Nthati Rampa, South Africa's National Honour, September 2026
Nthati Rampa wrote the highest-scoring poem from South Africa in the Writory International Poetry Contest, September 2026: Just a slow revision, scored 78 out of 100 by the blind judging panel across five published criteria. The poem was read in English (Latin script).
Just a slow revision
Blue mucous. Silent sneezes. Flowers first — always the softest things. They fold in on themselves, loudly, they think. No one hears. Patient blue keeps her hands steady while everything small learns how to die. You asked for forever like it was included. I said yes the way people do when they mean until this stops working. Did it hurt — or did it simply refuse to feel like you imagined? Some things rot quietly. Not collapse — not ruin — just a slow revision of what they were supposed to be. The roses knew first. Red is temporary. It lifts — like something scrubbed too often, like guilt with nowhere left to settle. What’s left is softer. Paler. Unmistakably finished. You called it heartbreak. I called it a seasonal end. Time doesn’t interfere. We did the rest. The planet watches. It always does.
Every country's leading poet each month is named on the September 2026 National Honours. The contest is open to poets in South Africa and everywhere else: enter the current round, and every poem receives a score out of 100 and a certificate.