The dark surrealism of Phyllis Haring’s poetry

Abstract

The slender poetic oeuvre of Phyllis Haring (1919–2016) is now almost forgotten. Only one collection, A Taste of Salt, was published in 1976, and a number of poems appeared in small magazines until 1991. Though she is unquestionably a “minor poet,” I argue that her dream-like, dark yet musical work is worth attention, especially as something of a local pioneer in Surrealist techniques. (Surrealism’s influence more broadly in South African poetry is apparently yet to be comprehensively explored.) This article aims to reintroduce Haring’s work, and suggest some possibilities for further, more precisely theorised study. Following a biographical sketch and brief history of her publications, I respond to selected poems to provide a preliminary taste of her salty, almost Nietzschean, world-view, her craft, and some persistent techniques, themes and images – notably of human cruelty, death, and the natural world.