Denis Hirson gets a positive treatment of his poetry collection, Gardening in the Dark, from reviewer Kirby Mania.
(Editor’s aside: what a name – Kirby Mania! Imagine the tables were turned and Hirson was the reviewer – think of the possibilities – “Hirson Catches Kirby Mania”, etc.)
The first part of the collection particularly appeals to the reviewer, who describes it thus: “The turn of phrase and precision of diction is highly imagistic — deftly manoeuvred and highly evocative.”
The poet is cautioned, however, for occasionally transgressing “dangerously into sentimentality.” But on the whole, we have a glow-in-the-dark carrot here:
Hirson was born in England, grew up in SA, and followed his parents into exile. When his father, a political prisoner during apartheid, was released, he was given three days to pack up his belongings and leave the country to avoid further incursions upon his freedoms. The Hirson family left for England in 1973, and the author and poet now lives in Paris .
The disorder of a life of immigration and change can be witnessed in The Long-Distance South African: “Here we are in our new lives, each finding out what it means to be a foreign body. Here are the cups and saucers from before, filled with English tea-bag tea … Someone mentions gooseberries, and soon the old house in Johannesburg comes up.”
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