Poem

Loftus Marais

Side by side

Original language

Night Film

a woman irons in front of a window
in her flat’s closed cube
battery lives, stooped, cooped

lamp light projects her onto the roof tiles
of the building opposite:
she’s ironing, enormously, gorgeously

© Translation: 2010, Loftus Marais & Charl-Pierre Naudé

Nagfilm

Nagfilm

’n vrou stryk voor ’n venster
in haar woonstelblokhok
batterylewens: nou gedruk, gebuk

lamplig projekteer haar teen die dakteëls
van die oorkantste gebou:
reusagtig pragtig stryk ’n vrou

© 2008, Loftus Marais
From: Staan in die algemeen nader aan vensters
Publisher: NB, Cape Town

Loftus Marais

Loftus Marais

(South Africa, 1982)

Loftus Marais was born in 1982 in Paarl, a small town just a forty-minute drive from Cape Town. Nestling at the foot of the second-largest granite outcrop in the world, Paarl is considered the birthplace of Afrikaans. It is a town with a quiet, suburban character, and Marais’s poetry often takes an ironic, satiric look at the complacency of the environment in which he grew up.

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After a grandiose exhibition

Self-portraits in Spotless Contemporary Surfaces

Still Life With Wild Life

Night Film

ALSO WRITTEN FOR THE CAPE

Close

Night Film

a woman irons in front of a window
in her flat’s closed cube
battery lives, stooped, cooped

lamp light projects her onto the roof tiles
of the building opposite:
she’s ironing, enormously, gorgeously

© 2010, Loftus Marais & Charl-Pierre Naudé
From: Staan in die algemeen nader aan vensters

Night Film

a woman irons in front of a window
in her flat’s closed cube
battery lives, stooped, cooped

lamp light projects her onto the roof tiles
of the building opposite:
she’s ironing, enormously, gorgeously

© 2010, Loftus Marais & Charl-Pierre Naudé

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