Gus Ferguson

Gus Ferguson (1 July 1940 – 27 December 2020) was a South African poet, publisher, cartoonist, and pharmacist. He was born in Scotland, but moved with his parents to South Africa in 1949.

Gus Ferguson
Born(1940-07-01)1 July 1940
Scotland
Died27 December 2020(2020-12-27) (aged 80)
South Africa
OccupationPoet, Publisher, Cartoonist, Pharmacist, Slug and Snail Enthusiast
NationalitySouth African

Career

His cartoons and poetry have been published widely. A pharmacist by profession, his love of poetry led him to become a prolific publisher, primarily through his Snailpress imprint, which brought out dozens of volumes of poetry from many of South Africa’s most significant poets. His Carapace poetry journal, which he published for decades, eventually halted at its 104th issue in February 2015.

Carapace had a literary forebear in Ferguson’s underground literary magazine Slugnews, which encapsulated a combination of ‘poems, graphics, and molluscana’ that became a maxim for Carapace and benchmarked Ferguson’s career in letters. The last edition was Slugnews 30 published in February 1994.

He published some seventeen books of his own, including Love Amongst the Middle-Aged (1997), Waiting for Gateau (2004) and Arse Poetica: Musings on Muse Abuse (2010). His final volume, Holding Back, was published in 2014.

A typical example of Ferguson’s own verse is as follows :-

Gus Ferguson should be martyred
 But not with wood and nails
He should be wrapped in lettuce leaves
And thrown amongst his snails.

He has won various poetry and publishing prizes including the AA Via Award, the Eleanor Anderson Special Award and the Molteno Medal.

He lived and worked in the city he loved, Cape Town, South Africa.

Death

He died on 27 December 2020 in South Africa.[1][2]

Bibliography

Poetry

  • Snail Morning (Ad Donker) (1979)
  • Doggerel Day (Ad Donker) (1982)
  • Carpe Diem (Carrefour)(1992)
  • The Herding of the Snail (Firfield Press) (1995)
  • Icarus Rising
  • Light Verse at the end of the Tunnel (David Philip)(1996)
  • Stressed-Unstressed (David Philip) (2000)
  • Arse Poetica (2010)
  • Only One Life He Croaked

Cartoons

  • Love Amongst the Middle-Aged (Queillerie)(1997)
  • Waiting for Gateau (2004)
  • Dubious Delights of Aging and Other Follies (2006)

References
  1. "Gus Ferguson, 1940—2020, RIP". The Johannesburg Review of Books. 2020-12-27. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
  2. Moffett, Helen (2020-12-29). "Maverick Citizen: Obituary: Gus Ferguson, 1940-2020, kind mentor for a generation of southern Africa poets". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
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