Ockert Greeff, for his chapbook: “A Mass Choir of Little Things”

Excerpt from chapbook:

   *     *     *

I let go of my yellow lunchbox
Watch it swirl away in the dark water
Past the boy who cannot give up
He is swimming, lifting his arms up
High out of the water, to the leaden sky
His legs dragging behind him, sinking under

The water sweeps me past him
The boy who cannot give up
I see a glint in his eyes
His lips drawn tight

As if he thinks he can beat this
The dark mass that is taking us all.

    *     *     *

BIO: Ockert Greeff is a South African Canadian poet and percussionist inspired by the early traditions of storytelling and drumming. He uses language and chorus as a thin membrane to connect to scenes and tellings, often stripped down to archetype and rooted in his Afrikaans mother tongue. In some sense, his work is Afrikaans but written in English. Born in Namibia and raised in a small town in the Kalahari Desert, he earned his BA Hons. in Afrikaans Literature before settling in Johannesburg, where he was co-founder and drummer of the Afrikaans cult band Die Brixton Moord en Roof Orkes. In Montreal, Canada, he has recorded with underground bands such as Light Bulb Alley, Sawtooth, and Death Drive. His poetry drumming work can be found online and has been shown at various poetry film festivals, including the Raleigh Film & Art Festival and the Small File Media Festival at Simon Fraser University. His poems have placed with honors among the Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards and as a finalist with New Ohio Review and Vallum Poetry Awards. His poetry can also be read in New Ohio Review, Literary Review of Canada (forthcoming), Ons Klyntji (South Africa), South Florida Poetry Journal, Permafrost, Thimble Literary Magazine, and others.

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