Gail Dendy
Gail Dendy (1957 – ) was born in Durban and lived in Durban North during her school and early university years. As a student she excelled and was awarded a series of university degrees: A BA at the (then) University of Natal (Durban), a BA Honours at the (then) University of Natal (Pietermaritzburg) and a postgraduate Higher Diploma in Library Science. During her employment at Unisa in Pretoria she obtained a second BA Honours degree and an MA. She moved to Johannesburg in 1983 and subsequently attended Wits University where, as a slightly older student, she completed a year’s post-graduate LLB.
Dendy’s main preoccupation as a writer is poetry. She has published eight collections which have earned her critical praise and several accolades. In her review of Closer Than That, Moira Richards praised Dendy as a “master of synaesthesia and mistress of poems that tip the reader deliciously off balance with their startling, almost tangible, plays with images”. Mark Lilleleht described her work as “deeply affecting and both quietly powerful and often subtly surprising”.
Dendy’s accolades reflect the diversity of her writing, including, inter alia: Winner: SA PEN Millennium Competition (Playwriting); Second Place: Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Competition; Finalist: Herman Charles Bosman Award (Poetry), SA Science Fiction Society Award (Short Story); Shortlisted: Thomas Pringle Award (Short Story), Sol Plaatje/European Union Poetry Award; Longlisted: Plough Poetry Prize (UK), The Twenty in 20 Project (the aim of which was to identify the best South African English-language short stories of the past two decades of democracy), Short Story Day Africa, Sol Plaatje/European Poetry Award; Highly Commended: Poetry Space Competition (UK), Dinaane Debut Fiction Award (for an unpublished novel).
Besides her work as a poet, Dendy is also a gifted dancer. She trained locally with Robyn Orlin and overseas at the Bat Dor, Alvin Ailey and London Contemporary Dance theatre studios. In 1991 she was nominated for the inaugural AA Vita Award for Best Performer. Some have noted that her dancing has influenced the rhythmic nature of her poetry.
Dendy currently resides in Johannesburg but holds strong ties to her city of birth. She told the project that:
Durban – its climate and architecture, and most especially its seascapes – are in my blood, and I constantly have the need to return (which I do as often as possible). I’ve always maintained that the rhythm of the sea can be detected both in the rhythms of my writing (whether poetry or prose) and in my dancing, a statement I hope is true rather than fanciful.
Selected Work
After Lockdown
Things will be different, then.
You will not be locked down in another town.
I will touch you as if I’d known you
centuries ago. As if we’d been drawn
as miniatures, twinned with a silver clasp.
Things will be different, then.
I tell you the sun will not set over Italy
when we travel there.
The gondolas in Venice
will always be waiting for us,
their prows like swan’s necks. Black swans.
Your skin will still be beautiful.
You will kiss me.
We will open windows, doors,
unlatch our shining lives.
Our children will fit perfectly in their beds.
The sun will have forgotten how to set.
Things will be different then.
(Placed second in The Red Wheelbarrow poetry competition 2021)
Dendy’s accolades reflect the diversity of her writing, including, inter alia: Winner: SA PEN Millennium Competition (Playwriting); Second Place: Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Competition; Finalist: Herman Charles Bosman Award (Poetry), SA Science Fiction Society Award (Short Story); Shortlisted: Thomas Pringle Award (Short Story), Sol Plaatje/European Union Poetry Award; Longlisted: Plough Poetry Prize (UK), The Twenty in 20 Project (the aim of which was to identify the best South African English-language short stories of the past two decades of democracy), Short Story Day Africa, Sol Plaatje/European Poetry Award; Highly Commended: Poetry Space Competition (UK), Dinaane Debut Fiction Award (for an unpublished novel).
Besides her work as a poet, Dendy is also a gifted dancer. She trained locally with Robyn Orlin and overseas at the Bat Dor, Alvin Ailey and London Contemporary Dance theatre studios. In 1991 she was nominated for the inaugural AA Vita Award for Best Performer. Some have noted that her dancing has influenced the rhythmic nature of her poetry.
Dendy currently resides in Johannesburg but holds strong ties to her city of birth. She told the project that:
Durban – its climate and architecture, and most especially its seascapes – are in my blood, and I constantly have the need to return (which I do as often as possible). I’ve always maintained that the rhythm of the sea can be detected both in the rhythms of my writing (whether poetry or prose) and in my dancing, a statement I hope is true rather than fanciful.
Selected Work
After Lockdown
Things will be different, then.
You will not be locked down in another town.
I will touch you as if I’d known you
centuries ago. As if we’d been drawn
as miniatures, twinned with a silver clasp.
Things will be different, then.
I tell you the sun will not set over Italy
when we travel there.
The gondolas in Venice
will always be waiting for us,
their prows like swan’s necks. Black swans.
Your skin will still be beautiful.
You will kiss me.
We will open windows, doors,
unlatch our shining lives.
Our children will fit perfectly in their beds.
The sun will have forgotten how to set.
Things will be different then.
(Placed second in The Red Wheelbarrow poetry competition 2021)