Joan Metelerkamp’s poetry was first published in Stir and then in the anthology Breaking the Silence (ed Cecily Lockett, Ad. Donker, 1991). Her first collection, Towing the Line, won the 1991 SANLAM prize and was published in Signs (The Carrefour Press, 1992). Her work was included in Like a House on Fire (COSAW, 1994) and began to appear frequently in local journals particularly New Coin.

The central poem of her second collection, Stone no More (Gecko, 1995), consciously articulating her continuing preoccupations with desire, death and creativity, won the Sydney Clouts prize.

Although she had begun work on a book-length poem in 1993 (fictional, narrative, a three-way exchange between a mother and her daughters) this book, Floating Islands, was only published in 2001 (Mokoro).

Her work was represented in anthologies of South African poetry published at this time:
The Heart in Exile (eds Tromp and De Kock, Penguin, 1996)
The Lava of this Land (ed. Hirson, TriQuarterly/Northwestern Univ. Press, 1997) and
Running Towards Us: New Writing from South Africa (Heinemann USA, 2000).

After a move from Durban to the southern Cape, she published her third volume of poetry, Into the day breaking (Gecko, 2000). The Sunday Independent wrote that this was “a remarkable record of place and consciousness... these poems evade nothing”. Three poems from this book were later included in the landmark anthology:
it all begins: poems from postliberation south africa (ed. Berold, Gecko, 2002)
and two in Michael Chapman’s The New Century of South African Poetry (Ad Donker, 2002).

Metelerkamp succeeded Robert Berold as editor of New Coin, extending her connections and some friendships with other poets.

Following her mother’s death she began work on Requiem, a book-length sequence of lyrics later published by Deep South (2003) and about which Lionel Abrahams wrote: “Requiem overwhelms my feelings. [These poems] press me to examine and question some of what I’ve believed about art, truth-telling, pain, love and more.”

In July 2005, carrying the fire was published by substancebooks. Classical, musical, the sequence is in three sections, with a fourth movement of prose narrative.

        “In this her sixth book, Joan Metelerkamp accelerates poetics
       into the stratosphere whilst never surrendering an almost archaic
       beauty of expression. Carrying The Fire is about what art costs,
       the price of making art. Therefore it is about politics, about desire.
       But more than that, it is a book about the art of writing poetry and
       prose. About how a writer deals with desire when it comes to writing
       and when it comes to everyday life – ” (Paul Wessels).

        “The closest poem I have read which is anything like it is
       Walt Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself’. And it has some refreshing
       similarities to the old bard’s poem. It is the fire of love and of wanting
       to be fully alive…” (Don Maclennan).

Although she has taken part in small festivals and readings (Hilton, Waterford in Swaziland, St Johns College, WITS, Wordfest in Grahamstown, Lavigny in Switzerland,) Poetry Africa 2005 is her first major poetry festival.