earthstepper/ the ocean is very shallow

i have one eye full of dreams & hintentions the other is full of broken mirrors & cracked churchbells i have one eye full of rivers & welcomes the other is full of flickers & fades i have a memory full of paths & anointings a mouth full of ripe infant suns seven legs for the dancing river & the clement abyss & a hope that corrodes the convulsions we bless the long rough road we bless the inscrutable darkness where our names are rent into spirit we bless the splinters & the air full of asphyxiations & amnesia we bless our lacerations & our deformities This book is a redesigned second printing of Seitlhamo Motsapi's acclaimed earthstepper, first published in 1996. Reviewing earthstepper in New Coin, Laura Chrisman wrote: A very far cry from official New South African pietistic discourse of reconciliation, this collection brilliantly fuses pan-Africanist militancy, romantic spirituality, and scathing attack on neo-colonialism in its global and local forms. The political urgency is never compromised by empty rhetorical posturing or aesthetic banality: this is a rich, experimental poetry, raining down fresh imagery, complex conceits carefully patterned to produce a volume of striking originality and stylistic rigour.