By Kobus Moolman
Review by: Sbongiseni Dladla
Last night’s food that we eat today is called ‘left overs’. This clever title, which relates to the way the past influences what we have to deal with today, belongs to Kobus Moolman’s latest poetry collection. Award winning writer, storyteller, senior lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Moolman recently took time out to launch his latest collection of poems Left Over (Dye Hard Press) at Ike’s Bookstore in Morningside, Durban. He has published five previous collections of poetry, as well as several plays. Kobus Moolman has also edited an anthology of poetry, prose and art by South African writers living with disabilities. This book is a follow up to his previous anthology Light and After which saw Moolman being nominated at the South African Literary Awards (SALA). Left Over tackles issues that deal with the modern day community and individuals.
In the collection, Moolman includes a poem ‘Fourteen Things No Longer There’ in which he ponders impermanence. The poem shows that there are things in life that we take for granted but which, in fact, are fleeting:
Time is running out
There is no time for long sentences.
No time for long stories anymore.
It is just fragments now.
Hurried phrases.
Snatches of words that dash across the white light.
Words that dare not to think.
That have no time anymore to think or prepare.
That have just be themselves.
Even if they aren’t ready.
This is his story.
His last story.
