Rereading Left Over by Kobus Moolman

This morning I started rereading Left Over by Kobus Moolman, which Dye Hard Press published in 2013. It was the second Moolman title to be published by Dye Hard Press. 

Three Kobus Moolman titles published by Dye Hard Press

 

Over the past 17 years Dye Hard Press has published three titles by renowned South African poet Kobus Moolman: the play Full Circle (2007), and the poetry collections Left Over (2012) and He Said/  /She Said (2024). 

He Said/  /She Said was printed in a limited, numbered edition of 120 copies. You can order the book from Clarke's Bookshop here.

Dye Hard Press celebrates 30 years of publishing anti-bestsellers!

Wow, I have just realised that Dye Hard Press is 30 years old this month! That's 30 years of publishing anti-bestsellers! While it would not be an overstatement to say that Dye Hard Press is on life support, we are stilll around!

Thank you to all those who have supported us throughout the years.

Below are two of our most successful titles:

Chatsworth still on a roll!

Have just received an order for another five copies of Pravasan Pillay's Chatsworth! Along with Kobus Moolman's Left Over and the short story anthology The Edge of Things (edited by Arja Salafranca), Chatsworth is Dye Hard Press's most successful title by sales!

Copies of Kobus Moolman's Left Over still available for sale

Dye Hard Press has unearthed some more copies of Kobus Moolman's poetry collection Left Over, published in 2013.

Available for R150, including postage, in South Africa. For overseas the cost is R190. To order please send an email to dyehardpress@iafrica.com.

Copies of Kobus Moolman's Left Over still available

Dye Hard Press has unearthed some more copies of Kobus Moolman's poetry collection Left Over, published in 2013. Available for R150, including postage, in South Africa. For overseas the cost is R190. 

To order please send an email to dyehardpress@iafrica.com.

Three Dye Hard Press titles nominated for SALA literary awards 2014

Gary Cummiskey's Off-ramp has been nominated for the Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award 2014, while Khulile Nxumalo's fhedzi and Kobus Moolman's Left Over have been nominated for the SALA Poetry Award 2014.
The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Pretoria on November 7.
Read more here.

A visionary stare at reality: a review of Kobus Moolman's Left Over by Kyle Allan

Kobus Moolman's Left Over reviewed by Sheila Black

Left Over (Dye Hard Press, 2013) by Kobus Moolman is the kind of book that takes you by the scruff of the neck and shakes you. These are poems to wake you up. Well-known in his native South Africa, Kobus Moolman deserves to be better known and better read here. Lyric, vigilant, hyper-alert to the surfaces, textures and sensations of the physical world, the poems in Moolman's sixth collection are beautiful and dangerous, a meditation on the fraught and even perilous relationship of mind and body...Read more here

Review of Kobus Moolman's Left Over

The mostly nameless poems in Left Over, Moolman's sixth collection, are hard to crack at first. Sense emerges from the whole, rather than the constituent parts.

A bleak narrative unfolds the story of a mind adrift in a body that requires from both narrator and reader absolute attention.

The feeling of containment within skin, set off against the boundary-less flapping into madness of the mind, is intensely and carefully carried through the whole work.  Progression hides inside the repetition that manifests itself in each poem in the corporeal.

Moolman uses simple, exact language to delve into abysses where the usual boundaries between inside and outside, between body and mind, should exist. The reader's fine attention and engagement are required, and richly rewarded.

Karin Schimke

(Published in Cape Times) 

Kobus Moolman wins 2013 Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Award

Kobus Moolman has won the 2013 Sol Plaatje European Union Award for his poem “Daily Duty”. Moolman was announced as the winner on Saturday evening at the 17th annual Poetry Africa International Poetry Festival, where The Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Anthology Vol III, comprising the best poems by the shortlistees, was also launched...Read more here

Moolman's latest poetry collection, Left Over, is published by Dye Hard Press

Khulile Nxumalo and Kobus Moolman to participate in the 2013 Poetry Africa International Festival

The 17th Poetry Africa – International Poetry Festival presented in partnership with the City of Durban and the KZN Department of Arts and Culture is proud to announce the festival line-up, which promises to be an exhilarating showcase of diverse voices and sounds. Organised by the Centre for Creative Arts (UKZN) to take place from 14-19 October, this festival is a critical platform for self-expression that offers a space for cultural exchange in the city of Durban.

The festival’s line-up features a ground-breaking poetry project – a 12 track recorded album entitled Insurrections – featuring poets and ethnomusicologists from India and South Africa. The project sees the rich sounds of the Indian music tradition blend with African instruments accompanying radical poetry from both continents. The Insurrectionsensemble will be performed by musicians Sumangala Damodaran (India), Jürgen Brauninger (South Africa), Neo Muyanga (South Africa), Pritam Ghoshal (India), Brydon Bolton (South Africa), Bettina Schouw (South Africa), Sazi Dlamini (South Africa) and Paki Peloeole (South Africa). The poetry contingent for Insurrections will comprise of Ari Sitas (South Africa), Malika Ndlovu (South Africa), Sabita TP (India) and Vivek Narayanan (India). The ensemble will perform on Thursday, 17 October.

Keeping with the musical theme of this year’s edition, the festival will feature five poets who also work as recording musicians. Kabomo Vilakazi is a singer, songwriter and actor who also features in South African poetry circles. Nominated four times for the SAMAs and a former editor of youth culture magazine Y-Mag, his credentials in the entertainment industry are indeed formidable. Kalawi Jazmee artist Busiswa Gqulu returns to Poetry Africa in the middle of her impressive reign on the music charts throughout Africa. She first graced the Poetry Africa stage as part of the all-women poetry collective Basadzi Voices in 2008 and has also performed solo in 2010. South African poet Natalia Molebatsi is also a writer, facilitator and programme director who recently founded a South African-Italian music project with the band Soul Making. Her poetry is published in the books We Are.(2008) and Sardo Dance (2009). Durban-born poet, performer and MC (Ashleigh La Foy) is well-known on Durban stages for both her poetry and her musical prowess. Having earned her stripes as a female rapper, she will indulge Durban audiences with her poetic oeuvre ahead of her much-anticipated debut album. Hailing from the Eastern Cape, Pura Lavisa is a writer, performer and poet whose musical arrangements incorporate percussion and African sounds. Lavisa will be presenting a collection of poems mostly in isiXhosa.

Returning to the Poetry Africa stage, well-respected Soweto-born dub-poet and writer, Lesego Rampolokeng, will deliver an infectious brand of poetry influenced by Black Consciousness and rooted in the lived experience of people on the margins. Also from Soweto, Khulile Nxumalo will present works from his first title ten flapping elbows, mamaand his latest collection fhedzi, published by Die Hard Press. Critically acclaimed, Nxumalo was twice named the recipient of the DALRO prize for poetry. Nigerian-born poet Kole Odutola will also be reading his latest work at the festival. Odutola teaches at the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of Florida and has published extensively both in academia and literature. Another participant with a background in teaching languages is Kobus Moolman, based at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Moolman’s latest collection Left Over is currently enjoying rave reviews in the press and his performance will allow an eager Durban audience a chance to celebrate his vast canon of works.

Johannesburg-based performance and slam poet Mandi Poefficient Vundla forms part of the Word n Sound collective and is featured on the online and print publications of Poetry Potion. Crowned ‘Queen of the Word and Sound Mic’ in 2012, she has graced numerous poetry stages including Arts Alive and Jozi Book Fair. Another young female voice featured in the line-up is Sanelisiwe Ntuli, a wordsmith from Hammersdale who writes and performs in isiZulu. Ntuli is a graduate of the Kwesukela Storytelling Academy and regularly features as a storyteller and voice artist on educational programmes of Ukhozi FM. Also writing in isiZulu is Professor Langalibalele F. Mathenjwa is holding a Doctor of Literature and Philosophy from UNISA. He is a published writer of isiZulu poetry, novels, short stories and folklore and has chair Usiba Writers Guild, South African Geographical Names Council, IsiZulu National Language Body and the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names-Africa South Division.

Four poets from the Irish poetry collective O’Bheal will present their work at the festival. This contingent consists of Paul Casey, Afric McGinchey, Billy Ramsel and American-born Raven. Completing the international line-up will be Ian Kamau (Canada), Barnabe Laye (Benin) and Raphael d'Abdon (Italy/ South Africa). Kamau is a writer, visual artist, hip hop and spoken word artist from Toronto, whose discography lists five collections, including the popular album One Day Soon (2011). He will be presenting additional workshops in advance of the festival. A poet and novelist, Laye has published a dozen books and is the recipient of the Nelligan Prize his lifetimes work. His most recent work is entitled Poems in Absent, a long wait (2010). D’Abdon is an Italian scholar, writer, editor and translator and a post-doctoral fellow in the English Studies Department at UNISA. As an editor, D’Abdon recently published Marikana - A Moment in Time, as well as an anthology of poetry about the massacre and his own collection, Sunnyside Nightwalk.

The festival’s community outreach programme will see poets visit over twenty community centres, campuses and tertiary education departments across Durban and beyond. In addition, participating poets will visit twenty schools to discuss reading, writing and the performance aspects of poetry.

Organised by the Centre for Creative Arts (University of KwaZulu-Natal), the 17th Poetry Africa is funded by the City of Durban and the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Arts and Culture. The Centre for Creative Arts is housed in the College of Humanities at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The CCA is a special project of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Cheryl Potgieter, in the College of Humanities at UKZN.

Cape Town Launch of Left Over by Kobus Moolman

The Cape Town launch of Kobus Moolman's new poetry collection Left Over will be held at the Book Lounge, on Thursday September 26, 5.30pm for 6pm. Moolman will be introduced by Liesl Jobson who will also lead a brief Q&A afterwards. 

RSVP booklounge@gmail.com or 021-462 2425

Launch of Kobus Moolman's Left Over in Pietermaritzburg

Pietermaritzburg launch of Kobus Moolman's Left Over

The Pietermaritzburg launch of Kobus Moolman's Left Over will be on Sunday, September 8 at 11am at Café Tatham at the Tatham Art Gallery. RSVP Bryony.Clark@msunduzi.gov.za

Moolman launches sixth poetry book

Award-winning poet and playwright Kobus Moolman will launch his sixth collection of poems, Left Over (Dye Hard Press), at Ike’s Bookshop tomorrow (Thursday, August 29) at 6 pm.
Moolman, who teaches creative writing at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, has just returned from a three-month writer’s residency at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. ...Read more here

Durban launch of Kobus Moolman's Left Over

The Durban launch of Kobus Moolman's latest poetry collection, Left Over, will be held on Thursday, 29 August, 5.30pm for 6pm at Ike’s Books, 48A Florida Road, Durban. 

Telephone: 031 303 9214. 

RSVP Cedric Sissing at 

cedric@adamsbooks.co.za or on 082 873 2702.

Launch of Kobus Moolman's Left Over and Khulile Nxumalo's fhedzi at Love Books, Melville, Johannesburg on July 25 2013

What I'm reading: Kobus Mooman

Poet Kobus Moolman was born in Pietermaritzburg in 1964. He has been awarded the Ingrid Jonker Prize, the Pansa award for best drama, the Dalro poetry prize and the South African Literary Award for poetry. He teaches creative writing at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. He has just released his latest collection of poems, titled Left Over (Dye Hard Press).

I’ve just spent three months at Rhodes University as their Mellon Writer in Residence, which not only meant lots of time staring into the blue yonder, writing new pieces and fragments of pieces, but also plenty time to read and to amass new titles.

I finished Thomas Bernhard’s Gargoyles, a brutal and austere book about a rural doctor who takes his son with him on his daily rounds, but filled with extraordinary passages like: “The darkness is cold when the head is switched off.” Then Roberto Bolano’s Monsieur Pain. Bolano is one of my favourite writers, though I admit I have not yet pushed through his 2666. After Bolano there was Sleeper’s Wake by Cape Town writer Alistair Morgan. The first half of the book was excellent – the opening chapters winded me. His prose is clean, cold and beautiful. Then I read lots – and I do mean lots – of poetry, and discovered many new authors. The American Alice Notley, for one. Her new and selected poems, Grave of Light. Extraordinary! Read lots of Louise Gluck, and Marianne Borusch, Mina Loy and Jorie Graham.

Then a friend gave me Anne Carson’s An Oresteia, her translation of three Greek tragedies. I’ve only read her introduction to Agamemnon so far that begins thus: “It’s like watching a forest fire.”

(Published in Cape Times, July 12, 2013)

Invite to the Joburg launch of Kobus Moolman's Left Over and Khulile Nxumalo's fhedzi