Sunday, April 26, 2015

Sinclair Beiles: Poet Of Many Parts And Places

"Dyehard Press has re-issued Who Was Sinclair Beiles? in a revised and expanded edition. I posted an item about the first edition when it was published five years ago. It’s hard to believe so much time has passed. As I wrote then, Beiles was best known for his association with the Beats. He collaborated on Minutes to Go with William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Gregory Corso, and helped to shepherd Burroughs’ manuscript of Naked Lunch into print at the Paris-based Olympia Press, where he worked as an editor. “Best known” is a questionable term, though. If he was known at all, it was only among a certain segment of avant-garde expatriate writers and artists living in Tangier, Paris, London, Rotterdam, Athens, and other far-flung places, where he spent many years scraping by in various capacities." Continue reading here.

Victoria Williams: 0287

If my train is full of ridiculous Black Friday bargain hunters I am gonna tut so loud...

Snipes by Joan McNerney

Have you always been this stupid or did it come on suddenly?

Sunday, April 19, 2015

How: A Dye Hard Interview With Joan Metelerkamp

Joan Metelerkamp is the author of several books of poems, including Stone No More, Requiem, carrying the fire and Burnt Offering. Her poems have been widely published in local and international anthologies, and she has taken part in readings and literary festivals in South Africa, Europe and America. She edited the South African poetry journal New Coin for some years and has also written poetry reviews and essays. She lives on a farm near Knysna.

Joan’s eighth collection of poetry, Now the World Takes These Breaths, was  published by Modjaji Books in 2014. She was interviewed by Alan Finlay. Read the interview here.

Eva Jackson: 0089

Max Moodley: 0081


Talking Tits (1997, Gudari Press) by Max Moodley. 8 page hand-made chapbook. 3 copies made. Out of print.

Soho Hops On The Bunny Wagon by Sarah Dawson

Durban’s favourite meal has hopped on to a London street but its culinary gentrification may stick in your throat.

Chops Chutney

Chops Chutney is a short story of star-crossed love and samoosas by Pravasan Pillay.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Poetry In South Africa – New Coin 50th Anniversary Issue

Gary Cummiskey, the editor of New Coin asked several people to write about the state of SA poetry as they see it. One of the people he asked was me (Colleen Higgs). So here’s my take, I urge those of you who are interested in poetry in South Africa or in the world at large to subscribe to New Coin and in particular to order this copy from the ISEA.

Eva Jackson: 0088

Internet Sentences: 0056

Lonely_Russian_Girls are_looking for_Boyfriends!

Victoria Williams: 0286

New Year, you are a test I refuse to take.
Time is a toilet bowl.
Everything I’ve ever wanted is already in the past,
And I never had it anyway.

The Day of the Jekyll by Imraan Coovadia

To resolve the situation at the University of Cape Town that was sparked by the statue of Cecil John Rhodes, I believe we must demand the reinstatement of former vice chancellor, Dr Max Price. On his installation in 2008, Price called for an Afropolitan university, encompassing the globe without short-changing the continent. Six years later, in 2014, the same man (or what appeared to be the same man) was reduced to the argument that a black woman had once been a professor at his institution.