Muizenberg in Poetry

Muizenberg Literary Heritage Festival

Muizenberg in Poetry

Our neighbourhood’s people, landscape and history continue to inspire poetry. In ‘Muizenberg in Poetry’ four poets will read and talk to five poems permeated with its salty air.

Karen Press will read her achingly beautiful poem ‘Muizenberg’. Press is a poet and translator, and her poetry has been published in journals and anthologies in South Africa and abroad. Her most recent collection is Heart’s Hunger: Selected Poems.

Sahra Ryklief, now retired, devoted her career to education and research in the labour movement. Born and raised on the Cape Flats in a time when prime False Bay beaches were reserved for whites only, Sahra will read two poems that express her appreciation for the diversity of Capetonians that enjoy them today.

Mike Alfred is a poet, journalist and historian. He has produced six collections of poetry and his poems are widely published in journals and anthologies. Originally from Johannesburg, he has lived in Muizenberg for seven years. He will read his poem ‘Muizenberg mixed media’.

Beverley Jansen (1948-2020) was the first black poet to be published in Afrikaans in the 1980s, and her writing expressed the pain of living under Apartheid. She later served as mayor of Fish Hoek and as the Provincial Lands Claims Commissioner. Her daughter Helga Jansen will read her poem ‘The Surfer’.