County Kerry by Kerry Hammerton

County Kerry

Kerry Hammerton

I have heard that it is a place of contrasts.

Rocky cliffs and sweeping sandy bays

in the south, flatter estuary plains in the north.

A place touched by mist and criss-crossed

with narrow country lanes. Kerry holds ancient

Celtic mysteries, guards a tradition of poetry and song.

I imagine lilting voices murmuring in pubs,

and that you could fall in love here,

spend time, discover secrets here.

When I am asked how I spell my name

I always say, ‘The traditional way;

the ancient way; the Irish way’.

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.

Peaches en Paula by Diana Ferrus

Peaches en Paula

Diana Ferrus

Peaches en Paula

met babas aan hul sye

en lywe waarin naalde bly –

hoe word gedagtegang

’n elle lange seisoen

waar die son se strale niks meer doen

waar die wind se bittere slae

oneindig teen die venster kla

waar reën, wat aanhoudend teen die dak

wilskrag al verder in die grond laat sak

waar die hartklop vir leef al verder wegsweef?

Hoe vorm ons ’n ander seisoen –

een in die middel van die vier

waarin die geel son

saam met die sneeu, wit feesvier –

hoe skep ons ’n reën, ’n strelende wind

wat outomaties die fout met ’n herstel bind –

hoe stil ons die verlange van die kind?

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:

Diana Ferrus is a writer, poet, performance poet, story-teller, editor and publisher, best known for her epic poem about the Khoisan woman, Sarah Baartman, whose remains were on display in Paris until 1986. She is a founder member of the Afrikaanse Skrywersvereniging, Bush Poets and Women in Xchains. Her works, in both Afrikaans and English, have been published in various anthologies and a collection, Ons Komvandaan.

Previously published:

Diana Ferrus: I’ve come to take you home; Obsession; and The journey from her collection I’ve come to take you home.

After the Poetry Festival by Christine Coates

After the Poetry Festival

Christine Coates

Wake to cuckoo ‘meitjie, meitjie’

guinea fowls, bulbuls, Egyptian Geese

kettle for tea, open window, write a poem

on hair, youth dew and vomit

breakfast on terrace, dove-blue-grey

mountains like cardboard cut-outs

I expect to see stage-set swans bobbing between.

There’s the yellow rose of Texas on the table

bacon and eggs, and the little dog barks

coffee and friendship under the honeysuckle

at Frangipani.

The slow drive back through the Breede Valley

cardboard cut-outs turn to

high and heavy bergs

cool vineyards in October green

wheat fields cut to stubble

the road to the Great Nowhere reversing –

slow peace-pace busy,

the tunnel, the toll, the traffic

the turn from the sea and city

Table Mountain and past flying flamingoes

a paper man in a boat waves a flag

on the Black River

and the N1, M5, N2, M3 –

routes to home.



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.

Golgotha by Suenel Bruwer-Holloway

Golgotha

Georgia is a Staffie that was re-homed when its owners had to move.

Suenel Bruwer-Holloway

Georgia came to this little boy

She understood his secrets:

Why he needed to lie on roofs

Why he refused to learn to read

Why he shredded his shoes

Why he was not a joiner

Why he preferred his spinach sandy

Why he did not fear snakes

Why one explores the krans

Why the Parzival legend was his favourite story.

For hours they’d be gone.

His parents trusted she’d protect him

With-her-life.

The cobra was six foot long.

He came to understand:

Snakes can kill.

He insisted: carried her himself,

staggering under her weight.

We buried her on the krans.

Seldom such selfless sacrifici

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.