Homegrown

by Christine Coates

Christine Coates is a poet and writer from Cape Town who spends many hours walking on the mountain or besides the sea. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town. She has an interest in life-writing or memoir, and the recovery of personal history through public and private imagery. She translated her great-grandfather's Boer War journals and presented them in parallel text as a handmade, leather-bound book. She has undertaken the 800km pilgrimage across Spain, on the Camino de Compostela. Her stories and poems have been published in various literary journals: New Contrast, New Coin, Deep Water Literary Journal, scrutiny2, and the Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry Review. Her poems were selected for the EU Sol Plaatje Poetry anthologies 2011 - 2014.

72 pages, Paperback

Published December 3, 2014

Reviews

[Troydon Wainwright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rich in imagery and in places deeply South African, Homegrown by Christine Coates is well named. The poetry is well written and intimate and covers a wide range of emotions. Homegrown gives us a view of South Africa many of us would recognize. There are, however, many poems which seem to chronicle the author’s trips abroad in a very visual and insightful way. The book itself is beautiful with many interesting and often haunting paintings and pictures by the author in its pages.
Overall, Homegrown is a wonderful collection with many poems that resonate long after they are read. I can highly recommend it to readers who are looking for an intimate view of what it is like to live in South Africa and truly be connected to the land and its people. Although much of Homegrown looks through South African eyes, in essence it sees beyond that and gives us a very personal and moving account of what it is to be human. Homegrown is honest and beautiful and well worth the read.

[Efemia · Rating 4 out of 5]

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