Pretend You Don't Know Me: New and Selected Poems

by Finuala Dowling

Pretend You Don’t Know Me brings together in one volume the best of Finuala Dowling’s funny, poignant and idiosyncratic poetry from four earlier prize-winning collections, with a section devoted to new poems. It introduces this popular South African poet to a UK audience. Finuala Dowling’s debut collection, I flying , published in 2002, was an instant success in her native South Africa. Its accessibility, humanity and wit, as well as its beguilingly honest stories of home, parenthood, love, loss and desperation, won many new converts to poetry. The volume went into multiple printings, and won the Ingrid Jonker prize. Dowling’s subsequent collections, Doo-Wop Girls of the Universe and Notes from the Dementia Ward (winners of the SANLAM and Olive Schreiner prizes respectively), consolidated her reputation as an inventive sketcher of the domestic sublime. Her chapbook, Change is possible, sold out at the 2014 Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. Pretend You Don’t Know Me contains her iconic poem ‘To the doctor who treated the raped baby and who felt such despair’ as well as Dowling’s tragi-comic cycle of poems on the theme of her mother’s dementia, and the hugely popular poems ‘Butter’, ‘I am the Zebra’, ‘To adventurers, as far as I’m concerned’ and ‘The abuse of cauliflowers’. At the heart of the book are the funny and poignant connections we make with other people, and the lifelong effort to stay whole. ‘Dowling is redefining poetry, bringing her distinctive voice and wit to bear on a medium so often stuck in moody, broody times.’ – Arja Slafranca, The Star ‘Finuala Dowling is a brave new voice in South African poetry, filled with vitality, wit, unexpected rhythms and fresh ideas… Always accessible, Dowling’s poetry is never shallow.’ – Shirley Kossick, Mail&Guardian

Genres: Poetry

144 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 27, 2018

Reviews

[Anschen Conradie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dis my eerste kennismaking met Dowling se gedigte en ek was nogal nuuskierig om iemand wat deur Joan Hambidge beskryf word as ‘one of the most important voices of South African poetry in English today’ se werk onder oë te kry.

Hierdie bundel is ‘n lekker samevatting vir ‘n eerste lees, omdat dit ‘n kombinasie van haar werk is; daar is uittreksels uit vorige bundels, sowel as nuwe gedigte hierin opgeneem, insluitend die hartverskeurende ‘To the doctor who treated the raped baby’.

Die gedigte uit ‘n vorige bundel (‘Notes from the dementia ward’) oor haar eie ma se agteruitgang, was waarskynlik my gunsteling deel en was ook ‘n wenner van die Olive Schreiner prys.

Hier is van my gunsteling frases: ‘....before I’d even met you, I was longing for you....’ (uit: ‘The idea of you’); ‘I was meant to be writing a poem, but because I am human, I made a lasagne instead while simultaneously composing a poem in my head’ (uit: ‘Talk, share and listen’) en ‘But I will still want you alive. I will still fear the feeling of missing you..... On the other hand, if I’m already dead.... I will come looking for you. And Ah ! the greeting.’ (Uit: ‘Your death).

[Johan Van rooyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pain made art

Pain made art. That’s what I think this volume contains. And, a particular kind of art: accessible poetry. Maybe that is misleading, but I retired after a day’s work and read this volume from cover to cover. That’s unique for poetry. Maybe Gus Ferguson’s poems are in that category (for me). This deserves to be a movement, if it isn’t yet.

[Nadiya Shaikh · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Finuala Dowling's words - ' I'm so relieved you thought to write what I have only groped for in my sleep'
Such beautiful writing! What a wordsmith!

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some dark poems in here, but overall the collection is light and witty. She’s like the poet laureate for middle age mothers.