I hope Sean MacGinty’s Botsotso publication, Returning Signs, receives the attention it deserves. His work engages with or references various places in South Africa from an empathetic perspective. It represents an intersection between social geography, vexed as it often is in South Africa, and poetry.
His opening poem, Microlight, is set in Durban. The poem is edgy in many different ways. A sense is given of an unreal world, not well adjusted to itself. The poem signals very clearly that life, as the poet sees it, is a journey of adjustment, of trying to adjust. The cut-open shark, in the middle of the poem, conveys a sense of foreboding, but also signals the poet's willingness to delve into uncomfortable issues.
The poem Alonnisos foregrounds the contrast in South Africa between idyllic things and those that unsettle. The poem introduces issues of language, which is pertinently taken up elsewhere in the book. Set in island spaces, the “breezes of pleasure” abound; at the same time there is the ordinary: an elderly man “swatting away the horseflies” and “the cooks smashing up an octopus” on the jetty, and an eerie wind on “the day we left.”
The many Cape Town poems give a real sense of MacGinty’s skillful use of the art of poetry to, at once, create well-fashioned and striking poetry and his capacity to artistically grapple with history and social arrangements. His poems capture the aesthetically striking setting of Cape Town as well as the shadows and frayed edges. In the poem In Cape Town: In All Seasons, he writes:
In this place where clouds gather (st 1)
fynbos shrubs…../,,, drained of colour (st 3)
autumn … seep[s] like something heartless, slow and numb.
what else can be said …/ than the sinking weight of this place’s past/
Beyond Cape Town - captured in ten evocative poems - there lies a wider horizon to explore. MacGinty’s poetic journey fans outward, touching a range of other places.
He takes us to Plettenberg Bay, where in seaside-town mode, he nevertheless is aware of contradictions in the holiday town. We travel with him to LIMPOPO, where the lines, “you could dive deeper”, signal l that we could all dive deeper if we opened ourselves to the ‘smaller’ languages of our land. He writes “The words were in your eyes/I could see them rise and crest”
With the poet, we visit Odendaalrus and “the classrooms as clean as can be, give the dumpsite next door”. Then on to Overberg, where canolas yellow hill after hill. At this place, the poet writes: “a windmill watches you.” These are not just descriptions. These reflect a poet engaging with space and engaging with his country.
In the Cape poems as well as others, MacGinty conveys the perspective of the outsider. In one of the poems, he talks of a wind that “blows the past through you/pushing you further and further outside.” The poet is a seeker. He is curious about things that are “awkward” and don’t quite fit; he also has a sixth sense for the ghosts that stalk our towns and cities. In a poem on the Berg, the writer is conscious of the stillness that breaks and “a wind/cursed never to arrive.”
The poem "Superposition" brings to the fore a strong personal voice, one that reveals a deep yearning for connection. Through the quiet dynamic between "myself" and "yourself," the speaker actively reaches out. It is a work rich with connotations of the higher self: a perspective capable of truly “seeing” others and finding spaces of mutuality and interbeing.
In terms of form, there is a notable tightness in the writing and in the way the poems settle on the page. "Nqwebasaurus thawzi" is composed of four quatrains, while "Berg Wind," like many others in the collection, unfolds in three‑line stanzas. A few poems lean toward narrative poetry, though — as "After the Fire" demonstrates — they remain deeply poetic in texture. 'Sunday Outing', with lines such as “the father then brought the car to a halt” and “(t)hen they resumed their journeys,” the narrative element is powerfully present, but so is the poetic.
In the final third of the book, MacGinty shifts gears entirely. The poems turn toward a South American connection, shaped by his latter-day residence there. This new focus brings a dynamic element to the collection, extending MacGinty’s poetry even as it extends us, ordinary South African readers, long accustomed to isolation and cut off from wider currents of the world. These poems raise the question of how, in living elsewhere, an African native locates themselves. They suggest that dwelling in other places need not be a zero-sum calculation. Rather, it opens up broader, more inclusive senses of belonging, showing how identity is enriched through engagement — in a spirit of openness, curiosity, and shared humanity — with new geographic spaces.
MacGinty is interesting. More than that, his poetry is dynamic. He works with aspects of form to navigate South Africa’s present and is engrossing about how poetry engages with South Africa’s urban spaces.
Returning Signs is published by Botsotso Pubishing (December 2025).
