A PRIVATE AUDIENCE, poems

63pp., paperback, Cape Town, 2017

"In her second volume of poetry, 'A Private Audience', Beverly Rycroft navigates the echoing counterpoint of womanhood. Painful family relationships, illness and death are some of the main themes of this riveting collection written in sparse, electric verse. The 'voracious memory' is haunting in this commendable work." Joan Hambidge, author of "Lot se vrou", "Meditasies" and "Matriks"

"'Larger than love and fucked up/ as family': with its bittersweet evocations of a father feared in childhood and nursed in old age, whose character teeters dangerously between Minotaur and King Lear, Beverly Rycroft's 'A Private Audience' is remarkable for its lithe feats of metaphor, its imaginative recall, its satisfying score settling and, ultimately, its tender song of a woman (wife, mother, daughter) who came through." Finuala Dowling, author of "The Fetch" and "What Poets Need"

Beverly Rycroft was born in the Eastern Cape. Her first collection of poetry, "missing", won the 2012 Ingrid Jonker prize. She is also the author of the novel, "A Slim, Green Silence".