Poetry. In the epitaph of his newest book, IN A STONE'S HOLLOW, South African native Freddy Frankel quotes the notebook he kept while enlisted in WWII in 1945, "my dream is to will down the firmament, place in every human soul a star where vengeance lurks." The poetry in this collection gives testament to this dream, giving the reader both an intensely intimate poetic experience and an important historical account of a young South African recruit. Frankel weaves tenderness with cruelty, politics with emotion, beauty with war, utilizing his exquisite technical mastery of language. Divided into three parts [Notes on a War, Hottentot Venus: Poems of Apartheid, and Bound Close on the Naked Vine] the collection comes together as a poignant act, turning the vengeance of war into a star, a beacon of hope for humanity. "The language is spare and under control and has a genuine immediacy...The poems never preach but are lined out with a cool and therefore devastating effect"--Vern Rutsala.

Author City: Boston, MA USA

Freddy Frankel was born in the Transvaal (now Gauteng), South Africa, and migrated to the US in 1962. Since his retirement from academic psychiatry in 1997, he has been honing his skills at writing poetry. His work has appeared in several poetry magazines and three anthologies. His chapbook, Hottentot Venus: Poems of Apartheid, was published in 2003 by Pudding House Publications. He won the New England Writers Robert Penn Warren First Award in 2003. His book, In a Stone's Hollow, was first finalist in the Rhea and Seymour Gorsline 2005 Poetry Contest, and published by Fairweather Books, an imprint of Bedbug Press, earlier this year.