All posts tagged: Johannesburg

Dreaming of a Writing Room

By MAKHOSAZANA XABA

 

When I flew from Johannesburg to Cape Town and drove to Misty Cliffs, which Google described as a little village that lies on the mountain and on the beach, divided only by Main Road, between Kommetjie and Scarborough, roughly an hour from Cape Town, I had no idea what lay ahead. I was insulated in pain from a break up. Ten days of the sea, walking, and writing healed me. This mountaintop lounge, where I wrote “Sad whale-speak at Misty Cliffs” to keep this dream of a place alive, has been my best writing room, so far.

Dreaming of a Writing Room
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Poetry on the Train

By KOBUS MOOLMAN

When the compartment door was drawn back, and I saw my room for the nearly twelve-hour trip home, I had to conceal my disappointment. The room was already occupied. Well, no problem. I thought to myself. Coming up to Johannesburg on the train I had been faced with the same problem. Then I had simply asked the conductor if I could change and he had found me a cabin where I could be on my own: to think my own thoughts, laugh out loud at my pettiness and, most importantly, write without distraction – all night if I so chose. Of course, things had been considerably easier on that occasion: my proposed companion had been an elderly white man who smoked like a steam engine and had the watery eyes and puffy nose of a heavy drinker. This time, however, I would have to make excuses for not wanting to share a cabin with a quiet middle-aged black man.

Poetry on the Train
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