New Contrast Issue 154

New Contrast Issue 154

2nd Quarter

Editors Notes New Contrast Issue 154

Seldom at a loss for words, I am inadequate to the task of telling you how we miss Stephen. Although I did not know him well, nor personally very closely, his vitality and warmth still warms me.

Next year we will bring out a tribute to Stephen Watson and Patrick Cullinan, who died within one week this year, in which we will publish not only their own writing, but also that of their friends and colleagues.

Stephen's death had other unforeseen consequences for us at New Contrast: he was our chief fund-raiser. We were plunged into financial crisis and had to stop production for some months, which is why this issue has come to you late. Were it not for the intervention of many people whose love of literature translates into financial help large and small, you would still be waiting. Of these I must single out Athol Williams whose extraordinary generosity has funded us for the rest of this year. We are not entirely out of the woods, but glimpses of open country are visible.

Many writers subscribe, but not all contributors. We have rescinded the rule which obliges contributors to subscribe, but we appeal to every writer: please subscribe to either the hardcopy issue or the electronic version. It's your magazine.

In this issue, we bring you the imagination and art of 34 contributors, local and international; some familiar, others new to us. We have the usual healthy crop of poems, short stories and two book reviews. I hope you will find something of interest to your taste.

Hugh

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Contents of New Contrast Issue 154

Barry Wallenstein
Taking Names
Roy Robins
Review of Tony’s World
Michael Cope
The First Poet
Gus Ferguson
In The Pinothecha
Paul Casey
Anginyamalalanga
I haven't disappeared
Gaelen Pinnock
Memoria tessuta
Patricia Schonstein Pinnock
On hearing of the death of Stephen Watson
Danie van Jaarsveld
Dancer
biker
Herman Lategan
Drought
Herman Manson
die belofte
nood
John Cartwright
Cabinet Ministers, De Waal Drive, 1957
Len Verwey
Common Knowledge
Watching my Sons
Sonja Wilker
Citrus musings
Willie James King
The Restless Heart
Eleni Philippou
Ekurhuleni
Karin Schimke
The drowner
Heidi Breetzke
Journey
Elisa Galgut
Evening run in Lewes
Marike Beyers
the meeting
Silke Heiss
Surviving writing
Peace corps
Kelwyn Sole
Three Poems
Gill Gimberg
Review of Slow Motion: stories about walking
Michael King
Travelling back
Norman Morrissey
The Middle of the Way
Arja Salafranca
Schmalz
Rosemund Handler
The scale of things
South Africa
Yvette Morey
My brother the psycho
Jason Rotstein
Annihilating Principle
Levitation
Lindsey Gillson
Unshelled
These things
If I were a dog
Martha Evans
Jacarandas
Nick Purdon
A Sunday Afternoon
Scattering your ashes at Kalk Bay
Yavni Bar-Yam
Highveld
Ruth Browne
On the Dubious Virtue of Calliope
Johan Geldenhuys
The Soon Return – Part 5

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Bios of Contributors to New Contrast Issue 154

Arja Salafranca’s collection of short stories, The Thin Line, published by Modjaji Books in 2010. Her poetry collections: A life stripped of illusions, and The Fire in Which we Burn and poetry is collected in Isis X (Botsotso). Awards: two Sanlam Awards and the 2010 Dalro Award for poetry. She has edited two anthologies, the latest The Edge of Things, 2011.Blog:http://arjasalafranca.blogspot.com/

Barry Wallenstein is the author of six collections of poetry. His special interest is presenting poetry readings in collaboration with jazz. He is an Emeritus Professor of literature and creative writing at the City University of New York and an editor of, American Book Review. Barry was born, and lives, in New York City.

Danie van Jaarsveld is a motor sport photographer. He lives on a plot outside Johannesburg with his wife, the younger two of his four children, dogs, guinea fowl, plovers, horses, a large free-range mole snake and other dependents. An engineering degree from Wits and a healthy interest in computers structure his thinking. He is content.

Eleni Philippou was born in Johannesburg and studied English Literature and Political Studies at Wits. She is currently a Literature student at Oxford. Eleni has a keen interest in South African culture, politics and history, which she maintains through reading extensively and travelling widely.

Elisa Galgut teaches in the Philosophy Department at the University of Cape Town. Her current area of interest is an exploration into emotional responses to literature from a psychoanalytic perspective. She has an MA in Creative Writing from UCT.

Gaelen Pinnock is an architect and photographer. He works in the crossover between architecture, information graphics and 3D illustration. In his photography he explores ways of capturing and communicating the formal and spatial essences that underlie urban landscapes. www.gaelenpinnock.com

Gill Gimberg has done many different jobs and currently earns a living working in IT. She earns (sic) her life reading, writing and climbing mountains. If anybody is willing to pay her to do the latter, please contact her urgently. (Number available on request.)

Gus Ferguson is a poet, cartoonist, publisher and pharmacist.

HA Hodge is a poet and editor. He hosts the Off-the-Wall poetry gigs in Kommetjie and Kalk Bay.

Heidi Breetzke is the mother of two energetic, rapidly developing pre-teens. She runs the English Department at a private school in the Eastern Cape. Poetry and photography are her personal passions. Photographer, Marlene Neumann has had the greatest influence on Heidi.

Herman Lategan is a freelance journalist and writer; previously with Style Magazine, Fine Music Radio and e.tv. He lives in Cape Town.

Herman Manson is a freelance business journalist and media commentator. His writing has appeared in newspapers and magazines locally and abroad on topics ranging from new media to marketing and technology. Herman is based just outside Cape Town on a farm near the foot of Sir Lowry’s Pass.

Jason Rotstein is Poetry Editor of the Jewish Quarterly, (London, England). He has been a Commonwealth Scholar and a Fulbright Scholar. He is currently working on a book on Iceland. His poetry appears in Stand, Poetry Ireland Review, PN Review, Literary Review of Canada, Salmagundi. A selection of his work is available in Undercurrents: New Voices in Canadian Poetry.

Johan Geldenhuys is a semi-retired financial terminologist who divides his time between business dictionaries and poetic fiction. He hopes to marry these in a new genre of gratis verse.

John Cartwright was born in Muizenberg in 1938. He lectured in English Departments for many years, but now works on community safety projects through the Centre of Criminology at UCT, plants fynbos in public spaces and performs in the theatre.

Karin Schimke is a journalist and poet, and editor of the Cape Times books page. She is published in newspapers, magazines and books, as well as in literary magazines. She is the MC of the long-running Off The Wall poetry evenings in Cape Town. Her volume of poetry Bare and Breaking will be published in 2011.

Kelwyn Sole is Professor in the English Department at UCT. Author of numerous critical articles and five collections of poetry, Kelwyn was born in Johannesburg, educated at Wits and at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. He has lived and worked in Johannesburg, Kanye (Botswana) and Windhoek (Namibia).

Len Verwey was born in Maputo. He lives in Cape Town and works for a democracy NGO. His poetry has been published in New Contrast, New Coin, London Magazine, A Look Away, and Carapace.

Lindsey Gillson was born in the UK. She moved to South Africa in 2006 to take up a post as lecturer in Plant biology and conservation at the University of Cape Town.

Marike Beyers lives in Grahamstown, where she works trying to keep track of various forms and formats of words and sentences.

Martha Evans is currently completing her PhD in media studies at UCT. She has an MA in Creative Writing. She is a freelance fiction editor.

Michael Cope was born and lives in Cape Town. He has published two novels, two volumes of poems, a memoir, several chapbooks of poetry, and extensively on the Internet. He has made a CD of jazz and poetry with Chris Wildman. Mike is a designer and jeweller. He is married to Julia Martin, and has three children.

Michael King lives in Rondebosch and teaches English at Bishops. He has had poems published in New Contrast and other journals, and has self-published a collection of poems called “The Fool”. Over the years he was involved in editing English Alive during the 1980s and New Contrast during the 1990s and 2000s.

Nick Purdon is a graphic artist and poet.

Norman Morrissey taught Eng. Lit. at universities, and published poetry in the UK, USA and in South Africa. He has four books of poems in print. Norman lives in Hogsback, sharing a 5 acre plot with 72 species of birds, a troop of Samango monkeys, the odd bushbuck and duiker, and a few thousand trees.

Patricia Schonstein Pinnock is an internationally published novelist and poet. Although Italian, she grew up in Rhodesia and now lives in Cape Town. She has a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Cape Town. www.patriciaschonstein.com

Paul Casey is a poet-filmmaker from Cork, Ireland where he founded and directs the weekly
poetry event, Ó Bhéal. He spent thirty years in Zambia and South Africa. While lecturing
scriptwriting in 2004, he convened the Greater Port Elizabeth Poetry competition. His poems are
published in many Irish journals.

Rosemund J Handler lives in Cape Town. She has written short stories and poems published both here and in the United States. Her first novel, Madlands, was written during her MA in Creative Writing at UCT. Rosemund's second novel, Katy's Kid and third, Tsamma Season, were also both published by Penguin.

Roy Robins was formerly the online editor for Granta. He was a 2010-2011 Gordon Institute for Creative and Performing Arts fellow. Roy is currently completing a novel. And, somewhat more exotically, backpacking in Africa.

Ruth Browne is an English Honours student at UCT. Her interests include postcolonial studies, creative writing, autobiography and gender and third world politics.

Surviving writing from Silke Heiss
Silke is a little silver fish in the great shoal of South African writers and artists. She gives shape to thoughts and feelings by using words, clay, and the etching process. Her poems, stories, reviews and a serialised verse novel have appeared in local poetry journals and anthologies.

Sonja Wilker is a painter and life coach. And Business Manager of this journal.

Willie James King resides and writes in Montgomery, AL. His third and only book still in print is The House in the heart, 2007, by Tebot Bach Press. He has been nominated for four Push-cart Prize awards. He holds an M.Ed., from Alabama State, Montgomery, AL; and, an MFA from Queens University, Charlotte, NC.

Yavni Bar-Yam is a writer, scientist, actor and puppeteer residing in Boston, MA. In 2009, he received a bachelor's from Columbia University in New York City, and, in 2010, he worked as a physics mentor in south western Mpumalanga. His poetry has been published in the Avanim literary journal.

Yvette Morey was born in Vereeniging and has the public library to thank for her sanity. She studied English and Psychology at Rhodes University before moving to the UK. She works as a researcher and lives in Bristol.

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