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Robert Lowell, “To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage”
“To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage” “It is the future generation that presses into being by means of these exuberant feelings and supersensible soap bubbles of ours.” – Schopenhauer “The hot night...
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Derek Walcott, Sainte Lucie, parts I and II
Sainte Lucie I The Villages Laborie, Choiseul, Vieuxfort, Dennery, from these sun-bleached villages where the church bell caves in the sides of one grey-scurfed shack that is shuttered with warped...
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Two from Yusef Komunyakaa
Fog Galleon Horse-headed clouds, flags & pennants tied to black Smokestacks in swamp mist. From the quick green calm Some nocturnal bird calls Ship ahoy, ship ahoy! I press against the taxicab...
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Peter Horn on Censorship, 1989
Peter Horn, 1989, “Censorship: Creating pockets of ignorance”, in South, 22 June 1989, p.18 (South [Weekly] was an independent newspaper generally aligned with the UDF and ANC, edited by Moegsien...
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Peter Horn on Censorship, 1979
Peter Horn, 1979, “The right of the people to censor the arts”, In National Union of South African Students (Ed.), Dead in One’s Lifetime, Cape Town: NUSAS (1979) pp.92-105 The state which does not...
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The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims – Review
Achmat Davids, The Afrikaans of the Cape Muslims (From 1815 to 1915), eds. Hein Willemse and Suleman E. Dangor, Protea Book House, 2011, ISBN 978-1-86919-236-5 Since the 1950s, linguists working on the...
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From the archive: So many questions, so few answers
So many questions, so few answers (published in Art South Africa, August 2010) Fronted by Watkin Tudor Jones of Max Normal fame, Die Antwoord has caused ripples locally and internationally (just google...
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Royaumont Hash-up
This essay was originally published in Home Away (Zebra Press, 2010), edited by Louis Greenberg. Sadly, the book is being remaindered, an all too common fate for books in South Africa. “Paris, a kiss”...
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It has been such a long road – Alfred T. Qabula
This poem is one of the last pieces composed by Alfred T. Qabula (1942-2002), a poet from the trade union movement in Durban in the 1970s and early 1980s, famous for “Praise poem to FOSATU” and as one...
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Derek Walcott, A Far Cry from Africa
A Far Cry from Africa A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt Of Africa. Kikuyu, quick as flies, Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veld. Corpses are scattered through a paradise. Only the worm, colonel of...
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October, Java
October, Java The buzz of scooters die down past the bamboo compound revamped for tourists tramping to and from an ancient temple. Fresh and flushed by showers, groups and couples compare their pics...
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A Manuscript belonging to a girl whose body tasted so sweet – Aslan Abidin
A MANUSCRIPT BELONGING TO A GIRL WHOSE BODY TASTED SO SWEET – Aslan Abidin (transl. from Indonesian by Mikael Johani) —circa 1789 what could be crueler than our own beaches? they ran many ships...
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Self-portrait in blue
Self-portrait in blue When you look sometimes, when you don’t mean to see, but on a turn from reaching for something else – analgesics or the shaving brush – you catch the fugitive blur in the mirror...
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The wind in the morning
The wind in the morning The man wakes from dreamto nightmare,his night-aged kneesbucklingover rubbleoutside when he emergesfrom the black mouth of his house its burnt shell a meagre shelterfrom the...
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Safari
Safari Every now and then foreigners come across the plain stop for shade speak through an interpreter to the assenting chief. They go look at the school speak to the principal see the children. A boy,...
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This carting life
This carting life I met History once, but he ain’t recognize me. – Derek Walcott, ‘The Schooner Flight’ On pilgrimage down damp steps, deep inside the British Museum, among boxes stocked roof-high, I...
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Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve Almost all is ruin – the Mozart fugue that fails its promise of deliberate consolation, the unending ticker and swish of a sprinkler outside, and the roads angry with traffic in...
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For W.
For W. 1. Ohio, 1994 When the shutter clicked, you jumped back and hated me for that one moment you had glanced into my camera, as if my shutter had fallen like a guillotine through parts of you. I...
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From the archive: So many questions, so few answers
So many questions, so few answers (published in Art South Africa, August 2010) Fronted by Watkin Tudor Jones of Max Normal fame, Die Antwoord has caused ripples locally and internationally (just google...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Royaumont Hash-up
This essay was originally published in Home Away (Zebra Press, 2010), edited by Louis Greenberg. Sadly, the book is being remaindered, an all too common fate for books in South Africa. “Paris, a kiss”...
View Article
