Poetry as intervention: an interview with Alan Finlay

Alan Finlay lives in Johannesburg where he works as a writer, researcher and editor on issues of media freedoms and internet rights. His poems have appeared in various journals locally and abroad, and short selections of his poetry have been published by small presses. Over the years he has founded and edited a number of literary publications, including Bleksem and donga (with Paul Wessels). With Arja Salafranca he co-edited a collection of prose and poetry called glass jars among trees (Jacana, 2003). He was editor of New Coin poetry journal from 2003-2007. His latest collection of poems, pushing from the riverbank, is to be published by Dye Hard Press in October 2010.

To read the interview, click here

Spring 2010 issue of Incwadi

Check out the Spring 2010 issue of Incwadi, a South African online journal of poetry and photography. This issue of Incwadi includes poems by Robert Berold, Ingrid Andersen, Gary Cummiskey, Isabel Dixon, Gus Ferguson, Sarah Frost, Colleen Higgs, Aryan Kaganof, Aryan Salafranca, Kobus Moolman, Fiona Zerbst and many others.

September 11 series - drawing 1

(Un)veiling by Mandilakhe Yengo

A short film by Mandilakhe Yengo, starring Alude Mahali, and based on my poem 'Corner Cafe' from the collection, Today is their Creator. The film was premiered as part of South Africa's City Breath Festival of Video Performance and Poetry.

A daisy in the memory of a shark - Pete Winslow

A daisy in the memory of a shark is a collection of poems by little known US surrealist poet Pete Winslow, published by City Lights Books in 1973. Winslow was just 37 when he died the year before as a result of complications following surgery. He had published a handful of small collections since the early 1960s. There is very little information about Winslow on the internet.

Lines from some of the poems in A daisy in the memory of a shark read as follows:

I called the ocean by its first name

I became an eon but a billion years passed in an instant...

A strange wind carries children to the tops of buildings...

How may I become your clothes when you are so lovely nude

This is the problem of the moon

Whose solution is to disappear...

The invisible telephones of the wind are ringing...

I am famous for the beer which flows from my hair...

Morning stretched its layers of light so softly

That hundreds of night creatures caught unaware

Run about on the table while we have coffee...

I bid my life for the girl tasting of poppies...

The murmur of the city is the beginning of the earthquake...

Your eyelids close

And you inspect me with your alternate eyes...

My pillow over my face

Its hair turning my mind to feathers...

My portrait is ill today its hair is falling out...

Sinclair Beiles: The first poet in space by Heathcote Williams

“The poetry of Sinclair Beiles is distinguished and long distilled; its unexpected striking images bring a flash of surprised recognition. The poems open slowly in your mind, like Japanese paper flowers in water.”

William Burroughs

Despite Burroughs’ impressive recommendation Sinclair Beiles often fell asleep during his own poetry readings thanks to a hefty diet of prescription drugs which Sinclair would carry around in a large plastic bag and which were always placed beside him on-stage so as to be within easy reach. This was a pity since Sinclair’s poems, as Burroughs had attested, were worth listening to, once he could be aroused...Full text available as a PDF here

(This piece was first published in The Raconteur. Copyright: Heathcote Williams)

Forthcoming publication from Dye Hard Press: pushing from the riverbank by Alan Finlay

ISBN: 978-0-620-48421-3

A new collection of 20 poems by one of South Africa's most innovative poets. 44 pages.

Publication scheduled for the end of October.
Price and availability to be confirmed.

Previous titles by Alan Finlay include Burning Aloes (Dye Hard Press, 1994) No Free Sleeping (with Vonani Bila and Donald Parenzee) (Botsotso, 1998) and The Red Laughter of Guns in Green Summer Rain (with Philip Zhuwao), published by Dye Hard Press in 2002. In 2003 he co-edited with Arja Salafranca glass jars among trees, an alternative anthology of poetry and prose, published by Jacana.

He founded and edited the literary publications Bleksem (1994) donga, with Paul Wessels (2000) and was editor of New Coin poetry journal from 2003 to 2007.

Qui était Sinclair Beiles? - Dionysos Andronis

Avec cette collection d'essais le poète Gary Cummiskey rend hommage posthume à son compatriote homologue Sinclair Beiles (1930-2000). Nous avions écrit un article sur le dernier recueil de Cummiskey Aujourd'hui est leur Créateur (voir notre Kagablog du mois de décembre 2008). Cette fois, nous aimerions tirer votre attention sur cette collection essentielle. Nous avions acquis une bonne impression de Cummiskey comme critique littéraire par sa revue Green Dragon. Maintenant avec cette collection d'essais notre première impression est confirmée.

Ce n'est pas parce que Beiles est resté longtemps en Grèce que nous avons été motivés pour écrire cet article mais par le fait que Beiles était un proche des beatniks américains et qu'il est resté pendant un moment à Paris. Il avait co-habité avec eux à l'Hôtel parisien Beat (aujourd'hui renommé "Relais Hôtel Vieux Paris"). "Le fait que Beiles avait une collaboration avec les écrivains Beat à Paris était une coincidence brève. Le fait aussi qu'il était plus un fan qu'un similaire dans cet hôtel Beat ne renverse pas son identité Beat" (une citation de Eva Kowalska, op.cit., page 85).

Le critique littéraire américain George Dillon Slater écrit : "Sinclair à Athènes faisait son autopromotion et pratiquait la psychanalyse dans un café près de la place Kolonaki. C'était une bonne idée parce que les Grecs s'autoproclament extrêmement intelligents", op.cit. page 67. Cette touche ironique de Slater vient compléter notre estimation personnelle de cette "inteligentsia du café expresso" grecque et pourrait justifier la dépression nerveuse de Sinclair Beiles en Grèce : "Souvent Sinclair était interné dans une clinique grecque pour retablir et après il venait chez moi dans l'île de Hydra pour reposer" (op.cit. page 63).

Gary Cummiskey est un poète important et avec ce livre il nous confirme qu'il est aussi un grand humaniste des lettres.

India-based poetry book sparks US customs interest

"My good friend Subhankar Das in Kolkata is a poet and publisher "at the epicenter of the underground movement in Bangla literature" as a colleague accurately and aptly puts it. He's a deep and passionate writer, great thinker, funny guy, and can out-chain smoke you...

"In 2009, Subho expanded his activities: going online with vengeance, he is now curating and publishing poets from across the globe and getting some of his and other Bangla writers' works translated into other tongues.These publishing efforts are documented on the Graffiti-Kolkata blogzine , and recently culminated in the printing and publishing of The Stark Electric Space, an international anthology of indie writers"...read more here

Illustrated book covers

I really love the illustrated covers that books used to have and a big regret of mine was letting slip the opportunity to buy an excellent big book on the history of book covers in the 20th century ( or maybe since the advent of the paperback explosion, I can't recall).

Anyway, here are just some illustrated covers of books in my library at home.

Light and After by Kobus Moolman

New poems from Pietermaritzburg poet Kobus Moolman, published by Deep South. Contact r.berold@gmail.com for order details.

Linda Stenman on Romancing the Dead

Romancing the Dead (Tearoom Books, 2009) is a short collection of prose poems.

The poems are beautiful, provoking and sometimes shocking. All of them are good and some are very good.

To read Gary Cumminskey is a special experience that shouldn’t be missed! My personal favourite is the title story. And I really like the cover.

I say: ***(**)Thank you Tearoom Books for the review copy.

First published on Linda Loves Books.

Rough Travel: poems by Jeffrey S. Callico

A collection of 24 incisive domestic vignettes, reminiscent in style of William Carlos Williams. Published by Graffiti Kolkata Press.

The Dye Hard Interviews

Dye Hard Press is proud to announce the launch of a new blog called The Dye Hard Interviews.

The Dye Hard Interviews will contain interviews with writers, poets and small publishers throughout the world, focusing on the non-mainstream.

The blog kicks off with an interview with South African writer Arja Salafranca, whose debut short fiction collection The Thin Line was recently published by Modjaji Books and who has just received the prestigious Darlo Award for her poem 'Steak' in literary journal New Coin.

The blog also contains interviews with Australian poet and artist Philip Hammial, first published in Green Dragon 5, and wth South African poet Vonani Bila, first published in The Weekender.

Dye Hard Press will keep you informed as and when new interviews are published.

Invite to the first Jozi WordJam - Friday 23rd July

Featuring four poets
& open mic

Join us every 3rd Friday for an evening of great food and wine and the spoken word.

Friday 23rd July - 7pm (R20 cover charge)

Gail Dendy was first published by Harold Pinter in 1993, and her six collections of poetry have appeared variously in SA, the UK and USA. She is an internationally trained dancer, and helped pioneer Contemporary Dance in SA between the late 1970s and the early ‘90s. Other passions are environmental- and animal-rights issues. She lives in Johannesburg together with family, pets, a law library, and a huge collection of Rock ’n Roll.

Marcia Nonkululeko Tladi is a writer of poetry and prose. Her poetry is collected in Timbila journal and in Words Gone Two Soon (Umgangato), a tribute to K. Sello Duiker and PhaswanevMpe. Marcia is a contributing member of the Miriam Tlali Book & Reading Club, a brainchild of Write Associates where she helps to run the Children’s Club. She has also worked with the Johannesburg Library and Information Services, adjudicating in their writing and poetry competitions.

Khulile Nxumalo was born in Diepkloof, Soweto, in 1971. He lives in Johannesburg and pays the rent by working in television as a writer, researcher and director. His poems have been published in South Africa, Canada, the UK and US. His first collection, Ten flapping elbows, mama, was published by Deep South in 2004. He is working on two manuscripts of poetry.

Alan Finlay founded and edited the literary publications Bleksem (1994) and donga (with Paul Wessels, 2000), and also edited New Coin poetry journal (ISEA) for four years from Dec. 2003 - Dec. 2007. In 2003 he co-edited glass jars among trees (Jacana) with Arja Salafranca. His poems have appeared in various journals locally and abroad, and short selections of his poetry have been published by Dye Hard Press (1994, 2002), Botsotso (1998), and online at Southern Rain Poetry (2009). A new collection of his poems is due out by Dye Hard Press in 2010.

Contact 011 615 7531 – The Bell Pepper, 176 Queen Street – Kensington

See link below for map
http://www.thebellpepper.co.za/map-to-the-bell-pepper

To take part in future readings and a series of planned literary salons in the coming months please mail Gillian or Arja at jozi.wordjam@gmail.com

Towards the digital future

According to this year's Reading the Future report, only 26% of UK book buyers had heard of a Kindle, only 41% knew what a Sony Reader was, and an overwhelming 70% said they had no intention of buying an eReader. From a South African perspective, these figures were an eye-opener, particularly in view of many South African readers' resistance to the concept of ebooks... Read more here