Dennis Vincent Brutus, Still the Sirens

Craig McLuckie (Okanagan College)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 7.2.3.03: South Africa and other Southern Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Helen Rachel Cousins (Newman University), David Firth (University of Manchester)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1993

Places

Zimbabwe (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Poem collection

Resources

Still the Sirens (1993) is Dennis Brutus’ twelfth volume of poetry. The chapbook contains 28 brief free verse poems and 8 haiku (a variant of the chueh chu form Brutus’ experiments in China Poems, 1975). The volume is 32 pages in length, including a six page introduction by African American poet Lamont B. Steptoe. The title evokes Brutus’ Sirens, Knuckles, Boots (1963) and thus emphasizes the ongoing struggle against apartheid specifically and human rights abuses generally. There is no allusion to the Sirens of Greek mythology; rather, the term underscores the wail of emergency vehicles and the attendant human suffering. Brutus’s poetic silence since the publication of Still the Sirens …

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889 words

Citation: McLuckie, Craig. "Still the Sirens". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 March 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=12238, accessed 25 November 2024.]

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