Want fewer ads?

Stephen Watson (1955-) is a South African poet.

Most of his poetry is about the city of Cape Town, where he has lived most of his life. He is currently a professor in English at the University of Cape Town, he is also the current Director of the Writing Centre.

Creatively, he believes that that poetry and literature can stand on their own and need not refer to politics, or the struggle for liberation, in order to be valid. He takes a strong stand on poetic aestheticism, believing it is possible and desirable to differentiate between "good" and "bad" poetry - a stance that has drawn criticism.

As a literary critic, Watson has suggested that "South Africa is held together by a nexus of peoples 'dreaming' each other in terms of the myths that the distance between them creates."

In February 2006, the normally reclusive Watson made the mainstream news when, writing in New Contrast, he launched an attack on Antjie Krog, accusing her of plagiarism. He claimed that she 'lifted the entire conception of her book [the stars say 'tsau' ] from [his] Return of the Moon', and that she also plagiarised from the work of Ted Hughes. Krog strongly denied the claims. Antjie Krog denies plagiarism claims South African Author Accused of Plagiarism

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Stephen Watson", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0