Reg Rumney reviews Beyond Touch

I can think of no greater compliment to a poet than to say that you have read all the poems in a volume. Often, I dip into poetry books, reading some poems that look promising, or which particularly resonate, and pass over the rest. I read all of the poems in ‘Beyond Touch’ by Arja Salafranca.


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Review of Beyond Touch by Kate Turkington in City Press

Invite to the launch of Beyond Touch, the new poetry collection of Arja Salafranca

Beyond Touch, a new poetry collection by Arja Salafranca

Arja Salafranca's third poetry collection, Beyond Touch, published by Modjaji Books and Dye Hard Press, June 2015. 

PEN SA’s Q&A with Arja Salafranca

Favourite South African novel / poem?

I don’t have a particular favourite South African poem or novel and that does change with every new book read – but I do enjoy novels by South African novelists such as Damon Galgut and Ingrid Winterbach, for instance. I’m looking very forward to reading Craig Higginson’s just published The Dream House, andFinuala Dowling’s The Fetch... Read more.

Rowing on the river Thames

The sun, different here,

piercing, yet diffused by northern slants.

The boat glides,

the cousins talk across the years.

They try to catch up decades in the slow glide

across water, life, love,

I’d like to say there is no catching up.

But I don’t. Can’t think it.

Can only try to bridge it,

explain, expound, talk through the details.

Like: what was school like?

Or: how was it growing up with a single mother,

and, importantly, where are you going?

Our eyes are hidden behind dark glasses.

We cannot see the flickers of fear, hesitancy.

It suits us both.

Rowing is hard work.

She takes off her light jacket,

the sun dips and bounces off her muscles.

They bulge, as a man’s might,

but with a more feminine grace and fluidity.

We row, the boat glides,

at the bridge we turn around.

She’s looking at me.

Far off, on the bank of the river,

weekenders make believe summer’s here.

That’s still in the future.

There’s a small line of sweat starting to

stain her top.

Did you choose deliberately?

Her breasts are bolstered by a WonderBra.

Does she know? Can she see my eyes?

Is my nonchalance practiced enough?  

For months I will wonder at this moment,

I will write about it,

explore it in therapy,

try to excacate its depths.

And always, I will come up empty-handed.

Poor for my lack,

and made poorer still for my fear. 

First published here

You can be anything you want to be

You woke up this morning
to hear that Freddie Mercury had died.
The brilliant blue light of dawn
came in through a parting in the curtain
and hurt your eyes.
You couldn't get back to sleep again.

In the background Freddie Mercury sang,
'You can be anything you want to be...'
over and over again.
You lay there,
remembering he'd told the press this weekend
that he had Aids.

Broken, cut-up lines of prose to
indicate our horror.
By hiding it in the background you
can forget about it,
stop worrying whether you can catch it from
a toilet seat or a kiss.

You make coffee and brush your teeth
watching the trees grow more emphatic
in the blue morning air.

He died of pneumonia,
it's all over the radio.

Can't smear blood over doorsteps to
indicate someone's died.
It's a clean antiseptic world,
you can't find the plague in filthy streets,
or engorged rats.
Instead you can watch the living corpses on TV.
Bared eyes enormous in concentration camp faces,
teeth large as rabbits.
The picture sticks like wet dough in your throat.
You shove it down with water
and try to swallow.

In the background Freddie Mercury sings,
You can be anything you want to be,
you can be anything you want to be.