Yellow shade evokes the stark textures of township and rural community life: the beauty and passion, the cruelty and humour, the noise, music and stillness. Sedite’s poems are constructed from unpredictable images – “a rain-sniffing wind”, “the knuckles of chairs”, a cupboard “wailing like a dog left alone in a garage” – in a gritty language entirely her own.
Yellow shade was joint winner of the 2022 NIHSS Award for best book of poetry.