Blog
Posted on Wednesday, May 18th, 2016
Friends, We, the band of merry minstrels, dancers and shufflers of the word before the wind of eternity, nomads searching for the horizon of the unknowable, dry drunks, low-way robbers, apprentice tricksters, would-be revolutionaries… Salute and hail you, our illustrious ancestors and ...
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diow 2016, Conversation III
Posted on Wednesday, May 4th, 2016
07.05.16, 2.30pm, CONVERSATION III Even the angel of history cannot bear to look. Angelus Novus is mono print or oil transfer method invented by and executed by Paul Klee in 1920. It is now in the collection of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. In his ninth thesis in the essay “Theses on the ...
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diow 2016, Conversation II
Posted on Wednesday, May 4th, 2016
07.05.16, 12pm, CONVERSATION II Taunting that powdered death called Respectability. The history of protest in poetry and song, fighting for revolution, against politics. “At last we know that not all problems need to have solutions, because some solutions can be more disastrous than the problems ...
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diow 2016, Conversation I
Posted on Wednesday, May 4th, 2016
07.05.16, 10am, CONVERSATION I Is statue smashing the armed wing of political correctness? Does destruction of the symbols from the past bind the wounds of the present, or are we tilting at windmills? A confident and secure government – and populace – does not find such symbols threatening. M ...
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Bowie – Kgositsile, 6, 5, 4 degrees of separation
Posted on Monday, May 2nd, 2016
"David Bowie calls The Last Poets' record 'one of the fundamental building blocks of rap.' Asked by Vanity Fair (Nov. 2003) to list just 25 albums from his vast vinyl collection that he had to get on CD, Bowie makes the Poets’ debut his first choice." The Last Poets is the name for several grou ...
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Cancellation: M. Michel Deguy
Posted on Monday, May 2nd, 2016
We regret that M. Michel Deguy has had to cancel his participation in this year's festival due to ill health. We wish him a speedy recovery. For the Poetry Reading on Saturday 7 May a slot will be dedicated to his work and translations of his work as facilitated by Prof Catherine du Toit. ...
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Harriet Tubman in the news, twice
Posted on Monday, April 25th, 2016
FOR STERLING PLUMPP When Harriet Tubman heard the thunder of the guns and saw their terrible lightning and the blood and the dead bodies your voice was there Your voice was born and borne in the muddy waters of the delta way before a brother had been through enough to ...
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Posted on Monday, April 18th, 2016
The late Léopold Sédar Senghor was a renowned writer but only recently has a significant volume of his work been translated from French to Serer, reported Ndéla Faye from the village of Fadial, Senegal, to the UK's The Guardian newspaper in March this year. Senghor co-founded, with Aimé Cés ...
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Al-Massri: The Genesis of a Poem
Posted on Monday, April 18th, 2016
The Genesis of a Poem (The foreword to Barefoot Souls, Tr. Theo Dorgan, Arc Publications, 2015) It is always difficult to recognize the moment that gives birth to a poem, and even more difficult to grasp all the circumstances that surround and accompany the moment. Even if one knows th ...
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Deguy’s Prose/Prosa
Posted on Monday, April 18th, 2016
Prose / Prosa Michel Deguy, France Tu me manques mais maintenant Pas plus que ceux que je ne connais pas Je les invente criblant de tes faces La terre qui fut riche en mondes (Quand chaque roi guidait une île à l’estime de ses biens (cendre d’ Oiseaux, manganèse et ...
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use words to shape a new imaginary
Posted on Friday, April 15th, 2016
My conviction is that every writer should be an activist and every activist a poet, someone who tries to use words to shape a new imaginary. Excerpts from an article by Mark Heywood, titled Democracy and the writer, as published by the Daily Maverick, Opinionistas, on 30 March. The article is ba ...
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Fernão the Gardener has Premonitions
Posted on Monday, April 11th, 2016
By Yvette Christiansë There is a stain on the horizon. It leaks into the world, covers the linens, covers the faces and turns this ocean, shuddering, from its course. I speak two tongues – one dressed in syllables of government, shielded by amen and hallelujah, the ...
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Ko Un en vriend by Kersefontein
Posted on Friday, April 8th, 2016
Ko Un en vriend by Kersefontein Breyten Breytenbach op Kersefontein se werf hurk die ou digter langs die vaal hond met die deursigtige oë en die twee praat land en sand aanmekaar in ‘n ewigheid van stilte ...
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