Kwame Dawes gave a talk on African Poetry during the Rotterdam poetry festival, which I found very interesting. First of all, I just came back from South Africa and wanted to know more about what’s going on there. Second but most importantly, Kwame runs African Poetry Book Fund which is the only press that promotes poetry from Africa. There is so much to learn from his model as I’m also trying to collaborate with an American publisher for the DJS poetry series. Third but not the least, when he was asked to read an “African poem” he said No, and when he finally agreed to read a poem he said “I hope you won’t say this is not African poetry.” I laughed so much. His reading was not the “typical” “performance”. Here is his own blog writing for the festival: http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/festival/blog/23398/Wednesday-June-12th-Day-Two
You can find all his five pieces here: http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/festival/bloglist/en
(more photo reports to come — MZ)
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