Poetry
Floating Island
Ruth Miller · 1965
Synopsis
The poems often start from a scene or an animal observed, a penguin clogged with oil on a beach, pigeons being fed, a mantis, a spider, two lovers on the trapeze, and draw them towards loss, anguish and the doubt of faith. Biblical images abound in them, the plague, the Word made flesh, manna, but the call to God goes unanswered, and love comes to occupy the place left by religion. One poem, “Cycle”, returns to the death of a son, with the image of a tree whose branches have been cut.
Context
The first collection by its author, the book appeared in 1965; a selection of her poems followed three years later in London, from Chatto & Windus, in the Phoenix Living Poets series. Lionel Abrahams, her literary executor, gathered in 1990 the two books, unpublished poems, radio plays, a short story and an essay in a posthumous volume. The tone of these poems, self-conscious to the point of morbidity, has been likened to that of Sylvia Plath; Joan Metelerkamp made their author in 1992 a “literary mother” of the South African women poets who came after her, a reading that two University of Cape Town theses have since discussed.
Who it is for
Short poems in English, in a dense language, full of biblical and literary allusions; long out of print, not translated into French.
Prizes and reception
First winner of the Ingrid Jonker Prize, in 1965; Charles Eglington regarded its author as one of the most singular poets the country has produced.
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