Yes, We Do Read!

A National Library survey said that only 13% of 27 million Malaysians read books. Come into the light, where we can see you :)

says Dizzy Firefly a.k.a Liyana Yussof in the first post of a new blog called :

and we also read

in which she and others sneak up on people reading all over the Klang Valley to celebrate :

those who choose not to stare into space while on the train, in queues, waiting, or walking around. ... We don't care who you are, what you look like, what you're wearing, what your language is. You were reading, we found you ...

Inspired by a really nice blog called other People Reading which lets us know what people are reading in Los Angeles, the intitiative fits very nicely into Zain's Read While Waiting Project.

Contributors to the blog are needed, so dig your camera out and hit the streets as a roaming reporter!

By the way, I remember that Pak Adib has some very nice candid shots of KL folks reading but am not sure where to find them now. In looking for them I found this nice photo of Adib by Han Ghazi on Flickr.

Do Do Do The Hudson

Zombiebite (aka the lovely Liyana) is definitely on to something when she invites her blog readers to write their own '"hudsons" - a Malay translation of an English rhyme or poem which capture as closely as possible the spirit of the original. I really think that this may catch on and we may be eternally grateful for the inspiration provided by Ms. Hudson.

Here's one I wrote way back (before I even knew what hudsons were!) ... but I'm so very proud of the only poem I've ever managed to write in Malay. I'm sure you know this traditional rhyme (no poet to credit):

Round and round the garden
Like a teddy bear
One step, two steps,
Tickle him under there!

which when hudsoned becomes:

Dikeliling kebun,
Seperti Si Bruang,
Pijak satu! Pijak dua!
Geletek kau? Jangan!!!

Do feel free to add your own hudsons in the comments or slip in a link to one on your own blog.

Malaysian Poetry Idol

Some pictures from last night's poetry extravaganza at Wayang Kata IV at No Black Tie.

As usual the event was entertainingly compared by Jerome Kugan and Jasmine Low doing their famous double act.

Jerome also rolled up his sleeves and sang for us:

Jasmine read some of her poetry, and Shahrul Nizam read some pieces from his new collection If Only. (And was a lot less shy reading than I thought he'd be!)

Then the six poets competing for three places to go to the Singapore Writers' Festival in December:

Priya K.

Liyana Yusof

Bathsheba Zlikha Arsalan

Datuk Shan

Patricia Low

And ... oh my goodness, realised that I didn't get a photo of Divya KM Jiwa! My biggest apologies.

Members of the audience got to vote for their favourite. Daphne Lee, Pang Khee Teik, and I were the judges and we looked for those whose words had touched us most deeply. The standard overall was high (and I'm so happy to see how far these guys have come on, performing their work). A special commendation to Shan for making us laugh and Zlikha for her dazzling showmanship which involved several changes of clothing.

When the votes and our marks were tallied, the winners were Priya, Liyana and Divya. Well done, guys.

I missed some of the later stuff as I was hiding from all the cigarette smoke which was bringing back the hacking cough I thought I'd got rid of. But who was the woman with the truly astonishing singing voice? I want to buy her album! And who was the hip-hop poet? I want him for my readings later on!

Grandparents and Political Prose ... an Afternoon at Seksan's

And some time later that same afternoon, in another beautiful gallery ... and this time among the paintings of Aswad Ameir.

David Byck kicked things off. David, the author of the successful It's a Long Way to the Floor, is also writing fiction. He read a section from the first novel he attempted, based very much on his own life and featuring his grandmother. It sounded pretty damn good! Maybe it's time to dust the cobwebs off it, David and let it see light of day.

Ted Mahsun relaxes during the break. He read a short piece in Malay which he said was written by a friend of his who had passed away. Pretty naughty and had the audience laughing.

Gary Ooi Yinn Hee only began writing seriously a year ago when he penned a play of The Oral Stage's 59 minutes called Fruitcake, and another called M for Magenta for their 2007 production, Screwed. Gary also attended Malika Booker's poetry workshop a few months ago. he read several poems, some of them very short. I particularly liked one about his great-aunty. He read Fruitcake, a very edgy little play, with Sharanya.

I'd wanted to get Liyana Yusof to read at Seksan's since hearing her at the Food Foundry performance of work for Jacob Sam-La Rose's workshop. She read my favourite poem Grand Parents (a lot of elderly relatives appearing in work today!) and other short poems including one I really liked called billy jeans. I really liked a longer prose piece, no questions asked (a portrait of loneliness) addressing an absent lover. Liyana has put together a collection of her writings in a chapbook called Paper Trails for Strangers.

I met Andre Vltchek through Amir Muhammad and he is really is a fascinating guy, and I was thrilled when he agreed to do a reading for us. (He is also reading at the event Bernice is organising tonight at No Black Tie, so you have a chance to catch him there.)

Andre is a novelist, journalist and filmmaker and the co-founder of Mainstay Press which publishes. He has written a book of political essays Western Terror: From Potosi to Baghdad, and wrote Exile with Rossie Indira based on his interviews with the great Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer.

Today though he read a chapter set in East Timor from his novel Point of No Return. The blurb on the back of the novel* says that the book is written from the point of view of a war correspondent:

... visiting places that are rarely covered by the mainstream media, offering provocative points of view about the pitiful state of today's world, its disparities and scandalous post-colonial arrangement - including global market fundamentalism and neo-conservative culture that are overthrowing democratic principals that humanity has fought for over the centuries. The narrator of Point of No Return struggles to document many of these crises and scandals, all the while trying to sort out his complicated life - including his love for a possibly unreachable woman, and the level of his personal involvement in the stories he covers. By the end of the novel, he has gone all the way, in his personal, professional, and political life as well. This global novel vividly describes reality, the state of the world, and the grievances and hopes of people the world over.

The prose was hard hitting and Andre was a tough act to follow.

Because CEan couldn't make it today, as her mum is seriously sick, I had decided to fill that last-minute gap on the programme myself. ('Cos how can you call yourself a writer if you don't put your work out?)

The piece I feel pleased with is a short-short story called Homunculus written in just two sentences (an Oulipo-type constrained writing technique - try it!). I also read a piece about the Walter Mitty type character I live with (don't tell him, folks!), and a couple of slightly older pieces.

Very many thanks to Seksan for the beautiful space, to La Bodega for the wine, to all who came, to all who read, to all who helped set things up and clear up afterwards.

I am planning for the next "Readings" to happen on July 28th and already have a good list of readers lined up, including acclaimed Malaysian-American author Tinling Choong.

Postscript:

Sufian captured the event so well in his photos. The one below really shows the artwork (and the audience!) off to advantage. Lots more here.


*Andre's novel is published locally by Strategic Information and Research development centre, Malaysia.