Lemon People

By Heidi Henning

This second poetry collection continues the combination of universal and personal, the themes relevant to my sense of identity and agency. Symbols, abstracts, emotions and descriptions work together in these minimal poems, to create a moment, a picture in the mind of the reader. I draw inspiration from land, from space and context, from nature, from my children, from my past. Poetry is an apt form for me, as it becomes like a process of photography, a fresh and original way of conveying a moment in very few words, with little dilution, but strong messaging, imagery and meaning. Lemon People comes from a more resolved place in my life, with meaning and perspective, as someone in their late thirties with more time to develop my personal craft, and experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Jul 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499086409

Heidi Henning

Heidi Henning was born in Johannesburg, and obtained a Bachelor of Arts from Wits University and a Masters in Creative Science from Edinburgh University. She has been frequently published in New Contrast Literary Journal and on litnet. Her first poetry collection, ‘Misheard’ was published in 2012 with Xlibris, and her second poetry collection ‘Calm’ was published in 2014 with Geko Publishers. She lives in Namibia with her partner and two young girls.

Book preview

The very real poetry of Heidi Henning in Lemon People

The origin of poetry is the imagination of a child. Heidi Henning’s poetry is full of such moments of childhood and imagination, both calm, blissful and threatening with the shadowy monsters of puppet shows and adult realities. It is full of the sights and sounds of the South African platteland, of the thunderstorms and bird calls, the dust, the breathing of the night and A pebble reminder, thrown into a pool of water. Heidi Henning is searching for her poetry in this dark pool of sounds—For that same lost call. She invites us to a road trip through the mind of your childhood. The goat kraal of childhood is a self contained world, where mystery and magic walk in amongst the baby goats and the piles of droppings where you are the ruler of your own world. The poet sees herself as a child with a reckless mind exploring her world. Childhood like poetry is the place where something beyond her understanding happens. When fear enters the scene Screaming won’t help, no one will hear them out here. The child has to find her own way of dealing with that which she does not understand.

Sometimes the imagination of a poet takes the everyday things around us, the things we all see, use and remember and discovers the magic in the swollen, rain bellied cloud wind of summer. People often think that poets are attracted only to the extraordinary. But they discover the poetic in the very ordinary, like ice cream: "Your eyes are ice cream melting / Wilting / Tired