Blog
Always restless | Justin Fox
Wed, 12 February 2025
Does reading your favourite poems sometimes make you feel restless, ready to set out on a very long journey?
We have known for millennia that poems, songs and stories can transport us in this way. It is also true that some poets have literally been great travellers.
As we prepare to celebrate Global Tourism Resilience Day on 17 February, the AVBOB Poetry Project celebrates the work of Justin Fox, poet and novelist, inveterate traveller and travel writer. His debut poetry collection, Deep Routes (Karavan Press, 2021) is based on his travels through much of South Africa as well as parts of Europe and North America.
Fox, a former editor of Getaway Magazine, has been writing poetry since he was at school.
“In those days I was trying to emulate the greats. Later, I spent six months at sea on a replica of an eighteenth-century caravel sailing from Portugal to South Africa. I began writing sea poems, which developed into an interest in landscape poetry as an undergraduate at UCT, mentored by Stephen Watson. Later still, I spent three months meandering through Europe and wrote poetry almost every day. Even back then, I had the vague notion that I would one day like to publish my travel poems in an anthology of sorts, but it took nearly three decades to make it happen.”
Fox’s fascination with landscape has taught him to evoke many different places in exquisite detail. But, of course, his mind is not a camera, passively recording memorable people and places. He chronicles inner as well as outer journeys, allowing us to travel with him and to negotiate the environments he describes. In the process, we witness signs of corporate greed and corruption as well as sharing the companionship of friends and strangers.
“My understanding of the world grows progressively darker,” he admits. “But I do find solace in nature, particularly the sea, and that is where I still find my celebratory voice.”
There is a profound, deeply satisfying curiosity at work in these poems. “Ah, the fence lines go on forever,” he laments in N1, which opens the collection. Like him, we are left wondering what is on the other side of those fences.
“Writing poetry while travelling, or about travel, forces you to perceive with a very precise eye. And so, when I am writing about travel, particularly in my poems, I am compelled to look and think more deeply about place. Capturing the ‘spirit of place’ is what much of my poetry strives for… and that entails as much an inner, as an outer, quest.”
While there is no shortage of discomfort on the road, the quests described here are often joyous. There are references to beloved songs and musicians and sly, beautiful parodies of favourite poems by Shelley, Frost and Yeats. In the beautiful ‘Land Song’, Fox playfully channels the voices of an entire country:
“I am the ear of my nation, listening…
to the growl of traffic, the crash of waves,
to the rumbling murmurs of discontent…”
Fox confirms that turning to poetry has been a profound pleasure.
“The whole publishing process with Karavan Press was a delight. After 20 years of writing fiction and non-fiction books, it was a great pleasure to work on something as refined, contained and joyful as a poetry collection.”
In the next few days, write a poem that tries to transport your readers, taking them somewhere they have probably never travelled before. This does not have to be a place that can be found on a map. An inner landscape is also a valid destination.
The 2026 AVBOB Poetry Competition opens for submissions on 1 August 2025. Visit the AVBOB Poetry website at www.avbobpoetry.co.za today and read some of the prize-winning poems from previous years as you prepare to find your own best words.
We have known for millennia that poems, songs and stories can transport us in this way. It is also true that some poets have literally been great travellers.
As we prepare to celebrate Global Tourism Resilience Day on 17 February, the AVBOB Poetry Project celebrates the work of Justin Fox, poet and novelist, inveterate traveller and travel writer. His debut poetry collection, Deep Routes (Karavan Press, 2021) is based on his travels through much of South Africa as well as parts of Europe and North America.
Fox, a former editor of Getaway Magazine, has been writing poetry since he was at school.
“In those days I was trying to emulate the greats. Later, I spent six months at sea on a replica of an eighteenth-century caravel sailing from Portugal to South Africa. I began writing sea poems, which developed into an interest in landscape poetry as an undergraduate at UCT, mentored by Stephen Watson. Later still, I spent three months meandering through Europe and wrote poetry almost every day. Even back then, I had the vague notion that I would one day like to publish my travel poems in an anthology of sorts, but it took nearly three decades to make it happen.”
Fox’s fascination with landscape has taught him to evoke many different places in exquisite detail. But, of course, his mind is not a camera, passively recording memorable people and places. He chronicles inner as well as outer journeys, allowing us to travel with him and to negotiate the environments he describes. In the process, we witness signs of corporate greed and corruption as well as sharing the companionship of friends and strangers.
“My understanding of the world grows progressively darker,” he admits. “But I do find solace in nature, particularly the sea, and that is where I still find my celebratory voice.”
There is a profound, deeply satisfying curiosity at work in these poems. “Ah, the fence lines go on forever,” he laments in N1, which opens the collection. Like him, we are left wondering what is on the other side of those fences.
“Writing poetry while travelling, or about travel, forces you to perceive with a very precise eye. And so, when I am writing about travel, particularly in my poems, I am compelled to look and think more deeply about place. Capturing the ‘spirit of place’ is what much of my poetry strives for… and that entails as much an inner, as an outer, quest.”
While there is no shortage of discomfort on the road, the quests described here are often joyous. There are references to beloved songs and musicians and sly, beautiful parodies of favourite poems by Shelley, Frost and Yeats. In the beautiful ‘Land Song’, Fox playfully channels the voices of an entire country:
“I am the ear of my nation, listening…
to the growl of traffic, the crash of waves,
to the rumbling murmurs of discontent…”
Fox confirms that turning to poetry has been a profound pleasure.
“The whole publishing process with Karavan Press was a delight. After 20 years of writing fiction and non-fiction books, it was a great pleasure to work on something as refined, contained and joyful as a poetry collection.”
In the next few days, write a poem that tries to transport your readers, taking them somewhere they have probably never travelled before. This does not have to be a place that can be found on a map. An inner landscape is also a valid destination.
The 2026 AVBOB Poetry Competition opens for submissions on 1 August 2025. Visit the AVBOB Poetry website at www.avbobpoetry.co.za today and read some of the prize-winning poems from previous years as you prepare to find your own best words.
