Jeni Couzyn

Couzyn's first collection was titled Flying (1970). Later collections include Christmas in Africa (1975), A Time to be Born (1981), Life by Drowning: Selected poems (1985), and That's It (1993).^[5]

A Time to be Born deals with childbirth from "conception to birth and early infancy".^[6]

The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Literature in English remarks that Couzyn's poetry repeatedly engages the social, political and imaginative implications of womanhood. Her poetry has been described as minimalist. The Oxford Companion observes that her conception of poetry as pre-eminently oral gives much of her work clarity and immediacy.^[5][7]

Couzyn edited the influential The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Women Poets (1985), set as an A-level text in British schools at the time. A later anthology, Singing Down the Bones (1989), was aimed at a teenage audience.^[5][8]

Couzyn has authored two books for children. With Julie Malgas, she produced a study of Koos Malgas, the sculptor who helped create The Owl House, a museum in Nieu-Bethesda, Eastern Cape, South Africa, noted for its visionary conception.^[9]

• Finding aid to Jeni Couzyn papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.