Toponyms in Poetry

Abstract

The authors examine the way a number of poets have used toponyms (place names) in their poems. The many diverse uses of toponyms include using them as vehicles for humour and satire, for their historical connotations, for their political import, to express pride in the motherland, to mark the routes of journeys, to map landscapes, and frequently simply for their musicality and sensuousness. A wide range of poets has been chosen – South African, British, and American – from the famous to the obscure. The toponyms in the poems come from many parts of the world, and also from a variety of languages. Two of the poems are written in Afrikaans and Zulu. The poems selected range from “high-density” poems, with one consisting entirely of place names, to “low-density” poems, one of them featuring a single name and one that does not mention a single one. Most of the poems discussed in this article were written as poems, while two were written originally as songs, and one sequence of place names is taken from the Old Testament.