Roy Joseph Cotton – September 11, '53 – March 10, '85

Roy commenced writing poetry during his latter school years. He read prolifically and was passionate about music and was a devote to Bob Dylan. He wrote many plays or "Musical Paintings" as he called them, and was also busy with two works "Multimythicum" and "Girlpools, Whirpools, and other gusts of Twirling Hair". He wrote from the security of a warm, close family in a comfortable Cape Town (South Africa) suburb. Yet most of his huge output of poems reflect a consuming angst. It was an angst which drove him to search for peace throughout books, music, writing, and religion, and it led to ultimate despair. His highly idiosyncratic way with language and the intense pressure of his emotional and spiritual concerns make his poetry compelling and disturbing reading. His untimely death at age of 31 cut short his promising career as a poet.

Despair

DESPAIR

What is the meaning of this
despair i feel again
that perhaps mirrors the sadness
of another sky? The flowers
burn like an age of torches,
heralding in nought but the
petals of atomic explosions;
and the trees are shrouded in
a green that even clouds will
not entirely comprehend.O where
does the dawn end that arises
so miraculously in the faraway
emptiness of distant spaces?

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