“Phillippa Yaa de Villiers’ The Everyday Wife is an important book of important poems. It is work that makes me feel that we have a poet who can, at least in some way, speak for us, represent us, help us to find the words to say what we ourselves cannot. If I had the authority to do so, I would elect Phillippa Yaa de Villiers our poet laureate.”
Kylie Thomas (Mail & Guardian 24 Feb 2012)

“The Everyday Wife is a look inside the life of a woman as she relates to those around her. She makes herself frighteningly vulnerable and very, very real and there can be few people who do not respond positively to this honest and clear inward look. [Phillippa] conveys deep thoughts with such richness, yet with a marked economy of words… She has a lovely way of blending the literal and figurative aspects into a concoction of passion and humour. She, like good comedians, takes what we all observe around us, and puts a spin on it which is unique to her but perfectly common to all of us. We simply never thought of it “that way” before.”
-Moira de Swardt, Artslink

“This poet takes the blood and guts of her painful reality to paint the walls of her life. She, like those imprisoned in the Tower of London centuries ago, makes meaning out of her moments by writing on the walls of her prison. Her childhood rape; her black self rejected by her white adoptive family; her anger at prejudice encountered – all experiences are wrenched from the poet’s heart and shaped into meaning through explosive words”.
– Janet van Eeden, Litnet

“What treats are served up in this new book of poems by Phillippa Yaa de Villiers! Like the best of poets, she makes language do her bidding, wresting new sense from familiar images and situations, surprising us and ambushing our expectation.

In one way or another, Phillippa Yaa de Villiers illuminates relationships of many kinds and many intensities – between lovers, children and parents, the politics of emotion shared and remembered and confronted, sustained across the distance of place or memory… Phillippa Yaa de Villiers has claimed a freedom to speak the unspoken, however it emerges… she is a poet for whom there is no danger of separation from expression. She definitely has a way with words, and words have their way with her.”
– Margaret Busby, UK /Ghanaian publisher and international literary figure – prize judge, event convenor