A Dye Hard Interview: Richard Fox: Engaging with language

Richard Fox was born in Cape Town in 1975. He lives in Johannesburg and runs the T-shirt company T-Shirt Terrorist. His first collection of poems, 876, was published in 2007, and his second collection, otherwise you well?, was published by deep south in 2021. He has had poems published in journals such as New Coin, Ons Klyntji, Carapace and donga, and in the anthologies it all begins and glass jars among trees.

otherwise you well? is your second collection. Your first, 876, came out in 2007. I remember you had stopped writing for a while, and it was around 2013 that you started up again. Was there any reason for that period of silence?

I did take a hiatus; I think it was around 2002 though, and it lasted until 2006/2007, just before the release of 876. This was a difficult period for me. I was ‘going through changes’. The poetry in 876 was written between 1997 and 2001, most of that body in the last six months of 2001. This was the year I cancelled my corporate subscription with the world – I resigned from my job and holed out in a garden cottage at the back on my parent’s property, stayed up late, did all kinds of weird stuff, and wrote .. More.

Gus Ferguson's rich contribution to poetry, by Gary Cummiskey

Gus Ferguson reading in 2016. Photo: Louis Reynolds 

With his sense of humour, generosity and humility, the late poet, cartoonist and publisher inspired and mentored others to assume the mantle of getting poems out to readers.

I can’t remember how I first heard about the late Gus Ferguson, or got hold of his work number at the Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa in Cape Town. I had no idea that he was a director there. As an aspiring poet, with two published poems and eager to get a full collection out, I had assumed the number was for the poetry publisher Snailpress. This was mid-1993. 

Far from being furious about my calling him at his employer, Gus immediately sounded warm and friendly. He explained that Snailpress was a small, home-publishing venture and that he already had several books in the pipeline. However, he mentioned that he did publish a small poetry magazine called Slugnews. More.

 

Daniel Abdal-hayy Moore 1940-2016

I was shocked on Thursday to read of the passing of US poet Daniel Abdal-hayy Moore just a few days previously. Sometime around 2003-2006 we enjoyed a regular correspondence. I had read his second book, Burnt Heart, while in England in 2001 - on the outward and return journey from London to Worcester - and then when back in South Africa I bought his (then recent) collection, The Blind Beekeeper. I found his email address on the internet and contacted him. He sent me a photocopy of his first book, Dawn Visions, published back in 1964, and photocopies of posters and photos relating to his ritual theatre project from the mid-60s, The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company. He wrote about friends such as Philip Lamantia, Ira Cohen and Angus MacLise. He sent me some poems, which I published in my literary journal Green Dragon. I also published a poem of his in an issue of Carapace that I guest-edited. I was amazed at how prolific he was. He told me he often got up in the middle of the night to write. He didn't write individual poems, but rather whole books of interrelated poems. In the last 10 years of his life he published about 30 books of poetry through his imprint The Ecstatic Exchange.

Why we lost contact with each other, I don't know. Even though we were friends on Facebook we did not really connect. Probably he was so busy with his life and projects and I was so busy with mine. I must admit that I also much preferred his earlier, pre-Sufi poetry, though perhaps if I reread his more recent work now I might change my mind.

The sad fact is that another great voice of tremendous poetic energy has gone.

The  photograph shows Daniel Abdal-hayy Moore performing his poetry at the Berkeley Folk Festival in 1965. Photographer unknown.