Live Lit on the MAP

There's a gigantic arts festival on this weekend to celebrate the opening of MAP, a  arts-and-culture space/community incorporating gallery and theatre space located in the Solaris Dutamas development. All kinds of happenings are planned including, art, performance and music. And there are plenty of literary events, among them Poetry Underground, and readings organised by Bernice Chauly to celebrate Earth Hour (8.30-9.30 pm Saturday).  Do go check out the programme for details and also the Festival's Facebook page.

When I heard about it a few days back  my reaction of course was "Oh S**t!" because my own event runs on Saturday afternoon and of course quite a few of the regulars are involved and, of course, deserve support.   I really didn't know this was on the horizon when I organised things! But one doesn't go back on promises, so yes, we're on for Saturday even if we don't have the biggest audience.

And since I can't make it to the MAP Festival on Saturday, I will hope to pop along for Sunday's events and check out this exciting space.

Literary Happenings!

Here are some of the other literary things you can find going on in the next few days in KL.

Tomorrow, Saturday 22nd November at 5.30pm at Silverfish Books (58-1 Jalan Telawi, Bangsar, KL) Kee Thuan Chye and friends Azmi Sharom, Animah Kosai, Helen Ang and Chacko Vadaketh will be reading excerpts from March 8th : The Day Malaysia Woke Up. There will be a discussion and Q&A after the reading and refreshments will be served. Free admission. (More information here.)

The Department of English Language and Literature (IIUM) will be hosting An Evening of Readings and Spoken Word on Tuesday 25th November from 8:00pm - 10:30pm in Ballroom 3, Crown Princess Hotel, City Square Centre, Jalan Tun Razak. This is an event held in conjunction with the international conference entitled ENGLISH and ASIA: First International Conference on Language and Linguistics 2008.

The evening will feature local poets and writers Dato' M. Shanmughalingam, Prof. Ghulam-Sarwar Yousof, Dr. Nor Faridah Abdul Manaf, the popular KL Slam's regulars and finalists, the active spoken word collective Poetry Underground and many more.

There will also be a performance by Ms Hardev Kaur, renowned Malaysian Hindi singer and local indie musicians ready to perform their original compositions. There may also be an open mic session.

The event is free for all Conference delegates. However, for non-delegates, there is a RM40 door fee inclusive of supper break by the end of the program.

Please reserve tickets now as places are limited. Contact Sheena 0129522094 nubian.crib@gmail.co to book your seats or if you have any enquiry! (The event also has a Facebook page.)

Please don't forget about Readings@Seksan on November 29th. I am just about to get the info out!

Poetry Underground @ Readings

I have so many photos from our Saturday's Readings@Seksan's that I've decided to put them up in a couple of batches.

The enthusistic young poets of Poetry Underground were launching their new collection of poems - Voices from the Underground - and we got everyone (except the very shy Nurul and Pey who is in the UK) reading one of their pieces and proving that this group is going from strength to strength.

Reza was first up and had the audience holding their breath (!) while he read a poem about a diver going deeper, deeper holding his breath. Amazing how this little ploy makes you really concentrate on the words!

Sheena Baharudin read her Dialogue in 3 Tongues - a love poem for God in English, Arabic and Malay.

Catalina Rembuyan.

Evanna Ramly read Emeralds and Sapphires - a beautiful piece spoken by a betrayed woman after the break-up of a relationship.

Hazlan read a powerful piece called Kabur, in Malay.

Kathleen read one of my favourite poems from the book - asking why people are afraid of poetry. Very apt and very true.


George read a poem that was NOT about all the controversial Malaysian issues he wanted to talk about and it ended up of course being about all the great unsaids.

Congrats to Kathleen Choo for getting this project together and for being prepapred to put her own money into the publication. No doubt it will be sold at gigs and I hope you will soon find it in the local bookshops, so do pick up a copy of this limited edition book so they can afford to publish the next one along.

Poetry Underground are loooking from fresh talent, so if you are a poet who would like to work at your craft, both on the page and in performance, please contact Kathleen via the Facebook group.