Too often, joy is lacking from our lives....

This debut poetry collection takes a slanted view at five aspects of being human: life, love, loss, longing, and laughter. Pain and struggle and suffering is a given in life — for some more than others. Joy is inseparable from sorrow and pain; joy finds its footing in the latter. 

Each day, each morning, we have a choice to make: misery or joy. Joy is the better option.

First thing after sunrise,

scoop two bowls of joy —

manna from the desert floor;

one you soak your heart in,

the other pour it out: on friend

and foe and foreigner —

the only, only way

for peace to stay

Two bowls of joy to you!

About the Author

Danie Botha was born in Zambia. He completed his school education and medical training in South Africa. He is the author of three novels and lives in Canada.

Interview with the Author

Q – What makes Two Bowls of Joy a unique book?

A – Several things. TBOJ is a debut poetry collection. I had chosen to include 50 poems, written over a two-and-a-half-year period. The poems vary greatly in style, format, tone, and length. Included are 13 pen-sketches by the author, accompanying specific poems. Poetry writing came to me only later in my life, years after I started writing long-form fiction. Writing has saved my life on more than one occasion. I discovered in 2017, amid profound personal loss, how writing short-form fiction and poetry, brought relief from mental anguish much faster than long-form fiction ever could.

Q – Why should listeners bother listening to this collection?

A – Too often, joy is lacking in our lives. The poems take a long and hard (and sometimes tongue-in-the-cheek) look at life, love, loss, longing, laughter, and joy. It delves into pain and suffering and illness and misery and meaning but also into hope and light and beauty and wonder and healing. Misery or joy? Joy is the better option.