Dorian Haarhoff is a story-teller, and a published poet, writer and a personal development speaker. He is a former teacher-trainer, taught in a Canadian Creative Writing Faculty, was also Professor of English at the University of Namibia and is currently external examiner on the MA programme for the University of Cape Town ’s Creative Writing Department. Pa ssionate about developing innate creativity and imagination Haarhoff runs highly successful creative writing workshops (through his business, Creative Workshops), lectures regularly in Mauritius , and has twice been invited as poet and as a guest story-teller to the Conference of Word Affairs in Boulder , Colorado . Haarhoff uses story-telling, writing, images and symbolic work as a means of discovering hidden potential and assessing new ways of being and seeing. He believes in the ability of people to revitalise their workplace, build their communities, participate in their healing and find their joy. His approach is based on his book, The Writer's Voice,A Workbook for Writers in Africa . Of writing poetry, Haarhoff says: ‘ Writing a poem is like dropping a Venetian blind down a window . Each line is a slat that gives the poem shape. The strings are the theme. Images, rhythm, rhyme, form the sunlight between the slats.’ Haarhoff is interested in the relationship between poetry and healing a nd sees writing as a conversation about belonging. His work is strongly influenced by mythology, whole brain theory, Jungian and Eco psychology, creation spirituality, the new physics and narrative therapy. Dorian Haarhoff is a naturalized Namibian citizen and o ne of his collections, Borderingincludes a poetic history of Namibia He has written several Namibian lyrics including school songs. His Namibian children ’ s books include D esert December , and Guano Girland a children ’ s play, Alice in Welwitschialand. Some of his poems have found their way into crop research magazines, menus in restaurants, inflight magazines and school songs.

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Select Bibliography
The Writer’s Voice: A Writers Guide , Struik-Zebra, Johannesburg 1998. Tortoise Voices , Mercer Books, Cape Town 2001
Desert December , David Phillip (New Africa ), Cape Town 1991
 
Discography
Tortoise Stories, Stories from Africa and the Great Elsewhere , self published, Johannesburg , 2002>

Arriving at the Night Fire

in Motetema, Limpopo Province

I feed the teachers,

morning to late light,

a feast of stories.

as the sun sifts the room

one ladles a question

onto my plate.

it lies there like the pap

we ate at lunch.

Who did you inherit story-telling from?

a big meal question.

he watches me chew. first response,

inside, I say, No one. It started here.

but this Lazarus has raised a ghost.

I take his question down to my gut

to search for one who hands down gifts.

who multiplies fish and bread.

I answer his gaze. when I tell,

the story comes from somewhere else,

through me. You see this?

he slowly nods and smiles.

a match strikes a woodpile.

Europe and Africa

blood and belonging

reconcile in the telling.

it is the ancestors who story through me.

a night fire ignites my belly.