Pearse O’Shiel
“I do not think of myself as a 'poet' nor do I write on any kind of regular basis.However, there are from time to time moments or incidents that seem to require a response and this often takes the form of a short poem.”
Pearse will read his own poem ‘Zwelihle’ “Zwelihle is the name of a township in Cape Town that I visited some years ago. The local women put on a show for the 'tourists' and I found myself detached from the group and looking at the performance as though from a distance. When I looked about me there were two shy children nearby looking at me as though I were their 'show'. It was the juxtaposition of the onlookers that heightened the awareness of my own tendency to experience from the 'edge'.”