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Body Bereft
Antje Krog’s iconic status as one of South Africa’s most popular and critically acclaimed poets began when she was eighteen, with her first collection, Dogter von Jefta (1970).
Almost four decades later, this very different collection will confirm her reputation with poems that blur and ravage the boundaries between the lyrical and confessional, the private and public.
Body Bereft is a fearless and ecstatic exploration of a consciousness on the edge of decay and dissolution. The taboos within the tidal moods of the menopause are described with anger and verbal intensity in a voice that is uniquely Krog’s. Close relationships are searingly explored, occasionally seeking conflict, often searching for resolution.
In the final meditative section, the personal intensity is tempered, fantastically almost, by contemplations of Table Mountain as a looming, symbolic and androgynous godhead, echoing Adamastor, an abiding presence that endures as it suffers witness—an ostensibly inscrutable, ironically nurturing mirror to self and personal despair.
These dramatic, even reckless poems, translated from the simultaneously published Afrikaans collection, Verweerskrif, bring an altogether new and unique energy to South African English-language poetry.
Almost four decades later, this very different collection will confirm her reputation with poems that blur and ravage the boundaries between the lyrical and confessional, the private and public.
Body Bereft is a fearless and ecstatic exploration of a consciousness on the edge of decay and dissolution. The taboos within the tidal moods of the menopause are described with anger and verbal intensity in a voice that is uniquely Krog’s. Close relationships are searingly explored, occasionally seeking conflict, often searching for resolution.
In the final meditative section, the personal intensity is tempered, fantastically almost, by contemplations of Table Mountain as a looming, symbolic and androgynous godhead, echoing Adamastor, an abiding presence that endures as it suffers witness—an ostensibly inscrutable, ironically nurturing mirror to self and personal despair.
These dramatic, even reckless poems, translated from the simultaneously published Afrikaans collection, Verweerskrif, bring an altogether new and unique energy to South African English-language poetry.
112 pages
First published January 1, 2006
7 people are currently reading
87 people want to read
About the author
Antjie Krog
62 books97 followersKrog grew up on a farm, attending primary and secondary school in Kroonstad. In 1973 she earned a BA (Hons) degree in English from the University of the Orange Free State, and an MA in Afrikaans from the University of Pretoria in 1976. With a teaching diploma from the University of South Africa (UNISA) she would lecture at a segregated teacher’s training college for black South Africans.
She is married to architect John Samuel and has four children: Andries, Susan, Philip, and Willem. In 2004 she joined the Arts faculty of the University of the Western Cape.
She is married to architect John Samuel and has four children: Andries, Susan, Philip, and Willem. In 2004 she joined the Arts faculty of the University of the Western Cape.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
March 17, 2010
Not until you have travelled the journey and can feel each of her words in your bones will it be clear just how powerful these poems are.
October 23, 2021
I've been reading through perhaps what is Antjie Krog's most marginalised collection of poetry, Body Bereft, and found it revolutionary. While women have been subjected to the male glance in how they are publicly presented, Krog creates an entire body of work that focuses on the effects of menopause and aging on the female body and covers it with a photograph of the nude torso of an aging woman’s breasts, and weathered arms.
Response to the book, especially from her Afrikaans counterparts, was less than welcoming, with Stephen Gray being cited as saying that he "does not want to know about menopause or breasts or a ‘drooggebakte poes [drybaked cunt]'", which I find unfortunate because these are truths to getting old. Things lose their ability to remain firm, they dry up, whether we want to accept that or not.
The poetry is raw, at times sombre, but it essentially rewriting the narrative that has long shoved aging women into a rocking chairs with knitting needles and left them for dead. It validates their experiences beyond the roles of wife, mother and nurturer, beyond the tight, sexualised body, echoing Susan Sontag's sentiments about how women "can let themselves age naturally and without embarrassment, actively protesting and disobeying the conventions that stem from this society’s double standard about aging."
This is what Lili Loofbourow's essay, in an essay titled The Male Glance, writes about this phenomenon:
"Generations of forgetting to zoom into female experience aren’t easily shrugged off, however noble our intentions, and the upshot is that we still don’t expect female texts to have universal things to say. We imagine them as small and careful, or petty and domestic, or vain, or sassy, or confessional. We might expect them to be sentimental or melodramatic, or even.... provocative, unflattering, and exhibitionist. But we don’t expect them to be experimental, and we don’t expect them to be great. We have not yet learned to see within female ugliness the possibility of transcendent art the way we do its male counterpart..."
God, Death, Love by Antjie Krog
God, Death, Love, Loneliness, Man
are Important Themes in Literature
menstruation, childbirth, menopause, puberty
marriage are not
meanwhile terror lies exactly in how
one lives with the disintegrating body
in how one accepts that the body no longer
wants to intensify with exhilarating detonations
in how one loves the more-and-more-slacked-ones
in how one resigns to vaginal atrophy and incontinence
or that the blade cleaving through one’s heart
is probably a heart attack
to jump from the ageing body to Death
has suddenly become a cop-out act.
Taken from Body Bereft (2006).
Response to the book, especially from her Afrikaans counterparts, was less than welcoming, with Stephen Gray being cited as saying that he "does not want to know about menopause or breasts or a ‘drooggebakte poes [drybaked cunt]'", which I find unfortunate because these are truths to getting old. Things lose their ability to remain firm, they dry up, whether we want to accept that or not.
The poetry is raw, at times sombre, but it essentially rewriting the narrative that has long shoved aging women into a rocking chairs with knitting needles and left them for dead. It validates their experiences beyond the roles of wife, mother and nurturer, beyond the tight, sexualised body, echoing Susan Sontag's sentiments about how women "can let themselves age naturally and without embarrassment, actively protesting and disobeying the conventions that stem from this society’s double standard about aging."
This is what Lili Loofbourow's essay, in an essay titled The Male Glance, writes about this phenomenon:
"Generations of forgetting to zoom into female experience aren’t easily shrugged off, however noble our intentions, and the upshot is that we still don’t expect female texts to have universal things to say. We imagine them as small and careful, or petty and domestic, or vain, or sassy, or confessional. We might expect them to be sentimental or melodramatic, or even.... provocative, unflattering, and exhibitionist. But we don’t expect them to be experimental, and we don’t expect them to be great. We have not yet learned to see within female ugliness the possibility of transcendent art the way we do its male counterpart..."
God, Death, Love by Antjie Krog
God, Death, Love, Loneliness, Man
are Important Themes in Literature
menstruation, childbirth, menopause, puberty
marriage are not
meanwhile terror lies exactly in how
one lives with the disintegrating body
in how one accepts that the body no longer
wants to intensify with exhilarating detonations
in how one loves the more-and-more-slacked-ones
in how one resigns to vaginal atrophy and incontinence
or that the blade cleaving through one’s heart
is probably a heart attack
to jump from the ageing body to Death
has suddenly become a cop-out act.
Taken from Body Bereft (2006).
May 13, 2025
jest to poezja wyjątkowa autorki wyjątkowej; o nowotworze, menopauzie, miłości, utracie, języku - delikatna, odważna, brawurowa, prosta, nieekshibicjonistyczna, nie-flashy; dla kogoś, kto szuka poezji o czymś, metaforycznej, lecz jakoś bezpośredniej.
no i piękne, erudycyjne, kompetentne posłowie pana Jerzego Kocha
no i piękne, erudycyjne, kompetentne posłowie pana Jerzego Kocha
July 8, 2019
The design and content of these poems is conceptually brilliant. There are poems about Table Mountain, ageing , marriage and colonialism. I love how she can merge history, present experiences and elegant language together.
September 10, 2018
My gunsteling gedigte vanuit die bundel: Manifes van ‘n Ouma; ode vir ‘n ander lewe; Elke dag kan ek maak asof jy myne is.
February 16, 2023
Citaat : Misschien wil ik zeggen
Dat ik je dikke buik zo sexy vind
Dat een erectie tegen de lichte glooiing
Mij het water in de mond doet lopen
misschien wil ik wel zeggen
dat ik mij voor de eerste keer
Kan overgeven aan je dijen
vanwege hun weke Witheid
dat ik het zachte lubberen van je billen
Liever heb dan de jonge harde opgefokte geilheid
Review : Lijfkreet hoort tot mijn tien favoriete dichtbundels. De auteur hiervan Antjie Krog is dan ook het boegbeeld van de Zuid–Afrikaanse vernieuwing, zowel wat taal als wat moraal betreft. Zij schrijft zonder schaamte over haar lichaam van een ouder wordende vrouw.
Zelden heb ik iemand, Herman Hesse uitgezonderd, zo ongeremd en met zo veel passie over het ouder worden weten schrijven. Geen lichamelijke maar wel geestelijke facelift voor haar. Voor haar kent het ouder worden evenveel verrukkingen als de jeugd. Natuurlijk heeft ook zij haar frustraties en bedenkingen bij ouderdom en verval, maar toch weet zij alles te relativeren in gave poëzie die je onder je huid kruipt.
Zelf zegt ze ergens dat ze niet weet hoe ouder moet klinken in taal terwijl ze het zelf heel mooi laat klinken. Van bescheidenheid gesproken. Ik zou zeggen gooi de antirimpelcrème aan de kant, lees Lijfkreet en je huid wordt terug veerkrachtig van behaaglijkheid.
Dat ik je dikke buik zo sexy vind
Dat een erectie tegen de lichte glooiing
Mij het water in de mond doet lopen
misschien wil ik wel zeggen
dat ik mij voor de eerste keer
Kan overgeven aan je dijen
vanwege hun weke Witheid
dat ik het zachte lubberen van je billen
Liever heb dan de jonge harde opgefokte geilheid
Review : Lijfkreet hoort tot mijn tien favoriete dichtbundels. De auteur hiervan Antjie Krog is dan ook het boegbeeld van de Zuid–Afrikaanse vernieuwing, zowel wat taal als wat moraal betreft. Zij schrijft zonder schaamte over haar lichaam van een ouder wordende vrouw.
Zelden heb ik iemand, Herman Hesse uitgezonderd, zo ongeremd en met zo veel passie over het ouder worden weten schrijven. Geen lichamelijke maar wel geestelijke facelift voor haar. Voor haar kent het ouder worden evenveel verrukkingen als de jeugd. Natuurlijk heeft ook zij haar frustraties en bedenkingen bij ouderdom en verval, maar toch weet zij alles te relativeren in gave poëzie die je onder je huid kruipt.
Zelf zegt ze ergens dat ze niet weet hoe ouder moet klinken in taal terwijl ze het zelf heel mooi laat klinken. Van bescheidenheid gesproken. Ik zou zeggen gooi de antirimpelcrème aan de kant, lees Lijfkreet en je huid wordt terug veerkrachtig van behaaglijkheid.
August 2, 2013
Antjie Krog was recommended to me by a dear friend, Ashley, while I was recently in South Africa. Antjie is a renowned contemporary South African writer and poet and has won many awards and as a white woman, clearly works hard to be present in her country, politically, socially and poetically. This book is mostly personal and about menopause so I probably enjoyed it more than my daughter, Maja, would :).
I don't think menopause was/has been nearly as hard for me as it seems to be for her--which probably makes for better poetry!
She does have one fun one, "manifesta of a grandma" and she gets down and dirty in this one, ending with her and Grandpa taking it lying down--so maybe not so hard for her after all :).
I don't think menopause was/has been nearly as hard for me as it seems to be for her--which probably makes for better poetry!
She does have one fun one, "manifesta of a grandma" and she gets down and dirty in this one, ending with her and Grandpa taking it lying down--so maybe not so hard for her after all :).
Read
August 8, 2019I am not well read in the realm of poetry. Thus, I feel a bit of a sham trying to "star" this book, never mind give it a review.
I enjoyed the poems. I read this in my hammock and savored every word, many of which I read out loud. For this reason, I gave it four starts.
The collection felt like a journey - fascinating as I was taken though the emotional twists and turns. Yet, as much as she laments about the aging, the collection felt powerful - giving voice to those who are often overlooked. Not so much angry (although there is anger) but strong...which is interesting given so much of the work decries the crumbling state of the body.
I enjoyed the poems. I read this in my hammock and savored every word, many of which I read out loud. For this reason, I gave it four starts.
The collection felt like a journey - fascinating as I was taken though the emotional twists and turns. Yet, as much as she laments about the aging, the collection felt powerful - giving voice to those who are often overlooked. Not so much angry (although there is anger) but strong...which is interesting given so much of the work decries the crumbling state of the body.
April 20, 2016
In the first part of this collection of poems, the middle-aged Krog address intensely personal issues such as aging, marriage (and sex) after decades of being together, and finding/fighting her role and place in society and the world. The second, equally delicious, part deals with more general social issues such as poverty and racism. The final section is a series of diary-like poetic observations of Table Mountain throughout the year, in which she often compares her or humanity's briefer existence with that of the "eternal" mountain.
June 6, 2011
Took me longer to read this than Krog's Selected Poems (which I liked more). Some very good poems alongside rather pedestrian ones. Worth another read to see if my views change. The last part, on Table Mountain, was more uneven than I felt it should have been.
February 24, 2008
Another South African best - funny, frank and just a pleasure to read.
April 11, 2016
Lovely book of poems
Some really resonated with me and made me stop and re-view the world
Others less so
And that's the beauty of poetry I think
Some really resonated with me and made me stop and re-view the world
Others less so
And that's the beauty of poetry I think
December 29, 2018
SUMMER
tuesday 24 january
”…I’m frenzied
with anger because I
live only once, because in all of
eternity I live
only now, because I only start
to live now, because I
shall live through this earthly glory just
once with this body, and
my body is fading already
in spasms of
evermore, nevermore, neverlasting”
tuesday 24 january
”…I’m frenzied
with anger because I
live only once, because in all of
eternity I live
only now, because I only start
to live now, because I
shall live through this earthly glory just
once with this body, and
my body is fading already
in spasms of
evermore, nevermore, neverlasting”
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews