I had fun this evening at a poetry reading at A Touch of Madness, in Observatory, Cape Town.
The celebrity poet was Jeremy Cronin, who read, amngst others, a long poem about Basil ‘Manenburg’ Coetzee’s left shoulder (Jeremy Cronin is more well-known as the Deputy Secretary General of the South African Communist Party, so the left shoulder of course takes on other nuances), with inspiration from the UDF (for the international readers, that’s as in the United Democratic Front – I’m horrified to see that Wikipedia doesn’t have an article on that for me to link to), Thabo Mbeki’s I am an African speech and Cape Town in general. I’ve never been a great fan of his poetry – I preferred the raw emotion of Mongane Wally Serote in his early days. Cronin’s poems were well-crafted, but didn’t grab me in any way.
After a break it was open mic time, and about 10 other people read a poem apiece. Keith Gottschalk was another famous name who read, and sadly I didn’t enjoy his poem too much either. But some of the others were surprisingly good. And it’s another kick in the pants for me to get writing again – it’s been a while since I did more than scrawl something on paper, and a while since even doing that.
For those interested, the poetry evening is a weekly event, 8pm on Mondays.