Reviews of Xamissa

“Xamissa breaks barriers for writers of poetry and … future writers of South African history.”

— Dimakatso Sedite, new COin

Colorado Review

30 Apr. 2019

“… seamlessly integrating historical material, razor-sharp in its intellectual investments, Xamissa is a powerful new text in contemporary postcolonial poetry, which builds both within and against the texts of history—that archive we’ve inherited.” — Christopher Kempf

New Coin

vol. 56, no. 2, 2020

“[Xamissa] interrogates the social construction of whiteness, attempting, with utter bravery, to overcome generational guilt and historical privilege. This redemption journey is undertaken through vibrant multilingualism across generations, cultures, and historical eras. Xamissa breaks barriers for writers of poetry and … future writers of South African history.” — Dimakatso Sedite

Kenyon Review

7 Nov. 2018

“[T]he space between texts and episodes in Xamissa is especially powerful. It is in these bright apertures, the liminal spaces within the text, that the laws of grammar, syntax and narrative no longer hold. In these brief pauses, the rules of the text, and the rules governing its language and narrative, can be entirely reconfigured … Rossouw’s archival poetics reads as both homage and destruction, a lyric appreciation of the work silence can do (and undo).” — Kristina Marie Darling

Prairie Schooner

Vol. 94, No. 1, Spring 2020

“Rossouw’s dexterity at weaving narratives about his own life and family in and out of the historical narratives from the archives is done without compromising his respect for the history of Cape Town and its people.” — Christian Bancroft

Poetry International

8 Dec. 2018

“To stunning effect, movement between past, present, and future propels the reader through this text. Rossouw encourages us to then create our own mental file cabinets to store away these dichotomies as the text unfolds, as we are reminded of where we have come from, but most importantly, as we are also forced to consider where we will go next." — Keenan Colditz