Much of the backbone of the manuscript was written during the pandemic, and then gradually refined over the following years. Many of the ideas had been stirring in me for some years before, based on experiences from having lived in South America, and then from my work in South Africa’s education NGO world, where one project in particular allowed to travel extensively around the country and all nine of its provinces.
This prose poetry chapbook is my humble effort to bring attention to the ongoing catastrophe in the Middle East — Israel’s engineered famine, its genocide, infanticide, and femicide of the Palestinian people. In addition, its total disregard for international law, and the targeting and smearing of anyone who dares to speak out against the brutality and barbarism. The Palestinian people have been systematically dehumanised by Western media outlets – over 18 000 children and 15 000 women (conservative estimates) have been killed by Israel so far.
In the shadow of Israel’s genocide of the people of Gaza (almost all refugees from the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Jewish settlers in 1948), this collection, drawn from poems written over several years and culminating in the fire of the current onslaught, captures the agony and suffering of a defenceless people attacked with high precision weapons and a propaganda machine dedicated to advancing US/NATO control over the ‘non-white’ world.
In this, his ninth poetry collection, Kelwyn Sole gives voice to a wide range of concerns, characteristically interweaving the personal with a wider social and political focus. What Is Owed? explores many topics: questions of youth and aging; the complex and illuminating experience of living in contemporary South Africa; commentary on the literary world and on love and other relationships; and the eco-political. In these poems Sole explores themes familiar to readers of his work and also extends them; adding to his already considerable reputation as a poet unafraid to ask difficult questions and wrestle with issues of form and content.
My collection embraces different kinds of poetry. Some poems come via my home in Pimville Soweto, the urban sounds and multilingual speech patterns as I move through it. Other poems draw on Sesotho culture and tradition, which still run strongly in my family, and at times, I integrate the different kinds of sounds and associations of Sesotho and English in the same poem.
Much of the backbone of the manuscript was written during the pandemic, and then gradually refined over the following years. Many of the ideas had been stirring in me for some years before, based on experiences from having lived in South America, and then from my work in South Africa’s education NGO world, where one project in particular allowed to travel extensively around the country and all nine of its provinces. 
This prose poetry chapbook is my humble effort to bring attention to the ongoing catastrophe in the Middle East — Israel’s engineered famine, its genocide, infanticide, and femicide of the Palestinian people. In addition, its total disregard for international law, and the targeting and smearing of anyone who dares to speak out against the brutality and barbarism. The Palestinian people have been systematically dehumanised by Western media outlets – over 18 000 children and 15 000 women (conservative estimates) have been killed by Israel so far. 
In the shadow of Israel’s genocide of the people of Gaza (almost all refugees from the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Jewish settlers in 1948), this collection, drawn from poems written over several years and culminating in the fire of the current onslaught, captures the agony and suffering of a defenceless people attacked with high precision weapons and a propaganda machine dedicated to advancing US/NATO control over the ‘non-white’ world. 
In this, his ninth poetry collection, Kelwyn Sole gives voice to a wide range of concerns, characteristically interweaving the personal with a wider social and political focus. What Is Owed? explores many topics: questions of youth and aging; the complex and illuminating experience of living in contemporary South Africa; commentary on the literary world and on love and other relationships; and the eco-political. In these poems Sole explores themes familiar to readers of his work and also extends them; adding to his already considerable reputation as a poet unafraid to ask difficult questions and wrestle with issues of form and content. 
My collection embraces different kinds of poetry. Some poems come via my home in Pimville Soweto, the urban sounds and multilingual speech patterns as I move through it. Other poems draw on Sesotho culture and tradition, which still run strongly in my family, and at times, I integrate the different kinds of sounds and associations of Sesotho and English in the same poem.