anthology – luna's on line

Last Friday, it was with great delight that I released a new word into the blogosphere. Braccaneer has been added to the lexicon of our lives. No sooner was the post out, than Tom from Beyond the Sphere, had come up with a badge! Not just one, but a range from which to choose. As Tom has generously offered, go and help yourselves!

Words link us all together, don’t they? That’s what we do here on WP.

Out in the big wide world, words also bring us together and it was just two years ago that I became involved in the Writing My City Project which brought people from all over Cape Town together to write stories and poems about their city. My small part of the project was, with the invaluable help of the Head Librarian, Bongi, to lead a series of writing workshops in her library for a group of women whose life experiences and life chances are very different to mine. Together we teased out some beautiful and heart-wrenching stories. It was a privilege to share the experience with them.

I hadn’t thought about it recently, but I was really saddened to learn that the Suiderstrand Library, where our writing group met, had burned to the ground last weekend. I really hope the City of Cape Town rebuild it for the sake of the local community and the dedicated staff. My copy of the anthology, containing my humble contribution is safe on my shelves at home, but I’m sorry for the loss of a great little library and its books.

But on a much brighter note, here’s my big news of the week

Diverse contributors around the worId have been brought together in a new collection of poetry and art, edited and published by Tara Caribou of Raw Earth Ink. Tara writes the most exquisite, visceral poetry and I’m honoured that she selected all five of the poems that I submitted to her latest project, Creation and the Cosmos.

Within “Creation and the Cosmos”, you will discover nature’s revelation transformed into poetry, rhyme, digital photographic art, painting, photography, and more.
Throughout these pages, thirty-two artists and writers from all over the world express their emotions and thoughts as seen through the wide-open eyes of nature. From stars and moon, birds in flight, the raging storm, a deer’s quiet passing, the salty depths of the sea, rolling hills and towering mountains: there is art in all creation.
Sink your hands into the rich soul-soil of humanity’s finest creators and allow all of nature, both dark and light, to impress its artistry in your heart.

Creation and the Cosmos will be out in paperback and ebook, and is due for release on 23rd March 2021. I haven’t seen the book yet, but I know from my own paperback copy of Tara’s poetry collection Four, that this will be a beautiful book to hold in your hands. Save the release date when I’ll be posting the links to where you can get your hands on a copy.

“…and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?”~ Vincent Van Gogh

writing my city book launch at the Fugard Theatre with Africa Melane — Book launch discussion hosted by *Cape Talk*‘s Africa Melane

Last Saturday saw the launch of the #WritingMyCity book, the exciting collection of
Cape Town writing, put together by Cape Town Library Service and Open Book.

writing m city book launch at the Fugard Theatre — The Fugard Theatre was packed!

writing my city book launch at the Fugard Theatre we all signed the book

writing m city book launch at the Fugard Theatre reading

The selected authors signed a copy for the organisers, Christelle Lubbe and
Frankie Murray. Then we opened our copies and started reading each others stories.
There are some fascinating stories, poems and memoirs in the collection.

Here’s the piece I wrote (page 96):

I’d been late leaving school that afternoon. I’d stayed behind because nice Miss Leibrandt had been helping me with my poem.

On the way home I’d been kicking a can along the dirt pathway between the shacks when I heard shouting over on the main road. Then there was the explosion. Flames shot up into the air, all red and angry-looking. Black smoke billowed upwards.

My house was the other way, but I had to see. I peered out from the end of the lane. People were jumping up and down in the street, arms waving angrily. They were chanting.

Flames licked out of the little corner shop. My friend’s shop. Mr Kabongo whose skin was as black as night, who came from another country further up the map of Africa. Mr Kabongo who told me stories about the animals of the forest where he grew up and the people who lived there before the war in his country. Mr Kabongo who gave me sweets when I went to fetch a half-loaf for my mother.

And now his shop was destroyed. I wondered if he was safe. Had he run, as he’d run before?

Why can’t we all live together?