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.

SOME WOMEN

Some women approach
clouds with the ease of
silence, soaking skies as
they go, conveying blue
camphor to distant wells:
the darkness that broods
within me. Some women draw
dark sap from silver pits
and drink it at my frugal
supper table, plucking
dead apples from my heart,
making me bite the resinous
fruit. I swallow the poison.

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