Love Song to Resistance
Resistance defines us, upholds us, makes us viable. At a biological level, our muscles are maintained…
Author Phillippa Yaa De Villiers
Phillippa Yaa De Villiers
Phillippa Yaa de Villiers writes, performs and lectures in Creative Writing at Wits University, Johannesburg. She is a member of the African Poetry Book Fund’s editorial board, and is a Distinguished Alumnus of Rhodes University, Makhanda. Her most recent publications are essays in The Creative Arts: On Making and Meaning (Dryad Press, forthcoming); Notes from the Body: Health, Illness, Trauma (UKZN Press, 2023) and Relations: An Anthology of African and Diaspora Voices (HarperVia, 2023) and poems in New Daughters of Africa (Myriad Press 2019), Konch Journal (2020), New Coin Journal winner, Dalro/New Coin best poem winner 2021). She co-edited The Collected Poems of Keorapetse Kgositsile 1969-2018 (University of Nebraska Press, 2023) and is a member of the editorial board of the African Poetry Book Fund. She is a distinguished alumnus of the Rhodes University’s School of Journalism. This contribution to the Evergreen Review is in her personal capacity.
Air you can breathe
At the Wits panel on ‘decolonization’ the rage was palpable, the anxiety intense. Like many…
Phillippa Yaa – The river
by Phillippa Yaa de Villiers One day the Hillbrow tower started to cry. Real tears…
Thanks for nothing Cell C
When you’re in trouble, serious trouble, like your heart is about to stop, you need…
My way or the high way, and the constitutional way
My way or the highway Can it be argued that; it is human nature to…
MAKE YOUR PASSION YOUR DAY JOB
There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either. Robert Graves…
Phillippa Yaa de Villiers
I owe this title to Makhosazana Xaba, who read the poem and suggested it. I…