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Poetry Africa Workshop and Kenya Seminar

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Poetry Africa hits Johannesburg for a one-off showcase on 11 October at Alexander Theatre with a star-studded lineup of poets and musicians which includes Chris Abani (Nigeria), Didier Awadi (Senegal), Chiwoniso (Zimbabwe), Kwame Dawes (Ghana/Jamaica), TJ Dema (Botswana), Khadijatou (UK), Myesha Jenkins, Lebo Mashile, Oswald Mtshali and Shailja Patel (Kenya). The event is organised by the Centre for Creative Arts (University of KwaZulu-Natal), and supported by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (principal funder), Mimeta, and Hivos.

Also on offer is a free Poetry Writing Workshop with Kwame Dawes and a seminar on the Kenyan Trials by Shailja Patel.

Using writing exercises and communal critiques, the workshop with Kwame Dawes will explore issues of form, content, and sentiment within the larger context of the work of established writers from various literary traditions, but especially those of Africa and the Diaspora. Participants should bring pen and paper, and a copy of a poem written by a poet they admire. Kwame Dawes is an acclaimed writer of fiction, nonfiction, plays, and a prolific sixteen collections of poetry. He is also an actor, producer, an accomplished storyteller, broadcaster, and was the lead singer in Ujamaa, a reggae band. Winner of a Pushcart Prize, Kwame Dawes is Distinguished Poet in Residence at the University of South Carolina where he directs the SC Poetry Initiative and the University of South Carolina Arts Institute. He is also the programming director of the Calabash International Literary Festival in Jamaica. The workshop is hosted at Goethe Institute, 119 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parkwood, at 5:30 pm on Monday 10 October – visit www.goethe.de/southafrica for more information or call 011 442 3232.

Shailja Patel’s seminar Seen And Unseen: Windows On The ICC-Kenya Trials will unpack one of the most important stories in Kenya’s history that is playing out now, in real time, in the chambers and corridors of the International Criminal Court. This story encompasses all the other narratives, of land, ethnicity, power, dynastic politics, going back to the formation of the Kenyan state. Kenya’s future as a nation hangs in the balance – the seminar questions whether the cycle of impunity will finally be broken? Shailja Patel is a founding member of Kenyans For Peace, Truth and Justice, the civil society coalition that pulled Kenya back from the brink of civil war in 2008. Her poems have won awards on 3 continents, and been translated into 15 languages. In 2011, she was named one of Fifty Inspirational African Feminists by the African Women’s Development Fund, and she has been selected by Poetry Africa as the 2011 Letters To Dennis Brutus poet for 2011. This seminar takes place in the Graduate Seminar room, South-West Engineering building, Wits East Campus from 16:00 – 17:00 on Tuesday 11 October. Enquiries can be made to 011 717 4051.

The Poetry Africa tour also travels to Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Cape Town before culminating at the main Poetry Africa festival in Durban (17-22 October). See www.cca.ukzn.ac.za for more information.


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