi
the sun used to be white
missa joe
river robert

Appendix
Explanatory Notes
Glossary
Biographical Notes