Poetika

Do you like poetry?

Do you love it?

Do you like it better than shopping?

Think Plath and Auden were your real parents?

Would your life be totally meaningless, worthless, hopeless and unbearable without it?

Do you dream of having your own poetry published so much so that you stay up late at night, night after night, writing your bestest poem ever?

Then you need PoetiKa!

JK

If you saw yourself in that intro, don't be shy about sending your work to Jerome and the other guy whose art you can see atop. The submission guidelines are here. There's also a Facebook group.

Readings@Seksan in May - Sticky Post

Catch our next monthly writers' event :

Date: 24th May, 2008
Time: 3.30pm
Place: Seksan's, 67, Jalan Tempinis Satu, Lucky Garden, Bangsar

Admission free and everyone very welcome. Please pass on the invitation to anyone else you think might be interested.

"Readings" is the birth-child of Bernice Chauly, lovingly fostered by Sharon Bakar.

My biggest thanks to Shahril Nizam for the lovely blog poster.

This post will remain sticky until after the event. For later posts, please check below.

Postscript :

Kenny would like you to vote for the story he reads on Saturday!

Postcards for Protest

Sisters In Islam were handing out these lovely little postcards at the book fair. Not for people to tuck into their new books to mark the page (although I did steal one or two and will use them for that purpose) but to sign and send to the Minster of Home Affairs as a protest about the banning of books in Malaysia. The picture is by ... of course everyone's favourite illustrator, Shahril Nizam. I wonder if this is the cutest protest by anyone, anywhere, ever.


My clumsy translation (without help, without a dictionary and which you can pick me up on!) :

As a Malaysian citizen who loves to read, I strongly condemn book banning by the government.

The act of banning goes against the notion of freedom of information and runs contrary to the reading campaigns that the government itself has encouraged.

I am concerned that action like this will have a harmful effect on the intellectual development and creativity of the people.

More about the forum on book banning to come.

Readings@Seksan in April - Sticky Post

Catch our next monthly writers event! (Map) Admission free and everyone is very welcome. Please pass on the invitation to anyone else you think might be interested.

It's a little early this month, for one good reason. When author Kunal Basu contacted me to say that he would be in town, I had to grab him for the event. He will also be appearing at MPH's Breakfast Club in the morning (11-12.30 a.m.). Eric has an excellent write-up on Kunal whom I first met at the Ubud Writers' and Readers' Festival, and then again at the Singapore Writers' Festival.

The lovely poster was designed by Shahril Nizam, and I think I owe him big time!

(This post is sticky. For more recent posts, please check below.)

Quill in Orbit

The latest edition of MPH's Quill magazine is out, complete with astronaut on the cover and some good content which editor Eric has listed here. The magazine is free to MPH card members and RM8 for non-members.

Tan Twan Eng's article about how to get an agent and improve the chances of your book being published is absolutely invaluable to anyone who plans to take that route.

I also loved Preeta Samarasan's review of Wena Poon's Lions in Winter :

Poon writes about the Asia I know, and she does so with grace, insight and compassion. In these eleven stories, East and West do not inhabit one dimensional roles - submissive versus dominant, traditional versus modern - but mingle to produce the knotty realities of globalisation.

And of course, Deepika Shetty interviews one of the deities in my literary firmament, Vikram Seth.

I didn't blog about the previous issue because I forgot to pick up my copy until just the other day, and then some poor sales assistant had to dig round in a back room to see if any were left! It was nice to see that the front cover pin-up boys were Amir Muhammad and Shahril Nizam. Much more alluring than the politicians who graced (?) previous issues.

Bibliobay

Here's are the pieces that illustrator Shahril Nizam's has donated to be auctioned to raise funds for the Malaysia-UK Exchange Project with the current bids.

(If you want to bid, contact Daphne Lee at oneredflower at gmail dot com.)

Two Children. Current bid RM220.


Teapot. Current bid RM250 RM350

No 3. Current bid RM 50.

Tales FromThe Other Side

If there was one theme running through "Readings" this Saturday it was of folks who are usually on one side of the literary fence (as student, reviewer, editor, avid reader, illustrator), now skipping over to reveal themselves as writers, one or two of them coming out of the closet for the first time!


Janet Tay (below) was a litigation lawyer in a previous incarnation and says that she decided to leave the fast-paced life of waiting in courtrooms and long breakfasts at court canteens to indulge in her first loves - books and writing. She now puts on a literary editor's hat and works for a publishing house. She's also working towards a Masters degree in Literature at Universiti Malaya.

Her short story, Callus, was highly commended in the 2004 Commonwealth Broadcasting Association Short Story competition and has also been adapted for the Oxford Bookworms World Stories collection which will be published in 2008. Another short story, Transience, appeared in the August edition of Off The Edge.

She read from a short story set in an airport lounge and told from two different viewpoints. It was self-assured writing and very well observed.

Catalina Rembuyan works in the English Department at Universiti Malaya and is also doing her M.A. She says that she started dabbling in writing and reading poetry thanks to events and workshops held by the British Council.

She showed us the city waking up in 4.30 a.m. a very effective listing poem, and then read us Like a Sparrow in prayer form. This was followed by several others including a poem about darkness after a generator fails, a comical sonnet Observe the Ant on the Toilet Floor, and a piece she has read in readings before, Moving On. It seems to me that Catalina is growing in self-assurance - both in her writing and in her delivery of her work. Hope that she now looks at getting some of her work published.

I'd been asking Shahril Nizam to read ever since I learned that he writes verse to accompany his illustrations. He used to say that he was too shy, but I'm really happy that with the launch of his book If Only, he is feeling more confident. He chose several of my favourite pieces from the book including KingKat, My Aunt Rose, Creature (Dis)comforts and Rumination.

I had asked him if he would bring some of the original illustrations along with him and he brought a portfolio of pictures from the book and others I hadn't seen before. Here's Erna Mahyuni and Irene Kiew going through them.

Daphne Lee is probably best known as a journalist, writing about books for Starmag where she has a Sunday column. She also has a blog dedicated to children's writing. She recently made her debut as an author with a series of children's picture books.

Today though she read a series of untitled poems telling the story of a relationship which:

starts - flourishes - fails

Very moving and accessible, as with Catalina's pieces, it would be lovely to see them in print now the appetite is whetted.

Shamala S. Palaniappan is a book-addicted friend of mine who also writes. She's a marine scientist by training with post-graduate qualifications in genetics and statistics, and is most interested in communicating science in writing. She's now a full-time medical writer but working on more personal pieces in her spare time. She read two pieces for us Trails and Oasis, the first, inspired by a conference on global warming, drew on a beguiling blend of physics and philosophy to talk about the trails of energy we leave behind us. It felt rather Kundera-ish!

This lady is taking my creative writing class but I don't think she needs any more than the permission to say "Go ahead and write, kid". I don't think she did at all badly for the first time she read.

At the end of the afternoon, Animah Kosai (for some reason dressed in yellow) introduced another first time reader.

She had read a piece Vani (below) posted in the comments of Haris Ibrahim's blog, a big howl of hurt about the ongoing Hindu temple demolitions in this country. Animah was so moved by Vani's words in Oppressed in My Own Country that she invited her along.

Vani had never thought herself a writer before, but when the heart is moved there's a need to express it in words, however raw. And she read her words with great confidence.

I hope Vani will continue to draw on that passion now that she has seen how she is able to affect and reach others.

Anyway, thanks (as always) to those who read, and those who came and supported so well. Thanks to Seksan for the beautiful venue. To Shahril for the lovely poster. To those who helped set up and clear away. To Catalina for bringing wine. To whoever brought all those snacky things.

Will try for December 29th for the next readings and will confirm as soon as possible. Shall we have a Christmas theme? I'll try to get some mistletoe!

Weekend Bookish Things

Some pictures of bookish things of the weekend.

MPH Writer's Circle focused on illustration this month and the guests were Shahril Nizam, Amir Muhammad and S. Yu who drew the delightful cartoon pictures for Eh! Wat U Talking: Chronicles of Malay Humour. Yu also has three "graffic biographies" of Malaysian politicians in the pipeline.

The shy Shahril needed a little drawing out but was fascinating as he talked about his illustrations for If Only, and he and Amir talked about how illustrations were an integral part of Politicians Say the Damndest Things. (Lovely review of the book here by Ted, by the way.)

The conversation I thought got particularly interesting when we talked about book covers which didn't scare of marginal readers. Jennifer Eileen Peters, author of Making Chatter Matter turned up for the meet, and talked about how happy she was with Shahril's art work for her cover.

It was a very comfortable and friendly discussion which I think we all enjoyed, but still ... wish the audience for these things was a bit bigger.
.In the evening I went along to Silverfish for the official opening of Raman's new shop, which is already looking like home.

Raman was launching News From Home, a compilation of the work of three of the participants of his writing programme. The brave souls (left to right Kow Shih-Li, Rumaizah Abu Bakar and Chua Kok Yee) gave a short reading (a first for all of them!) from their work and then (perhaps even more bravely!) answered a few questions from the audience. What was evident in all of them was the desire to work at their craft and their enthusiasm for writing. I really wish them all the best with the book, and thanks Raman for the review copy. Promise some feedback.

All the usual suspects were there and here's Diana Cooper, me, Daphne Lee, Peter Brown and his wife Markiza.

Got up early today to go to the Penguin/Pearson warehouse sale. Here are my spoils! Am around RM300 lighter in the pocket which I don't think at all bad for this big pile of things I really want to read.

The sale is very well worth going to with excellent bargains and a huge variety of books of all kinds. You do need to be organised though. One tip which I pass on is to take those tough supermarket shopping bags (the ones you buy so you don't need plastic bags). They are easier to carry around than clumsy boxes.

You also do need to be fit to push through the crowds and not mind the heat and chaos and thick thick dust! But where would the adventure be if it wasn't like that?

Fairy Tales for Grown Ups

Many of the pictures, with their echoes of fairy tales and children’s stories, might be described as “charming”, or even “cute”, but then on the next page the reader is confronted with an image that totally jars – a headless torso, a tree sprouting from the top of a boy’s head, a strange monster, or an unearthly fruit. ... It’s a dissonance that fascinates, and it can be found in the accompanying poetry, too. ...

... The book’s slightly other worldly quality is further emphasised by the quaint formality of Shahril’s word choice (for example, enraptured, partake, comely, reverie, perchance, methinks), items that have long slipped from the general English lexicon. And the poems themselves, often written in rhyming quatrains, are often reminiscent of Victorian verse. (Think Edward Lear or Lewis Carroll.)

From my review of Shahril Nizam's magical collection of illustrations and poetry If Only, in Starmag today.

The book has two different covers, so you can choose the one you like best!

Readsmonthly Rocks!

In yesterday's Readsmonthly section of Starmag, I got to pay tribute to Doris Lessing. There's also a list of suggested reads. Writing it really had me scraping round in the far corners of my brain for traces the books had left behind decades before ... and left me wanting to reread especially The Grass is Singing and Memories of a Survivor.

The shy and very talented Shahril Nizam is interviewed by Daphne Lee about his new collection of poetry and art If Only. Daphne is absolutely right about how self-effacing he is in public, but she told me that she'd found Shahril so fascinating to talk to that she had forgotten to take notes at points during the interview!

The poet/illustrator says about his work:

Drawing and writing are just ways of externalising thoughts and ideas ... But I find it hard to be direct all the time. Maybe that’s true of everyone. Sometimes we are open and sometimes secretive, even with ourselves. Sometimes, there are things we don’t truly understand or even want to admit. That doesn’t mean we can’t be honest, too. ... I find writing a poem or drawing a picture allows me to be honest without revealing too much. The imagery, symbolism and so on can mean anything. And it can mean one thing to one person and another to someone else. It can be different truths to different people.

Celebrity reviewer Tom Abang Saufi talks about Paul Theroux's The Elephanta Suite. (Tom of course is one of Malaysia's top fashion designers.)

I've read a lot of Theroux, travel writing and fiction, and very much enjoy his work. But he's so prolific that I gave up trying to keep up some time back. But I think I've just been talked into picking up this one! Especially as I love the idea of intertwined stories.

I had to nick this lovely picture of Amir Muhammad from the page listing author events happening up and down the country! Both Amir and Shahril Nizam are appearing at the Courtyard, MPH Mid Valley Megamall, on November 11th 3-4 p.m.

Style Tips from Rafidah

Got some style tips from International Industry and Trade Minister, Rafidah Aziz yesterday. A woman needs big hair and lipstick and a dapper little leather suit to be successful. Certainly not a dragged through the belukah hair style. And not a scruffy tee to blend in with the arty types who came to Amir Muhammad's book launch for Politicians say the Darndest Things.

But I am proudly wearing the name tag I got as a freebie with the book. I was one of the many Nik Aziz's walking around chatting to the Samy's and Mahathir's.

For photos of other celebs (ahem!) photographed with their dolled-up role models (courtesy of Hishamuddin Rais), and a full account of the proceedings, take a look at Amir's blog.

It was a fun affair, and it was so nice to meet up with friends I feel I've been neglecting over the past few weeks ... and to make a few new ones including folks who've popped up to befriend me on Facebook, but were hitherto unknown in real life. (Yes, I've got hooked too.)

Brian Yap read an amusing piece about turning national service into reality TV (perlease don't give the politicians ideas lah!), Amir read an older essay about khinzir (politicallly correct term for piggies) from Generation, the book he co-authored with Kam Raslan and Sheryl Stoddart.

Amir's book wasn't the only one being launched: illustrator Shahril Nizam's If Only, a collection of his words and art also made it's debut. Sharanya read just one poem - but it was so beautifully delivered. (The artist was outside at the time and missed it.)

Shahril is one shy guy, but so talented, and I am so happy to have this book after hanging round his blog admiringly for so long.

I came home and had my nose in Amir's book all evening, until Abu got annoyed with me.

(Photo by Nikki Tok. Many thanks!)

Amir and The Foot in Mouth Syndrome

I reckon some politicians are really going to be kicking themselves when they get their hands on Amir Muhummad's new book Malaysian Politicians Say the Darndest Things, a compilation of some of the most telling and (I hope unintentionally) funny lines uttered by those in the driving seat.

Some gems from the book (and can you remember who said them?):

Only women who are not pretty should be employed by the State government, as these women would not be able to get rich husbands who can support them financially.

The best way to improve your golf is to chop down the rainforest.

All local institutions of higher learning must give serious attention to the problem of effeminate men on campus.

The book is beautifully illustrated by Shahril Nizam, which is another great reason to buy it.

And what's more, you're invited to the launch:

Sunday, 16 September, 3-5 pm.
The Annexe Gallery, Central Market Annexe, KL.
The launch-day price is RM20. Sales from the day after that, in bookstores, will be RM30.

At the launch itself, there are four bonus features:
* No speeches by VIPs but there will be readings.
* The simultaneous launch of the artist Shahril Nizam's book If Only.
* Photography exhibition by Danny Lim and Hishamuddin Rais.
* Gifts for the first 50 buyers.

You can find out more about the book here.

Malaysian Politicians Say the Darndest Things is the first title to be published by Matahari Books, which was set up in 2007 to publish non-fiction about Malaysia.

For further details:
matahari.books@gmail.com