Love Poetry For Couple

Kelwyn Sole 1. Why is poetry the major means of expression for you? Why do you write poems and not caricature politicians, for example? Occasionally I have written poems that caricature politicians, so I don�t see the tasks as necessarily separate. A simple answer, though, would be that it�s what I�m best at. As far as art is concerned, I�d have preferred to be a dancer or a musician: but I have flat feet, and my ability with piano or drums isn�t great, to say the least. I think one of the few generally accurate things one could say about poetry is that, from ancient times, it has borne a relationship to music. It�s the one thing on which critics as different as Pound and Amiri Baraka agree (the latter calls poetry �speech musick�d�, as I remember). That�s one of the attractions for me: plus the intensity and compactness of expression in a good poem: its reactive chemistry of mood, thought, emotion. I�m struggling here, because I�m not sure I can do adequate justice to this... . Recen...

Phillippa Yaa de Villiers

1. What�s your relationship to poetry? How do you interact with it? I talk to my pet rabbit in rhymed couplets. Apart from that, I read it and think about it a fair bit. I make up songs in my head, to borrowed tunes. 2. Do you work on just one poem at a time, or do you work on several at the same time? If I�m working on a poem, then that�s what I�m working on. I like to return to things after some months. 3. Poets labour a lot over their work (as do other artists). A lot of time and dedication goes into writing good poetry. Where�s the money? There are too many �poets� and very little money, and such money as there is tends to go to poets who serve various agendas. Prizes, with their winner-takes-all structure, give the impression that people are being paid and honoured, but in fact very few are receiving very little. Poets who aren�t climbing on a wagon must write for the pleasure of it. Nobody tries to publish their completed crossword puzzles. That said, I think poets should be paid...

1. How did you get into writing poetry? Did any one thing push you over the edge? no 2. Do you work on just one poem at a time, or do you work on several at the same time? several 3. Poets spend a lot of time perfecting their craft, and then perfecting each piece. How do you balance this with family life and with little income (compared with the input)? I work daily. I do not know how long it takes me to complete a poem. 4. These are difficult times, and they say laughter is the best medicine. What makes you laugh? Because I am part of the society I write about. 5. Is there a particular goal you seek when you write? Awake others? Entertain them? Tell the truth? What? Tell the truth 6. How do you know when a poem is �finished�, and do you stop work on it then and there? It is difficult to convince myself that a poem is complete. 7. You are to encourage poetry students to write a poem. Please come up with a "writing prompt" out of your own experience, or out of something else, ...

     �for my brother, Khotsofalang Memory lifts its veil, everybody calls you, but no appearance. Once again I recall walking nights with you, touching walls toward a light of home�s distance lit for those still outside, till that night became another day. I remember ten childhood commandments, how absent loves have to be watered and fed with half the force of touch and light and tongue, and half with a winter of wild surmise. Today still the quiet night brings images of walking toward that hill of home, using darkness as a guide there. Then one morning you were gone, on one day that took you away, your stature, the quiet non-form of your build�for all was you� none of us knew what was coming despite what you embody today. What we had not realised was that there was no ram tied to our Abraham shrub. Thou shalt not awake after dying, thou shalt be willing to refuse refuge in the arms of their Lord. You left Lesotho the year of your eighteen years and we closed ou...

Ay, ay, ay, I am black, pure black; kinky hair and Kafir lips; and a flat Mozambican nose. A jet black woman, I cry and I laugh at the thrill of being a black statue; of being a piece of the night, where my white teeth flash like lightning... [ continue there ...] Julia de Burgos

Souls are squeezed from moss-free rock, and men from souls. You (to whom I wish a turquoise sky That beguiles some who die Onto a cloud to lay their head) Are not made of chalk. So what if the boy takes this room The way he does, wearing your poise Like a model on a dais? We will have lived fast and strong You & I, from our past so long, Into this grave goodbye. Pindrop Press , 2012