"Symbiosis or Death": - Rhodes University

124
communities integrated with ecosystems’. As bioregionalist Peter Berg puts it,
a bioregion is a ‘terrain of consciousness determined in large part by the place we
dwell in, the work we do, and the people with whom we share our lives.’
(Armbruster in Tallmadge 9)
A Littoral Zone contains two maps, one on the frontispage and another, more
detailed, map of the sampling stations on the final page. This geographical mapping of
the geographical region in which the poems are set enhances the claim that A Littoral
Zone is a bioregional narrative. The narrative is contained in the sequence of poems
which recount incidents and observations at the various sampling stations which make up
Livingstone’s scientific and poetic journey. The poems are individually dated but are not
arranged chronologically in time. Instead the datings jump back and forth between 1964
and 1991 and presumably indicate the year in which each poem was written. Following
Livingstone’s suggestion that the dating “is irrelevant except to me, a few friends and –
possibly – the curious” (LZ 62), I have ignored the datings in favour of the chronological
sequence of the poems in the collection.
Because A Littoral Zone is a “mythical” (LZ 62) account of Livingstone’s work
as a scientist, it takes the form of a story told in order to make meaning of life itself.
Livingstone does venture into very deep philosophical water in many of the poems. In an
article which appeared more than a decade after the publication of A Littoral Zone,
Duncan Brown succinctly said: “The collection constitutes a remarkable ‘narrative’ of
belonging and place: of a life lived along, in terms of, and dedicated to, the coastline of
Durban and its inhabitants – of all species” (2002: 94).
Critical responses to A Littoral Zone
That A Littoral Zone is a difficult and dense collection is evident in the paucity of
comprehensive reviews and detailed critical studies of this work. In a press review Reg
Rumney notes that: “Such is the state and status of English-speaking culture in South
Africa, however, that it seems to have passed almost unnoticed” (see Appendix B). Peter
Sacks and Tony Morphet give scholarly and considered reviews of the collection, and
Duncan Brown’s earlier succinct but insightful review “Self and Society: Writing the
New” (1992) notes the collection’s ecological theme. In the same year, a clipped
response from Basil du Toit appeared in New Coin and Dirk Klopper refers to some of
the poems in this collection in “A Libidinal Zone: The Poetic Legacy of Douglas