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.

To My Baby Nephew Three Months Old

TO MY BABY NEPHEW THREE MONTHS OLD

When i see you so;
fernfretting like
a childpheasant
trapped in a marsh
of seething pillows;
and then eye my life:
a solitary pillar
thirsting for rosegems,
more alone than dune-
breakers entrapped in
harsh and unsympathetic
undergrowth, i begin to
ask: ‘Who is more helpless;
you still clinging to
the Breast of Rising
Innocence, or me, who
must depend on circum-
venting entirely
SnowEasterDesolation?’

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