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.

‘SOMETHING URGES ME ON’

in my faded jeans
on the gusty corner i was
when this redshawled shrunken woman,
a real old porcupine with yellow stockings,
approached me.
Her breath stank.
As her slippered feet past me
slithered she said:
‘Something urges me on
past the glass shopping centres
past the rent-a-rainbow fools
into the foam blackening worms
something urges me on’
i began to follow her

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