Also in Starmag today - a feature by Tan Karr Wei about the winners of the Apostrophe sixteen word short story competition and their Bali trip. (A shame there isn't a bit more about the actual festival apart from a passing mention. This is one of the major literary events in the region, and the Malaysian authors who attended did the country proud!)The battle of the performing poets at Wayang Kata IV is featured in a very entertaining piece by Daphne Lee.
I do like her little diversion about the Sylvia Plath film where a poetry recital leads to some passionate table-top sex! Rest assured though, nothing happened like that the other night. You'd have to go to the Ubud Writers' Festival to find that!(Divya, the one poet I didn't manage to get a photo of the other night, is pictured here, right. And of course, that's Priya K. to her left.)
The education section of the Star has a very nice article by Sarah Chew about some of the excellent initiatives in Malaysian schools to encourage kids to get their hands on books.I was really pleased too, to read about how some schools are encouraging parents to get in on the act. The student-teachers I was working with earlier this year had seen parents helping in UK schools and knew what a big difference such involvement can make. And now it seems that the idea is percolating into Malaysian classrooms. Great!
5 comments:
Sharon, here, there's a wonder initiative by the British Malaysian Society - members collect books and send them off to schools in Malaysia.
re: parents in schools - yes, we have had to do that when the children were small. The schools here are so short of staff that they really need parents to come in and help with the reading.
i heard about a similar or perhaps the same project through cfbt. it's good to see parents helping schools and making change.
my own reservation is that it makes malaysia look like a third world charity case when lack of money isn't the problem but lack of will certainly is. i hoped this project would shame the government into taking action but i don't think that happened. (mind you i did see good libraries in the two rural pahang schools i visited)
Congratulations to all the winners and participants :D
Unfortunately, Plath and Hughes do not have sex on a table, just a boring old bed. BTW, Daniel Craig is dishy as Hughes (who was VERY dishy anyway), *so* dishy that I didn't recognise him. I think he looks like a thug as Bond. I wonder what he'll be like as Lord Asriel in the Golden Compass film. Hmm ... what's this abt actors playing Bond *and* Asriel - Timothy Dalton played Lord Asriel in the HDM play at the National Theatre.
Indeed.. if anything we should be collecting books and sending them there. I've had an American prostitute ask me for any books I can spare, because her business was hard hit by all the free porn on the net :) so it's not like anyone is in a position to be condescending.
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