When No One Is Watching
When No One Is Watching is a compilation of poems about love and the loss thereof, trauma and the dark reflections that come with it. It is a depiction of sides that people don’t readily show, sides of vulnerability, insecurity and tiny amounts of hope. One could say it is the result of shedding light into a world of secrecy, escapism, an alternate reality belonging to an alternate version of an individual. When No One Is Watching is the truth in its purest form.
Available in paperback and ebook from Amazon, Bookshop.org, or your favourite online bookstore or online retailer.
$19.95
Book Details
| Dimensions | 152 × 102 mm |
|---|---|
| Extent | 100 pages |
| Format | Paperback |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Release date | 28 January 2020 |
| Imprint | Ensorcellia |
| ISBN | 9781922311092 |
About The Author
Linathi Makanda
Linathi Makanda is a writer and artist based in South Africa. She is the author of the poetry collection When No One Is Watching, and has been featured in Poetry Potion, Lolwe, and 20.35 Africa, where she was a part of their New Poet Series. New Plains Review, an online publication of the College of Liberal Arts of the University of Central Oklahoma, featured her visual, Seasons, which combines elements of art direction, poetry, and videography. Additionally, this body of work was selected to screen at the Lift Off Online Film Festival in the UK under the Short Film category. Among the platforms she has appeared on are Hear My Voice, Salamander Ink Mag, and Busboys and Poets.
Clare Rhoden –
African author Linathi Makanda has created a brilliant and immersive experience
for the reader.
Suddenly we are plunged into the youthful garden of earthly delights, where love
is new and full of wonder. This early bliss is fully embodied: All my skin ever
needed was you.
But the lover is a woman, and women’s experiences with love are fraught. The
poems travel from the ecstasy of first love, through the paradise of physical
delight, to the eventual and somehow inevitable wretchedness of desertion: she
knows that no matter what changes she makes, what delights she offers, that he
would still forget me.
Finally, the invisibility of the deserted woman is refuted. I see you. Within the
embrace of sisterhood, a sustaining solidarity and resilience is found. We are the
women whose scents/ smell like freedom and a fresh start.
Makanda’s mastery of her style ensures a special accessibility and universality to
her poetry. The obvious comparison is to the heartfelt fragments of Sappho’s
poems, still powerful after more than 2500 years. This book can be read as a
verse novel of female experience, and treasured for its insights.
For lovers of all ages, and anyone who has ever loved, and especially those who
have loved and lost, this is a new classic.