The Second Coventry International Festival of Literature
a feast of local and world writing organised by The Heaventree Press
May 2008 events
(Look out for additional workshops in your local Libraries!)
AN EVENING OF WEST MIDLANDS POETRY
Wednesday 7th May 2008, 7:00pm.
The Herbert Cafe, Jordan Well, Coventry
The launch of three new Heaventree Press pamphlets by local poets Don Barnard (Kenilworth), Myra Connell (Birmingham) and Barry Patterson (Coventry), with readings by the three and by special guest poet David Hart (Birmingham), whose splendid collection, Running Out, has recently been published by Five Leaves Press.
The event is your chance to hear a diversity of local creative voices: the magical poetry of Barry Patterson, known to many Coventrians as the Green Man [pictured], is rooted in the land and the special places where we find ourselves, where we live, work and celebrate; the experimental, jazz-inflected poems of Myra Connell signify a striking debut on the Midlands poetry scene; Don Barnard’s poised, ironic meditations on the history and geography of the River Avon as it flows from Naseby to Evesham, taking in Warwickshire along the way, are outstanding for their elegance and craftsmanship. All four poets will be available for signings afterwards.
PRAISE FOR DON BARNARD: “A natural talent – a good ear, an instinctive sense for drama and shape – and now he wields a verse technique of considerable accomplishment.” – Sean O’Brien.
PRAISE FOR DAVID HART: “David Hart is very much his own poet, quietly distinctive. And he’s a shape-shifter too.” – Les Murray. “ ‘The Work, The Work’ [included in Running Out] is a most powerful and illuminating poem, with an intensity that reminded me of Beckett in places.” – Michael Hamburger.
This event is free.
UNDER DEAD WOOD
Public performance by Alan Wales and friends
Friday 9th May
Venue to be decided.
This open reading of Alan Wales’ new play (“Dylan Thomas for the Irvine Welsh generation” – The Sun) will take place in a pub near you…!!
Alan Wales has performed at the Criterion Theatre, the Belgrade Theatre and numerous other venues in a variety of roles. He is a well-loved figure on Coventry’s poetry open mic scene.
GAO XINGJIAN
(NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE, 2000)
Wednesday 14th May 2008, 8:00pm
Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry
A playwright, novelist, painter, translator, stage director and critic, Gao Xingjian (b.1940) defies simplistic definitions of the ‘Chinese writer-intellectual’ in contemporary times.
He graduated with a French Literature degree in China in 1962; he was a translator of classic French authors until 1966, when he became a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).Like many others in his generation, he was later sent to the countryside for ideological re-education. At the end of the Cultural Revolution, he resumed his translation activities and introduced Ionesco and Prévert to China. Gao wrote the first Chinese absurdist play and he was instrumental in shaping the Chinese cultural landscape in the early 1980s. In 1986, the Chinese authorities banned performances of his works.
In 1987, Gao left China and settled in Paris as a political refugee. He made a living by painting with Chinese ink on rice paper, while continuing to write in Chinese and French, and directing his plays in French. He was awarded the honour of Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government in 1992. In 2000, he became the first writer in Chinese to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Gao’s profound reflections on life and the human soul transcend linguistic, political or cultural boundaries. This is a significant event showcasing Chinese art, literature, theatre and philosophy in a global perspective. The launch of Beyond the Mist, a collection of newly translated poetry from mainland China, will be held on the University of Warwick campus in Gao’s honour the same afternoon.
Entry: £5 (£3.50). Warwick Arts Centre Box Office: 02476 524 524.
PUNJABI POETRY RECITAL:
AMARJIT CHANDAN AND DALJIT NAGRA
Thursday 15th May 2008, 7:00pm
The Herbert Cafe, Jordan Well, Coventry
This event, presented in English and Punjabi, will be chaired (subject to confirmation) by Rakesh Bhanot, Subject Convenor, Creative and Professional Writing, Coventry University.
AMARJIT CHANDAN (b.1946, Nairobi) has published five collections of poetry and two books of essays in Punjabi. He has edited and translated 30 anthologies of Indian and world poetry and fiction, and brought the work of Brecht, Neruda, Ritsos, Hikmet, Cardenal, Martin Carter and John Berger into Punjabi. He was one of ten British poets selected by Andrew Motion, the Poet Laureate, on National Poetry Day in 2001 and participated in the International Aldeburgh Poetry Festival the same year. He has received lifetime achievement awards from the Punjab Government’s Language Department (2004) and from the All-Party Parliamentary Group ‘Panjabis in Britain’ (2006).
DALJIT NAGRA’s Look We Have Coming to Dover!, which won the Felix Dennis Award for Best First Collection in 2007, has been the most acclaimed poetry debut published in recent years, as well as one of the most relevant and accessible. Nagra, whose own parents came to England from the Punjab in the 1950s, draws on both English and Indian-English traditions to tell stories of alienation, assimilation, aspiration and love, from a stowaway’s first footprint on Dover Beach to the disenchantment of subsequent generations.
“The form is very English – like any outsider, I’m more aware than many of the English canon – but what’s speaking on the page is quite brown. I like the idea of this splurge of darkness.” – Daljit Nagra speaking about his poetry in The Observer.
Entry £2 – includes Indian buffet. The Herbert: 02476 832 386.
BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH
In Conversation with Professor David Dabydeen
Saturday 17th May, 2008, 7:45pm
The Belgrade Theatre, Coventry
The acclaimed dub poet, author of We Are Britain! and Too Black, Too Strong, launches Forbidden Fruit: an Anthology of Love Among the Races, newly published by the Coventry-based Heaventree Press.
Focusing on erotic relationships between white British colonisers and the ‘others’ of the empire, the collection challenges stereotypes and racial prejudices, featuring poetry and prose by William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker, Aphra Behn, John Gabriel Stedman, Olaudah Equiano, William Blake, Lord Byron, Rudyard Kipling and many others.
David Dabydeen will discuss the book and other topical issues with Benjamin Zephaniah, at an event that looks set to be a highlight of the 2008 Coventry International Festival of Literature. Buy your tickets before they sell out!
Entry: £5 (£3.50) from www.belgrade.co.uk or 02476 553 055
For more information on all Festival events: www.heaventreepress.com
or 02476 713 555. |
