Maps by Kerry Hammerton

Maps

Kerry Hammerton

My eyes ache

for foreign horizons,

for cold sunlight,

for signs

lettered

in an alphabet

I cannot read,

for maps

of twisted streets

where I can get lost again.

From: McGregor Poetry Festival 2014 Anthology

First published in 2015 by African Sun Press
in association with The McGregor Poetry Festival Committee
ISBN 978-0-620-64600-0


The Poet:

Kerry Hammerton lives in Cape Town, South Africa. Her poetry has been published in various South African and UK literary journals and anthologies. In her debut poetry collection These are the lies I told you, (Modjaji 2010) Kerry was described as ‘an anatomist of romantic love’ and ‘amusing, refreshing and extraordinarily entertaining’. The Weather Report (2014), her second collection, has been called ‘playful, absurd, yearning, elegiac, dark and wicked’. Kerry is currently doing an MA in Creative Writing at Rhodes University.

www.kerryhammerton.com

Sources of previously published poems:

Kerry Hammerton: I am falling; County Kerry; and Maps from The Weather Report, 2014.

Werfhonde 5 by Suenel Bruwer-Holloway

Werfhonde 5

Suenel Bruwer-Holloway

Surname uncertain, we tried out some:

Cronjé (as in Generaal Piet)

Retief (brave but too trusting)

O’Toole and Sellers (both famous and funny).

But he answers only to name number one:

“He is called Pietie,” they told us.

“He climbs walls.”

This SPCA lion, golden and brindled,

unjustly into smallness was swindled.

So Pietie scales fences; his heart will be free…

And magnanimously returns when we call “Pietie!”

From: McGregor Poetry Festival 2014 Anthology

First published in 2015 by African Sun Press
in association with The McGregor Poetry Festival Committee
ISBN 978-0-620-64600-0

The Poet:

Suenel Bruwer-Holloway lives in McGregor. Her plays have been performed at the Grahamstown Festival, in Britain and America. Her satire Cry Sis! Identity was published by Junkets in the Short, Sharp and Snappy Series. She raises children, cooks vast meals, walks dogs, teaches, does laundry, writes and gardens every day.

Previously published:

Suenel Bruwer-Holloway: Neighbours from The Ground’s Ear published by Quickfox, Cape Town, 2011. Hardcover ISBN 978-1-920-52619-1. Softcover ISBN 978-0-620-51665-5.

Body Map by Christine Coates

Body Map

Christine Coates

I’m writing about aging

but I’m also writing about walking on skin

and the rain that offers no moisture

not the rain on the roof typing on tin

nor the fire breathing in the corner.

My skin the land animals cross,

it puckers, it’s parched,

it’s fingerprinted.

My passport shows my picture,

my greying hair, my name;

it’s familiar, it’s also a stranger

like my father,

his passport in the family trunk,

his name that comes and goes.

I watch my body dry,

children who once occupied,

sucke my milk,

fly.

From: McGregor Poetry Festival 2014 Anthology

First published in 2015 by African Sun Press
in association with The McGregor Poetry Festival Committee
ISBN 978-0-620-64600-0

The Poet:

Christine Coates is a poet, writer and visual artist from Cape Town who spends many hours walking on the mountain or besides the sea. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Cape Town. She has an interest in life-writing or memoir, and the recovery of personal history through public and private imagery. She translated her great-grandfather's Boer War journals and presented them in parallel text as a handmade, leather-bound book. She has undertaken the 800km pilgrimage across Spain, on the Camino de Compostela three times. Her stories and poems have been published in various literary journals: New Contrast, New Coin, Deep Water Literary Journal, scrutiny2. Found Poem was a finalist in the Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry Review 2002, Africa Focus. Her poems were selected for the EU Sol Plaatje Poetry Prize anthology in 2011 – 2014, Deep Water Literary Journal and scrutiny2, 2014. Her debut collection of poems, Homegrown, was published in 2014 by Modjaji Books. Her short story The Cat’s Wife was highly commended and published in ADULTS ONLY, (ed) Joanne Hichens, Mercury Books 2014. She has also written a cookbook; From the Heart; family, food and memory. Christine belongs to Finuala Dowling’s monthly poetry group and a women’s writing collaborative; The Grail Women Writers.

I am falling by Kerry Hammerton

I am falling

Kerry Hammerton

You must have carried scraps

of me with you, maybe from

the first time we met: a party

at your sister’s flat. Or the first

time we had sex: I don’t remember

when or where. Or the last time:

in our old bedroom, a few weeks after

I had moved out, the sheets crisp

and fresh. I think you were trying

to impress me.

Or, maybe, from our first holiday:

camping and walking in the Drakensberg.

It rained. We fought over who would read

the book I had brought.

Or from our wedding day, or our honeymoon,

or any fight we had.

Or maybe from the day I left.

And now those scraps,

the me that you knew

and all the secret names you called me,

have died with you;

and I am left holding


From: McGregor Poetry Festival 2014 Anthology

First published in 2015 by African Sun Press
in association with The McGregor Poetry Festival Committee
ISBN 978-0-620-64600-0


The Poet:

Kerry Hammerton lives in Cape Town, South Africa. Her poetry has been published in various South African and UK literary journals and anthologies. In her debut poetry collection These are the lies I told you, (Modjaji 2010) Kerry was described as ‘an anatomist of romantic love’ and ‘amusing, refreshing and extraordinarily entertaining’. The Weather Report (2014), her second collection, has been called ‘playful, absurd, yearning, elegiac, dark and wicked’. Kerry is currently doing an MA in Creative Writing at Rhodes University.

www.kerryhammerton.com

Sources of previously published poems:

Kerry Hammerton: I am falling; County Kerry; and Maps from The Weather Report, 2014.