The skin area

Vibes of the Saints - Paul Grillo

US poet and collagist Paul Grillo passed away earlier this week. One of his collections was Vibes of the Saints, published by Cherry Valley Editions in 1977, with an introduction by Claude Pelieu-Washburn.
Two of Grillo's poems were published in Green Dragon #3.

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

In your own sweet way

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.

Self-portrait

Ramblin' on my mind

Private Archaeology

Private Archaeology, a chapbook of poems by D.R. Wagner, published by Bottle of Smoke Press, Delaware, 2013.

Easy steps

The Rhodes MA in Creative Writing

Rhodes University’s MA in Creative Writing is open for applications for 2014. You can do the course full time over one year in Grahamstown or part time over two years from wherever you live.  The MA includes 16 weeks of coursework from several teachers followed by a book-length creative work which can be written in English, isiXhosa or Afrikaans.  This can be a novel, non-fiction work, playscript, short story collection or poetry collection.

All the teachers on the course are practising writers: Joan Metelerkamp, Mxolisi Nyezwa, Brian Walter, Paul Wessels, Joanne Hichens, Anton Krueger, Ingrid Winterbach, Rian Malan, Godfrey Meintjes, Russell Kaschula, Hazel Crampton, Paul Mason, Eben Venter and Robert Berold.  Plus you will get input from writers in residence, who have recently included Lesego Rampolokeng, Kobus Moolman, and Soga Mlandu.

Entry to the course requires a twenty page portfolio of creative work and an honours degree. If you don’t have the necessary formal qualifications, acceptance is still possible with an extensive publication record and/or outstanding potential as a writer.

Deadline for applications is 30 October 2013 but entries are already open. Places are limited. 
Go to http://www.ru.ac.za/isea/courses/mainwriting/ to find out more.

Email us at isea@ru.ac.zato join our mailing list and get updates and information.

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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)

Keep your hands to yourself

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

New title from Dye Hard Press: fhedzi by Khulile Nxumalo

fhedzi is Khulile Nxumalo's second poetry collection.
94 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9869982-1-8

Khulile Nxumalo was born in Diepkloof, Soweto, in 1971. He finished school at Waterford Kamhlaba, Swaziland, and went to the University of Cape Town, University of Natal and Wits University. His first poetry collection, ten flapping elbows, mama, was published by Deep South in 2004. His work has appeared in several literary journals in South Africa, Canada, the UK and the US. Nxumalo has twice won the DALRO award for poetry.  He has two children.

Khulile Nxumalo is one of the few poets in South Africa using longer experimental forms. He has found a creative way of breaking up the English language and fusing it with other languages. He is also capable of intense lyrical expression. – Robert Berold

magma-burn. emotion-lava spilling out. of wounds. 

and thoughts of them expressed in ghostly words

of the divining spirit. and coming thru the smog.

and dust,blood-rained on strange children's games.

and ever The Voice, lonesome, wearied, spiralling inward...

with this one, sikhulile! – Lesego Rampolokeng

fhedzi will soon be available at bookstores countrywide, at an estimated retail price of R145. If ordered directly from the publisher, the price is R120, including postage.  contact dyehardpress@iafrica.com to order.

My sorceress