All your life (you know)

 

Hey, you!

 

Each step backward erases each step taken - by Paul Warren

UK artist Paul Warren created this collage, titled 'Each step backward erases each step taken', inspired by my poem 'Mirror', which appears in my selected poems Outside the cave, published by Dye Hard Press.

 

Just five copies left of The cactus of a bright sky

 

Recently published by Dye Hard Press, Alan Finlay's The cactus of a bright sky is a chapbook of seven poems. 16 pages.

Limited to 50 numbered copies, and just five copies left!

Cost if R160, including courier, for domestic South African orders.

Please email dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.

Outside the cave in England

Nice to see that artist Paul Warren, in Daventry, England, has received copies of Thunder on the highway  and Outside the cave - granted, one swallow doesn't make a summer, but at the same time I am praying that this means the South African Post Office is upping its game.

 

Outside the cave in France

French poet and collagist Bruno Sourdin has received his copy of Outside the cave, which was sent via the South African Post Office. This makes me feel optimistic that the postal service is returning to 'normal' and that overseas mail will get through more often than not (our postal service has never been the best)!

And so Outside the cave should soon start reaching overseas readers.

I am your fantasy

 

A Dye Hard Interview: Dimakatso Sedite: With poetry, there is nowhere to hide

Dimakatso Sedite was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Her poetry has appeared in Teesta Review, Brittle Paper, New Coin, Stanzas, Kalahari Review, BKO, Botsotso, Aerodrome, BNAP and elsewhere. She was the joint winner of the 2019 DALRO Prize. She holds an MA in Research Psychology from the University of the Witwatersrand. Yellow Shade (Deep South, 2021) is her first book of poems

Yellow Shade is your first collection, but I am curious about how long you have been writing for.

I have been writing intermittently for myself since I was about 19 years old, or even earlier, if the short story I wrote when I was 10 is anything to go by. I would write mainly short stories and some poems, throughout my 20s and 30s, but did not see myself as a writer by any stretch. It was only in 2016, 27 years later, that I decided to submit my work for publication in journals. So, in that way, I’m a bit of an anomaly. All poems in this book were written between 2016 and 2020. Read more.

The call

 

Outside the cave: selected poems by Gary Cummiskey

Outside the cave is a selection of Gary Cummiskey's poems from 1990 to 2019, chosen and introduced by Kobus Moolman.

164 pages.

ISBN 978-0-9869982-8-7

Outside the cave will be available from select bookstores. If you order directly from the publisher, the cost will be R280, including courier to your door.

I need to make a plan for overseas orders. The reliability of the South African Post Office is at an all-time low, worsened by delays due to Covid. For example, some Dye Hard Press books mailed to England and France last October have still not arrived. But keep watching this space!

In the meantime, for domestic orders, please send an email to dyehardpress@iafrica.com.

Sunday Invader

 

Paul Warren selects 'In chains' by Gary Cummiskey for National Poetry Day

UK artist Paul Warren selected the poem 'In chains' by Gary Cummiskey for National Poetry Day and posted the poem on Facebook.

The poem is as follows:

In chains

I leap down from the building

into the fire.

They women stand

with their breasts in chains.

I can't get to collect my curry supper.

The owl is going insane.

This a night of anxiety.

I'm on a flying island.

I'm singing, singing, but nobody hears.

A glove is stuck in my throat.

'In chains' was published in the collection Sky Dreaming, published by Graffiti Kolkata, India, 2011.