A poet confident in her mastery of her medium.’ – J M Coetzee
‘Isobel Dixon was born with the gift of lyricism as natural speech.’ – Clive James
‘One of the finest South African poets writing today.’ – Kylie Thomas, Mail & Guardian
‘Exquisite vigour, panache and a resourceful, ranging intelligence’ – David Morley
In her fourth collection, Isobel Dixon takes readers on a journey to far-flung and sometimes dark places. From Robben Island to Hiroshima, Egypt to Edinburgh, the West Bank and beyond, these poems are forays of discovery and resistance, of arrival and loss.
Bearings sings of love too, and pays homage to lost friends and poets – the voices of John Berryman, Michael Donaghy, Robert Louis Stevenson and others echo here. And there is respite for the weary traveller – jazz in the shadows, an exuberant play of words between the fire and tremors.
In this wide-ranging collection Dixon explores form and subject, keeping a weather eye out for telling detail, with a sharp sense of the threat that these journeys, our wars and stories, and our very existence pose to the planet.