Laughter & Bone Silence

Laughter and Bone Silence is an anthology which explores the duality of the human mind. It is an adolescent reflection on the human heart.

In his first formal publication, Ryan Shayne looks at the human condition; how we respond to and synthesise matters of the mind: temporality, vice, violence, piety, love, anxiety, magic, and mind. His poetry is subversive in sentimentality, and dangerous in diction.

In his world, magical and quotidian real interface; symbols are shaped beyond their normative representations.

The collection is an effort to denormalise the connotative values of words as influenced by social constructs. It is only by doing this, that we may evolve the art of language as a vehicle of self-expression.

His diction must be understood as unorthodox yet not perverse, and it is with lucid imagery that he thereby reveals to readers an ambiguous middle ground of meaning. In doing so, he challenges readers to reconsider the sublunary single narratives into which, often subconsciously, humans buy. Ryan is an undergraduate student at the University of Cape Town, and his poetry is rich with literary allusion, no doubt interrelated to his preoccupation with Classical Studies and English Literature.