A space for everyone

Dearest Hugh

Thank you for wanting to hear me read my poems and for introducing me to Off The Wall.
Thank you for encouraging me to write a verse novel and for publishing it - for involving me so closely with the bold experiment of serialising a contemporary verse novel. It was a superb experience!

Thank you for writing me a reference for a creative arts fellowship.

I wish I could have fulfilled your wish to publish The Griffin Elegy as a complete set.

I wish I could have fulfilled your wish to hear it more in performance.

Thank you, Hugh, for believing in my poetry.

Thank you for being a friend - a critical friend, a natural friend, a poetry friend.

Thank you for all your precious sms poems, which showed so plainly how woven into everyday life our poems are. 

For being kind to Norman, to the Eastern Cape poets, to different kinds of voices. 

For being so very supportive of Lewis - his five books would not have come about without you.

For inviting everybody to read in the language of their choice - from Sweden to Argentina and back home.

For giving a space to everyone - from pastors to bergies - at Off The Wall.

I was so happy when you and Julia found each other.

I have been sad to see you unwell and suffering. 

May you travel well, as your soul unfolds its further mysteries.

Love from

'Silkiness!' ... as you always, with a smile, called me, always, somehow, in a tone of surprise.

First meeting

'twas good to get pics I've never seen from Norman's publisher, Jim Phelps of Echoing Green Press - taking me back to the day I first met Norman in the flesh: 18th October 2009, when he read from Triptych in Fish Hoek and to my joy gobbled the cheese sticks I had brought along.

Norman reads from Triptych 18/10/2009, Fish Hoek

Memory

Today

exactly a year ago

was our first meeting.

Over my hips I'd pulled my smoke-blue skirt;

over my breasts an old, pale pink knit-top

covered by cardigan;

my feet in Tsonga slip-ons -

altogether toned down,

I carried that basket of cheese sticks

you devoured.

I was afraid of my own insignificance,

so I avoided you immediately.

Finally, though, after kissing all the people I knew,

I had to turn

to the presence

of you

behind me.

You took my hand

in both of yours,

as if it were an honour -

oh, you were beautiful!

I looked neither up nor down, but

straight into your face

of lines touched everywhere by light,

and your loose hair a-tumble.

Surprised that you were

short and humble.

Then you gave your reading;

silent Jenny pointed lens;

Jim's wine turned to praise inside his mouth

as he besang your poems;

Izzie - in cow-patterend pants -

went on about life, and the past, and ja,

no, if you get off your motorbike

to actually write down the lines that come into your head -

I admire that, you know:

you must be the genuine thing.

Hugh quested -

'WhyTriptych?'

- while Peter, Paul, Lewis and me

sat round listening.

In front of everyone you bent

down to reach

your toes

- unselfconscious as an old elephant,

I thought (and later wrote) -

We mingled; spoke; I stared

at your shirt with words on it

- yours - Alchemy -

stared rudely through

to sense the leanness

of your middle region;

you said that Horus

- your email name -

is first flash of dawn -

and I wanted to say

so much that I didn't.

Paul and you exchanged books

- Dog Latin for Comeback -

you asked me, too, to sign,

so I scribbled 'Hello!'

beside the Bodhi Books logo

(designed out of the shadows

caught inside a photo) -

a small figure with inky arm and phallus greeting.

I offered you the last

cheese stick you took

saying, 'You're an angel.'

And I thought.,

'Well - at least I can make sticks

to feed a hungry man.'

- Yes. That is how

our story began.

(18th October 2010)

Norman, Paul Mason & me