Kali Yug Express by Claude Pelieu, translated into English by Mary Beach, with a foreword by Charles Plymell. Published by Bottle of Smoke Press, Dover, Delaware, USA, 2012.
Friday, 28 September 2012
Thursday, 27 September 2012
Monday, 24 September 2012
The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword: Massive global arts movement mobilizes to change the world
Over 800 Events Planned in 115 Countries for100 Thousand
Poets for Change
Santa Rosa, Calif. (September 24, 2012) – September 29, 2012
marks the second annual global event for 100 Thousand Poets for Change, a
grassroots organization that brings communities together to call for environmental,
social, and political change within the framework of peace and sustainability.
An event that began primarily with poet organizers, 100 Thousand Poets for
Change has grown into an interdisciplinary coalition with year round events
which includes musicians, dancers, mimes, painters and photographers from
around the world.
Local issues are still key to this massive global event as
communities around the world raise their voices on issues such as homelessness,
global warming, education, racism and censorship, through concerts, readings,
lectures, workshops, flash mobs, theater performances and other actions.
But these locally focused events have taken on a more
continuous and expansive form through the new disciplines represented this
year. For example, photographers are making a long-term project out of the
event; they will document the involvement of their communities and explore
connections with the broader global issues to turn into future exhibits. More
and more organizers and participants of the one day, annual event are making
plans to continue their actions after September 29. Many have formed groups in
their cities that will continue to work year-round towards the goals their
community seeks.
“Peace and sustainability are major concerns worldwide, and
the guiding principles for this global event,” said Michael Rothenberg,
Co-Founder of 100 Thousand Poets for Change. “We are in a world where it isn't
just one issue that needs to be addressed. A common ground is built through
this global compilation of local stories, which is how we create a true
narrative for discourse to inform the future.”
More than 200 hundred bands will be performing around the
world, from Los Angeles, New Orleans and Detroit to Serbia, Nigeria and Italy.
The musicians involved in this movement are once again using their songs and
performances to try to communicate their concerns to the world. As Ross Altman,
singer-songwriter, activist and educator, reminds us: “from Plato, who banned
[musicians] from the Republic, to Putin, who had Russian punk band members of
Pussy Riot arrested, charged, tried, convicted and sentenced to two years in
prison for a song prayer, musicians throughout history have been regarded as a
danger and threat to change the social order.”
In addition to the hundreds of musicians expressing
themselves through song, numerous Mimes for Change events in Egypt, Turkey and
Uruguay will take place in addition to the day long poetry festivals in Los
Angeles, Guatemala City, Pune, India, La Plata, Argentina and Genoa, Italy;
thousands of musicians, poets and artists are participating around the world,
totaling nearly 800 events globally, including:
• 25 different events in the San Francisco Bay Area, the
birthplace of 100 Thousand Poets for Change, including poetry readings by Beat
Legend Michael McClure, former US Poet Laureate Robert Hass and other major
poets at the famed Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival
• In New Orleans, 15 live bands will perform to raise funds
for the APEX Youth Center and Homegrown Harvest Music and Arts Festival
• In Hollywood, Florida, Global Vibes will host an event
called, “War Destroys Children’s Lives” at two venues and feature over 15
“Bands for Change”
• Peace On Streets, R.O.A.D., Tasker Elite and SHARP will
host performance artists, poets, musicians, hip hop artists and various youth and
parent groups who will perform and lead workshops throughout Philadelphia to
bring awareness to the ongoing problem of street violence in their city
• Wordstock, a 3-day festival at the Bamboo Arts and
Celebration Center in De Leon Springs, FL will include poetry slams, concerts,
and an art exhibition focusing on images of war and peace
• The Occupy Wall Street Poetry group kicks off a weekend of
events in New York City with a poetry reading at the famous St. Mark’s Poetry
Project
• In Jamaica, a week long Street Dub Vibe series called
“Tell the Children the Truth” will include concerts, spoken word performances,
art exhibits, lectures and workshops to bring attention to the damaging culture
of secrecy and denial surrounding the abuse, poverty and illiteracy impacting
the nation’s children and destroying their future.
• Poetry and peace gatherings are planned in the strife-torn
cities of Kabul and
Jalalabad, Afghanistan
• In Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt, poets, musicians and mime
artists, in response to violence in the world and the major changes taking
place in the Arab World, will perform in public spaces and theaters and explore
new ways to communicate their concerns, and their roles as artists, in
influencing the future of their country
• In Volos, Greece, there will be 5 days of poetry and music
events, including an
exhibition of photography looking at the new phenomenon of
homelessness in Greece
• An event in Blackpool, England will celebrate activist
poets and writers of past
generations through a special performance of Bullets and
Daffodils, a play about the life of peace poet Wilfred Owen
Organizers and participants are hoping through their actions
and events to seize and redirect the political and social dialogue of the day
and turn the narrative of civilization towards peace and sustainability. Those
that want to get involved can visit www.100tpc.org
to find an event near them or sign up to organize one in their area.
About 100 Thousand Poets for Change
100 Thousand Poets for Change began in Sonoma County, Calif.
The official Headquarters’ Event will take place at the Arlene Francis
Center in downtown Santa Rosa and will feature poetry readings, group
meditations, workshops, and music and dance of various styles including hip
hop, flamenco, African drums, reggae, salsa, folk and more. The HQ event will
also live-stream other 100 Thousand Poets for Change events worldwide. This
3-day event is sponsored by the Peace & Justice Center of Sonoma County and
the Sonoma County Arts Council.
Immediately following September 29th, all documentation on
the 100TPC.org website, which will include specific event pages with photos,
video and other documentation compiled by each city coordinator, will be
preserved by Stanford University in California. Stanford recognized 100
Thousand Poets for Change in 2011 as an historical event, the largest poetry
reading in history. They will continue to archive the complete contents of
100TPC.org, as part of their digital archiving program LOCKSS.
Co-Founder Michael Rothenberg (walterblue@bigbridge.org) is a
widely known poet, editor of the online literary magazine Bigbridge.org and an
environmental activist based in Northern California. Terri Carrion is a poet,
translator, photographer, and editor and visual designer for
BigBridge.org.
100 Thousand Poets for Change
P.O. Box 870
Guerneville, Ca 95446
Phone: 305-753-4569
Sunday, 23 September 2012
Friday, 21 September 2012
Wednesday, 19 September 2012
Melville Poetry Festival Promises More Than Just Words
 |
| Photo: Rene Bohnen |
This
year’s event received a significant boost with sponsorship from Die Dagbreek
Trust and others. This has allowed it to develop a
broad programme where music, art and poetry will intersect in “a festival of the poetic,” says
organiser Hans Pienaar. The slogan is “it’s more than words”.
Artists
such as Willem Boshoff, Hennie Meyer, Danie Marais and Diek Grobler will
contribute visual interpretations of the poetic idea. There will be exhibitions
of art works incorporating text and poetry and various art installations.
Music
will feature prominently including through the hugely popular slam poetry
platform, Oopmond, which pits poets
and musicians against each other. At least two Oopmond sessions are on the cards. Negotiations are continuing with
up and coming young bands that specialise in more poetic lyrics. A programme of
lieder will be offered alongside items bordering on street genres such as
kwaito.
Poets from all over
the country will take part. These include Kobus Moolman, Michelle McGrane, Khulile Nxumalo, Mxolosi Nyezwa, Allan Kolski Horwitz, Gary Cummiskey, Tumelo Khoza, Gail Dendy, Arja
Salafranca, Peter Horn, David Chislett, Afurakan, Alan Finlay, Hans Pienaar, Mphutlane wa Bofelo, Phillippa de Villiers and Lionel Murcott.
Poets who work specifically
in Afrikaans include Loftus Marais, Rene
Bohnen, Andries Bezuidenhout, Toast Coetzer, Danie Marais, Johann Myburgh, Ian
Raper, Mellet Moll, Christo van Staden, Charl-Pierre Naude, Corne Coetzee, Jo
Prins, Ronel Nel and De Waal Venter. .
Several
of the participants will use the festival to launch their most recent
anthologies whilst open mike sessions will allow festival-goers to give their
own efforts a bash.
The
programme will also include panel discussions on contemporary sociocultural
issues ranging from the crisis in education to the concept of “lojale verset”
or “loyal resistance”. Two chill-out
lounges will provide non-stop playlists of documentaries on poetry and poets as
well as lyrical songs.
According
to Pienaar, the Melville Poetry Festival intends to provide a multilingual and
cultural showcase for poets from all walks of life.
“Crossover is the driving force for the
festival. We want to show that poetry is not an activity for hermits, but something
that we all use as daily as part of using language. We envisage a space in
which kwaito and Boerneef will jostle together to entertain with the same
effortless ease.”
Poets
and other performers or artists wishing to get involved with the Melville
Poetry Festival are invited to contact Hans Pienaar on email: mwhanspi@mweb.co.za
or mobile: 082 447 6404.
Friday, 14 September 2012
100 000 Poets Come To Johannesburg
September 29 marks the
second anniversary of 100 000 Poets for Change, a global event initiated by US poets Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion last year, which draws poets, artists and musicians together on a single day to
simultaneously call for environmental, cultural, social and political change.
This year there will be
about 700 events throughout the world, including in Johannesburg, Cape Town,
Durban and Bloemfontein.
The Johannesburg event is
being held under the auspices of the Melville Poetry Festival at Picobella
restaurant, Melville. The excellent line-up of poets comprises Gary Cummiskey,
Arja Salafranca, Michelle McGrane, Gerard Rudolf, Hans Pienaar, Corné Coetzee,
Rene Bohnen, Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, David Chislett, Alan Finlay and Khulile Nxumalo.
Pienaar’s new Afrikaans
novel, Chaos, of Op Soek Na Superman
(Chaos, or in search of Superman)
will also be launched at the event.
By using readings, concerts
and workshops, communities throughout the world can address issues such as
censorship, abuse of power, social inequality, racism and poverty, according to
Rothenberg.
“With 100 000 Poets
for Change we aim to seize and redirect the political and social dialogue of
the day and turn the narrative of civilization towards peace and sustainability,”
he says.
Pienaar, who is the chairman of
the Melville Poetry Festival which will run from 12 – 14 October, says a
consensus is fast developing across the world that things cannot continue as
they are, no matter what one’s ideological orientation might be. And while the
call for change may be vague, this is probably fitting since part of the
problem is that world leaders and experts are at a loss what to do about the
world’s ills.
What poetry can do is also not
clear, except that it is the art form that serves one best when you tread out
into an unknown world, or one without any clear answers or signposts. In South
Africa recent events have perhaps finally shown that the “New South Africa” is
over, and that the rainbow nation is a myth, and that we need to relook and
re-examine most aspects of our society.
Certain themes from 100 000
Poets For Change will be carried over to the Melville Poetry Festival, where
some of the events will focus on the need for resistance, while others will
celebrate the fact that simply to produce good poetry is already an act of
bringing change to the world.
A micro-blog to promote and celebrate the Johannesburg event
is being developed on the 100 000 Poets for Change site here
100 000 Poets for Change – Johannesburg will be held at
Picobella restaurant, No 66, 4th Avenue, Melville, on September 29,
from 4pm to 7pm. Pienaar’s new book, as well as titles by the various poets,
will be on sale.
Wednesday, 12 September 2012
Monday, 10 September 2012
Jack Kerouac's Last Night in Northport by Pat Fenton
Published by The Beat Scene Press, Coventry, UK.
Saturday, 08 September 2012
Wednesday, 05 September 2012
Saturday, 01 September 2012
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