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The Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Group – more opportunities for poetry
“So much depends . . .”
The Red Wheelbarrow was launched in January 2021 with a view to providing opportunities for poets, and those who love poetry, to meet and read. Our aim is to provide an inclusive platform for poets from diverse traditions, and at different levels of experience.
We host weekly Zoom readings every Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Evenings consist of a reading by a featured poet, usually lasting for between 30-40 minutes, followed by a Q&A session, a short break, and then an open-mic session, in which anyone who’s ‘tuned in’ to hear the featured poet is welcome to read from their own poetry or from the work of another poet.
We also host in-person readings in Cape Town on the first and third Wednesdays of every month. These readings begin at 7 p.m. and follow the same format as the Zoom readings. Readings currently take place in Bertha House in Mowbray (on the first Wednesday of the month) and in Tokai Library (on the third Wednesday of the month).
Information about our readings is made available via our weekly circular, as well as our Facebook and Instagram pages:
https://www.facebook.com/theredwheelbarrowpoetry
https://www.instagram.com/redwheelbarrowpoetry/
An archive of our Zoom readings can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/@redwheelbarrowpoetry/videos
We hope that you can join us in these adventures, and that we can continue to provide poets with a vibrant space in which to share their poetry.
Yours in poetry,
Eduard Burle, Sindiswa Busuku, Jacques Coetzee, Kirsten Deane, Lisa Julie, Nondwe Mpuma, Melissa Sussens
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Suggested resources
https://www.facebook.com/otwpoetry
https://poetryinmcgregor.co.za/
https://stanzaspoetry.org/
https://www.ru.ac.za/isea/publications/journals/newcoinpoetry/
https://www.newcontrast.net/
https://www.afsun.co.za/product-category/books/
https://www.facebook.com/deepsouthpublishingco/
http://uhlangapress.co.za/
https://karavanpress.com/karavan-press/
https://dryadpress.co.za/
https://www.modjajibooks.co.za/
http://www.echoinggreenpress.com/
https://www.liferighting.com/
https://johannesburgreviewofbooks.com/topics/poetry/
http://danwyliecriticaldiaries.blogspot.com/
https://www.litnet.co.za/
https://www.africanpoetryprize.org/
https://dyehardinterviews.blogspot.com/
http://dyehard-press.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1212939945859233
https://clarkesbooks.co.za/
https://booklounge.co.za/
https://www.facebook.com/exclusivebookscavendish/
https://www.facebook.com/Kalk-Bay-Books-184457614746/
https://blankbooks.co.za/stores
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There are things a train can’t do:
bomb homes, for example, or cry
but sturdy axles and merciful wheels
know how to pull grief across borders,
how to stop at platforms where hands hold out tea,
where cardboard signs offer lifts to the city,
and where babies, their eyes wide with history’s ink,
can watch a train cry.
Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow on 21 March 2022
Last night a creature crossed my path
its muscles lion taut,
skin grey and rhino-thick beneath
teeth bared in dimmest light.
It did not look me in the eye
but flicked its head, annoyed––
loitered ahead to skulk before
a drawbridge in the void.
Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow on 17 March 2022
You arrived in a small black bag, a majestic magenta
plant with roots grasping the dark soil like fingers
firm, your faith always rising to tryst with the sky,
your kiss appetite only for giving. With hungry devotion
you roared a chorus of blossoms hallelujah
we were always meant to be beautiful
and the imperfect world pricked by your secret thorns
bled injustice red bitterness, extraordinary your proud
purple wept into our hearts, laughed up a cerise temple
staining the glass rose, colour spectacle and we followed
the vision for peace from kagiso to bishopscourt
the long legs of your glamour in every garden glorious
thandabantu and now I know what’s right with the world
and what’s wrong, fierce like any animal defending its young
you shriek, dive-bomb like a kiewiet, cry havoc
as parliament catches fire and the land aches
towards sunset, the gold and orange light catching a city
of purple climbers. Tutu’s children of conscience
responding to the season’s urge for change.
Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow on 3 March 2022