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.

NEWSPAPERS AND MODERN MAN

Where would modern man be
without his newspaper i ask
myself; his newspaper to
inform him about events and
happenings for all their
seeming importance, never
long remembered. Why not
rather be informed by
creative sensation, feeling?
Why not be filled with the awe
of Beauty no newsprint dare
ever comprehend? Why does man
devour the newspaper with all
the venom of an ageing beast?
For he is ageing – and ageing
fast. To what avail? Newspapers
seem to reinforce the beliefs
of particular glimpses. Newspapers
keep man focalised in his own
global ambit, licking his dreams
with perspex tongues that
blot out the True Agony.

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