BOOKS

The Book of Unrest

Poetry
2022
First published in South Africa by uHlanga
ISBN: 978-0-620-98690-8

PUBLISHER’S BLURB:

An ocean of floodwater. Shipwrecked toddlers. Skeletons that rise from pristine beaches. In his second book of poems, Nick Mulgrew confronts the natural and human disasters of the eastern South African coast – and, in the process, himself.

An unflinching examination of ancestry and place, of ruined childhoods and a troubled present, The Book of Unrest conjures a world of alternating beauty and horror; a series of tainted land-, city- and seascapes, increasingly hostile to those living in them. Drawing upon the wisdom of other Durban writers, Mulgrew interrogates the purposes of poetry and politics in such a fraught time and place. Can our traumas be learned from, or do they only shackle us to the past?

In turns elegiac and nihilistic, witty and desperate, sprawling and precise, these poems sift through personal and collective histories of mistrust and violence, to find what, if anything, can bring us rest.

REVIEWS:

“One could say that The Book of Unrest ‘unwrites’ Nick Mulgrew’s (equally impressive) first book of poems. […] These memorable, formally adventurous and precisely achieved poems offer both conviction and delight. The quality I feel most strongly here is courage.” – Tony Voss, Stanzas

“The Book of Unrest is ‘n bundel waarin die digter deur ander Durban-skrywers sy eie ervarings karteer: elegies, melancholies met ‘n besinning van die plek van die digkuns in turbulente tye. […] Daar is pragtige, onthoubare beelde […] ‘n Klein bundel, maar die gedigte is verpak soos dinamiet.” – Joan Hambidge