“Sequestered from the winds of history”: Poetry and Politics beyond 2000

Abstract By referring initially to poets who came to prominence in the 1990s – in the immediate aftermath of apartheid – this essay identifies changes of preoccupation in more recent poetry. Two questions arise, the one social, the other literary. Does poetry “beyond 2000” require a redefinition of the term ‘middle class'; may one talk of a ‘post‐apartheid’ aesthetic?