Saturday 29 November 2008

New addition to blog list

Just a quick note that I've added a link to Chris Mlalazi's blog, Writing Seriously. He was a Poetry International blogger during the festival at Southbank.

Chris co-wrote a play called The Crocodile of Zambezi. You can read his post on Poetry International here.
And this link from an ironic post by Peter Fogtdal on the recent censorship of the play:

"...Raisedon Baya, Christopher Mlalazi, Aleck Zulu, Lionel Nkusi. These scoundrels had the audacity of writing and producing a play called The Crocodile of Zambezi. It premiered May 29, 2008; the writers and actors had worked on it for two years.

[...]

"So Robert Mugabe send some of his boys from the secret police. They rounded up the actor Aleck Zulu and the production manager Lionel Nkosi and gave them a ride in their car. They tortured them and put a gun in their mouths."

More at International PEN:

"The cast and crew of the satirical play The Crocodile of Zambezi have been at threat since May 2008, when two members of the company were attacked and the play was banned by the authorities in Bulawayo

According to the WiPC's sources, production manager Lionel Nkosi was tortured and threatened with death, and actor Aleck Zulu was beaten by police..."

Chris has posted many interesting things on the theme of Poetry and Freedom for the blog. His last post there is here.

Ngiyabonga ka khulu, Chris, for your poetry and thoughts. We hope things get better for you and your co-creatives soon.

Wednesday 12 November 2008

The Editors Arrive at Southbank

Retrospectively, here is the full experience of the Editors' first arrival at Southbank, for the launch of Poetry International 2008.


Friday 7 November 2008

A Quick Note...

...about two new additions to our roster of little presses: Exact Change and Atlas Press both specialise in avant garde literature of the last century or so, with particularly strong coverage of Surrealism and Dada. Wonderful stuff, but most exciting of all is the fact that Exact Change is run by Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang of American indie titans Galaxie 500. Those of you too young to remember, or for anyone who's never heard of them, below is video for their song 'When Will You Come Home', from their album On Fire. Enjoy, comrades...