STILL FURTHER: NEW POEMS 2000–2020
C.J. Driver

April 2021
136pp
200mm x 130mm
ISBN: 978-0-620-92813-7

So many people, so many deaths:
and it shouldn’t be just those we know
who matter; but it is our nature
(I guess) to care for those close to home.
What good does it do, telling the tale
over and over again? Books get burned,
words unlearned, the beggars coming to town.
I will tell you the story again, again.

Imbued with a sense of history – not to mention an ample wit and sharp eye for irony – C.J. Driver’s first full collection of poems since 2005 is cause for celebration. Selected from the many poems Driver has written and published in magazines, booklets, and anthologies since his professional retirement in 2000, Still Further manages to take in the international scope of his many careers: as anti-apartheid activist, teacher, headmaster, and – of course – as writer and poet.

While showing an impressive range of formal poetics, weighty philosophy, and Driver’s trademark political forthrightness, this is a book bound by love, replete with reflections on family, companionship, and old friends remembered. As such, this collection does not just portray one of South Africa’s great living poets; Still Further is a testament to the value of people – no matter how great or humble – whose shared lives and histories make one’s own life worth living.

Affirming, immersive, and generously conceived, this is a must for any serious reader of English poetry.

C.J. Driver, always known as Jonty, was born in Cape Town in 1939. He was President of the anti-apartheid National Union of South African Students in 1963–4, and during that time was detained in solitary confinement by the security police. The renewal of his passport was refused when he was at Oxford in 1967. He became stateless for five years. His first two novels were banned in South Africa and, even after becoming a British citizen, he was refused permission to visit his home country until after the end of apartheid.

Driver has been a productive and increasingly celebrated writer, publishing five novels, two biographies, two memoirs and twelve collections or booklets of poems. He was a teacher for many years, in Africa, Hong Kong, India and England, latterly a headmaster. Since his retirement from teaching in 2000, he has been a full-time writer. He lives with his wife in East Sussex, England.