Hide no more: the inspired now have an outlet, as the KL poetry scene lifts its veil to a surprisingly ready, albeit still stylishly niche, audience. With the increasing popularity of open mic nights, brave singer/songwriters and literary academia amateurs now have the platform on which to hone their art.Whether it’s organising performance poetry (where poets take on a small but captivated crowd and literally wax lyrical), or creating the poetry that’s performed, one thing’s for sure: what once was an individual self indulgent pastime has now been made public. Malaysian poets take it upon themselves to bring their poetry to the masses.
Nicholas Wong and myself got interviewed for a Vision KL article about the growth of performance poetry in KL, and Nic is the cover boy. (Don't let it go to your head!)
The piece is a nice plug for "Readings", and for Inky Hands, and it does give a flavour of what's happening, but it is a terrible shame that the efforts of the British Council in bringing in poets from the UK to energise the whole scene and run workshops and the main movers and shakers: Jasmine Low, Jerome Kugan, Bernice Chauly and Project OMG don't get a mention.
Still it's nice to see local poetry getting some coverage.
