About Gus Furgeson

The Kwela (publisher of his latest book, Arse Poetica, May 2003) publicity page says what need be said about Gus:

Hear Gus read (check the Mp3 Index , Spoken Word).
See 'The Herding of the Snail' performance poetry adaptation by Johann.

Arse Poetica is a collection of gently satirical poems and cartoons that take a wryly-mocking view of the often egocentric world of poets and poetry. The author is himself a poet and, more importantly, a prominent South African poetry publisher - this gives the collection a sly self-deprecating edge. The book contains a few prose pieces, 32 poems and approximately 25 black and white humorous drawings. Gus Ferguson is well known both in South Africa and elsewhere as a subtle and surprising humorist. His work in this collection contains witty references to other writers and poets, including J M Coetzee, e e cummings, William Blake, William Carlos Williams, Michael Ondatjie, James Joyce, Roy Campbell, Fernando Pessoa and Breyten Breytenbach. Despite their often erudite references the poems are widely accessible as the wit is enhanced by its cultural connections but not dependent on them. The cartoons though Thurberesque in style, bite a bit harder than the poems. He has had three sell-out exhibitions of his cartoons and drawings and has illustrated or written three children’s books. A large number of the items in Arse Poetica have been published before in a wide variety of literary magazines and journals - the audience for the work ranges from literary academics to children. Gus Ferguson's verse and cartoons have been widely anthologised, quoted and stuck on refrigerator doors. And in a country where light verse is traditionally s een as merely silly or trivial, he enjoys a rather special reputation as a serious poet, as always, behind the fun, lurks the metaphysical and melancholic.

Endorsements:
"Behind the formal pyrotechnics are detectable not just an alert and probing mind, but a humane juxtaposing of worlds." Stewart Conn, Spectrum, Scotland
"Light Verse at its best: ingenious in shape, diction, and rhyme: witty and sharp, curious and surprising in its perspectives." Michael Sharp, World Literature Today.

About the autor:
Gus Ferguson is a well-known and - loved South African poet, cartoonist and poetry publisher. Since 1978, when Snail Morning, his first collection, appeared, he has published a further five collections of poems (Doggerel Day (Ad Donker); The Herding of the Snail (Firfield Press); Carpe Diem (Carrefour); Light Verse at the end of the Tunnel (David Philip); Stressed-Unstressed (David Philip)) and one of cartoons (Love Amongst the Middle-Aged (Queillerie)). He has received various poetry prizes, among them the Eleanor Andersen Award, a Molteno Award and an AA Vita Award.
Under the imprints Snailpress and Firfield Press, Ferguson has published 97 collections of poetry. To recognise the contribution he has made as publisher, he has been awarded a Sefika Award, a Molteno Award and the Joan St Leger Lindburgh Award.

Gus Ferguson lives in Cape Town
Other books by Gus Ferguson:
Poetry
Snail Morning (Ad Donker)
Doggerel Day (Ad Donker)
The Herding of the Snail (Firfield Press)
Carpe Diem (Carrefour)
Light Verse at the end of the Tunnel (David Philip)
Stressed-Unstressed (David Philip)
Cartoons:
Love Amongst the Middle-Aged (Queillerie)

Back blurb: Google lists 365 entries for Arse Poetica. This, we hope will be number 366. This collection of poems and cartoons offers an embarrassing glimpse of the underbelly of the artistic ego. It is a sardonic yet gentle collection of absurd insights into matters concerning poets and poetry based on the author's own experience as a fecund and enthusiastic poetry publisher and (no one is immune) a modestly ambitious poet in his own right.

Gus Ferguson should be martyred
but not with wood and nails
he should be wrapped in lettuce leaves
and thrown amongst his snails

Gus Ferguson is a well-known South African poetry publisher, a poet and cartoonist. He is also founder of the (defunct) Inter-Species Amity League and the Cosmick Life President of the Snail Liberation Undergroud (S.L.U.G.).