When I last saw the silver star

If I were a bell

A song for the first girl I loved

Two poems by Gary Cummiskey published in Have your Chill

I have again had two poems published in the Australian poetry zine Have your Chill, edited by Pete Spence. As usual, when Pete sends out his contributor copies, he includes a gift collage.

Editor needed for New Coin

ew Coin

New Coin is looking for a new editor to begin work in January 2019 (first issue: June 2019).

The editor should have a good sense of the range of genres and sub-cultures in South African poetry today, and be willing to engage constructively with new writing and writers.

The main responsibilities would be:

·         selecting and compiling material for each issue

       (two issues a year – typically 50 poets submit work to each issue)

·         selecting cover art for each issue

·         identifying and selecting new books to review, and finding knowledgeable reviewers

·         corresponding with poets, notifying them of acceptances and rejections, as well as making constructive editorial suggestions

·         appointing a judge for the annual DALRO Prize

·         liaising with the designer of New Coin on production matters

·         proofreading

·         maintaining the New Coin page on Facebook

·         promotion of New Coin

·         liaison on administrative matters with the publisher – the Institute for the Study of English in Africa (ISEA) at Rhodes University in Grahamstown.

The editor can be based anywhere in South Africa. He or she will have the support of an editorial advisory board appointed by the ISEA. A small stipend is paid for the work.

If you’re interested, please send a letter of motivation spelling out your vision for the future of the journal, together with a short CV, to isea@ru.ac.za before 31 October 2018.

As she looked down ...

Text messages | Eleven short trips to Chatsworth, by Darryl Accone

Readers of Pravasan Pillay’s Chatsworth who know the place and its people say: “That’s the way they talk” or “I recognise that”. Having read the 11 short stories in this Dye Hard Press collection, I feel tempted to claim that now I know it too. Of course, I don’t really; rather, what I do is recognise it.

But for this debut collection of short fiction to achieve that is considerable. Read more.

Austere beauty of Chatsworth by Niren Tolsi

His prose is spare yet precise in detail and minutiae. It captures not merely the lives of people living in the eponym of his collection, the former Indians-only township south of Durban, but the claustrophobia and gloom that accompanies class and caste disdain, racial oppression and the fatalism of a dead-end —set to a dead-beat — imposed on individuals and a community.

His stories are the mise en scène of melancholia.

“I have always felt that there is a deep vein of melancholia that runs through Chatsworth and which touches the lives of some of its residents,” says Pillay. Read more.

Not going very far

Food ( Music is the weapon of choice)

Graffiti in Venice, 2016. 

Opening up Soweto and Chatsworth with stories: a glowing review of Chatsworth in Business Day

Pravasan Pillay writes about another township, Chatsworth, in Durban. Seldom have I come across similar writing in which I can hardly wait for the next sentence. His collection could yet be remembered as the harbinger of a major authorship, up there with the very best in short SA fiction: Ivan Vladislavic, Nadine Gordimer and Hennie Aucamp. Read more.

A place where paradox lives and breathes - a review of Chatsworth, by Francine Simon

As a South African Indian, it is not easy for me to find writing that is descriptive of my cultural heritage. This is what I have experienced from the time I could read. The poets, the novelists, the short story writers and the playwrights scattered among the 2.5 percent of South Africans of sub-continental descent who identify as ‘Indian’ are scarcely represented in our national literature. I am continually seeking out depictions of the complex, rich culture I come from. Sometimes, I find a poem in an online magazine. Other times, it is a short story in a print journal. But discoveries like this do not happen as often as I would like...Read more

Literary bunny chow: a review of Pravasan Pillay's Chatsworth in Sunday Times

The queen begins to dream

A tweet from Saaleha Idrees Bamjee

#amreading Chatsworth by Pravasan Pillay. Such artfully crafted characters, wonderfully nuanced tellings. Published by @GaryCummiskey.

Copies of Gary Cummiskey's Bog Docks still avaiable

Dye Hard Press has just FOUR copies left of Bog Docks, a chapbook of 25 poems by Gary Cummiskey, published in 2005.

Available at R60 per copy, including postage, for South Africa. For overseas the cost is R110, including postage. Email dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.