John Bradburne Martyred, 1979

This is now the oldest deviation actually photographed by Mr a* ever submitted. This picture of John Bradburne, the martyred saint of Mutemwa, Zimbabwe, in the harmonium loft of the Romanesque mission church at Chishiwasha where John did odd jobs and kept hives of the fierce African honey bees with which he had an affinity.

I had gone to him towards the end of 1967 to ask him for some poetry to publish. He allowed me to take this photograph and gave me a perfectly crafted sonnet called Gemitus Mortis, which was duly printed in a quarterly poetry magazine. This was his first appearance in print. After he was shot dead in the first week of September 1979 it was discovered that he had written over 6,000 poems, some of considerable length, and was thus the most prolific poet in the English language!

This is a website that I feel deserves to be recommended to all people of conscience: charterforcompassion.org/

core.ac.uk/download/pdf/145043… except that Gemitus Mortis was NOT 'published for here for the first time' or at all. But I'd effectively published it as a guest editor of Two Tone quarterly poetry magazine for the Spring 1968 edition along with co-editor Anthony Arrowsmith! 38 years before!