WEALTH OF IDEAS

For six weeks, One Ghana, One Voice will feature poems on Zimbabwe. The first featured poet is the vibrant Prince Mensah, whose poem centers on the history of Zimbabwe and highlight resilience through highlighting the idea that Zimbabwe is indeed Zimba Remabwe (house of stone). The poem is accompanied by an author interview, in which Mensah displays his knowledge of the challenge bedevilling Africa. Here is an extract: 4. What lessons can Zimbabwe learn from Ghana's history? What lessons can Ghana learn from Zimbabwe? Zimbabweans can learn the power of tolerance from Ghana. Trust me; we have had volatile situations that could have ended up in chaos. Yet, there is a cultural underpinning that rejects bloodshed as a way of solving issues. The way of Gandhi is better than the way of guns. In the end, the best person to change Zimbabwe for the better is the Zimbabwean who is ready to make sacrifices and take risks, in order to move the dream forward. Ghanaians can learn the value of hi...

A new short story contest is being offered by MyAfricandiaspora . Petina Gappah's An Elegy for Easterly shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize. See the whole story here. The African Roar fiction anthology was in the news a couple of time this week, Books SA and in the Sunday News (Bulawayo) .

Loads of student papers (essays and fiction pieces)--they keep flooding. Yet, my hunger for some leisure reading is insatiable too, so these are the books I carry around these days, hoping that maybe over lunch I may read several pages: Philip Caputo: Crossers (I actually finished this one and reviewed it for the Sacramento/San Francisco Book Review), Ha Jin: A Good Fall , which will be available in bookstores in December. Lucy Howard-Taylor: Biting Anorexia (reviewing it for Sac Book Review) Wil Wheaton: The Happiest Days of Our Lives (coming out in December); reviewing it for Sac Book Review William Styron: The Suicide Run , a collection of short stories. I love the serpentine wriggle of the sentences in these stories; Styron knew his way in the jungle of language; remember Sophie's Choice ? I probably owe the poetry world ten to fifteen reviews, but nowadays I carry around A Tiara for the Twentieth Century by Suzanne R Harvey. These are the new things out there, and there ar...

This post features an excerpt from Sunil Sharma's introduction to a new international journal called New Fiction Journal (NFJ). Here, in Sunil Sharma's words, is the information about this new journal: NFJ is all about fiction and fiction writing. Old fiction written in a new way and challenging/defying our pre-existing conceptions about this most popular form of the world literature. It is dangerous stuff being composed by very mobile imaginative minds across a fast-shrinking globe by some very talented writers---old and emerging. The NFJ wants screaming fiction: a piece of writing that is unhappy with the deterministic narrow framework of story-telling decided by previous generation(s) of writers, literary editors and academics---that is all the arbiters of tastes for you. The ideal New Writer (NW) for us at NFJ is typically impatient---the way our beloved Derrida was with the western logos and everything foundational, metaphysical and fixed. He was, as his comrades gleefull...

The following message was submitted by Tim Kahl, Events coordinator and Vice-President of the SPC Board: Presents 30th Anniversary Event for the Sacramento Poetry Center Monday, October 26 at 7:30 PM 1719 25th Street at HQ for the Arts The Sacramento Poetry Center - Sacramento's center for the literary arts since 1979, marks its anniversary with the release of Keepers of the Flame: The First 30 Years . Keepers , published by Rattlesnake Press, was collected and edited by Mary Zeppa, Kate Asche, and Emmanuel Sigauke. “Our goal is to give the reader a series of glimpses into the first 30 years of the Sacramento Poetry Center. Think of it as the in-print version of a highlight reel, brought to on-paper life by the remarkable generosity and amazing tech savvy of Photographer Charlie McComish and Graphic Designer Richard Hansen.” It’s going to be a festive night, a relax...

On Thursday, October 22, A.S Byatt will present at the Crest Theater in downtown Sacramento. Here are the event's details: A.S. Byatt Booker Prize | Bestselling Author The Children’s Book (Oct. 2009), Possession , Still Life, Angels and Insects Time of event: 7:30 pm A.S. Byatt is renowned internationally for her novels and short stories. She has received numerous literary awards including the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award for Still Life , and the Booker Prize for Fiction for Possession: A Romance . Possession and her novella, Angels and Insects , are adapted into highly regarded films. A distinguished literary critic and teacher, Byatt was appointed a Dame of the British Empire in 1999 and received the Shakespeare Prize by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation in 2002. Byatt's latest novel, The Children's Book , was shortlisted for the 2009 Booker Prize. “A.S. Byatt is a storyteller who could keep a sultan on the edge of his throne for a thousand and one nights.” – The New York ...

In a rare West Coast appearance, poet, playwright, essayist and political activist Amiri Baraka delivers a historic speech on President Barack Obama. One of the true giants of international poetry, Amiri Baraka is a towering presence in the history of the United States and throughout the Americas. A transitional figure in both the Beat Generation and Civil Rights Era, Amiri Baraka is also known as the father of the Black Arts Movement. In 2008, during the primary and general election cycles, Amiri Baraka continued to surprise, delight and provoke his friends and enemies with a series of rigorous, inventive, and powerfully deciphering essays on then candidate Barack Obama. With this unique, once in a lifetime, event Amiri Baraka will revisit those essays, and bring his keen, always original, interpretation of the Obama Presidency in it's first year. The talk will be immediately followed by a discussion with Justin Desmangles, and continue with a question and answer period with the a...

Fellow poet and friend, Prince Mensah, tells me he has started a small press that will focus on poetry publication. Below are the different calls for submission. Call for Submissions for The War Against War Anthology Mensa Press seeks poetry that speaks against war and about the atrocities committed in its name. Attach three – five poems to the body of an e-mail and send it to mensapress@gmail.com. If your entries are selected, you will be required to send us your full name, address, phone number, a picture and brief biography of yourself to the email. You will also be required to sign a release form before your poetry is used in the anthology. Payment would be 3 copies of the anthology to each poet whose poetry is used. Deadline for submission is December 31st, 2009. Call for Submissions for Visions of the Motherland Anthology Mensa Press seeks poetry from African poets which celebrates the various cultures, tribes and people of Africa. Attach three – five poems to the body of an e-...

I started school the year Mukoma sneaked out of the country and went back to South Africa. Two nights before he left, he came to my sleeping hut to show me my new school books. Those books smelled sweet and looked delicious. I sat on my mat smiling and picturing myself at school with other students from all over Mazvihwa. Mukoma must have seen my joy because he said, "These are not sweets, but love them the way you love sweets." I sat there nodding. “Love them more,” he said, smiling, the first time I had seen him look happy in a long time. The incident reminded me of an earlier one, when he gave me my own bag of sweets for the first time. He had never given any child in the extended family his or her own full bag. He had taken me behind the hut to give me the bag. He was drunk, but he was not staggering, nor was he stumbling over his words when he handed me the big bag: “Eat as much of these as you want, then when you are full, go and share with others what’s left of them....

On October 26, the Sacramento Poetry Center celebrates its 30th anniversary and launches a book entitled Keepers of the Flame: The First 30 Years of the Sacramento Poetry Center . The book features my interview with the founder of the Sacramento Poetry Center, Theresa Vinciguerra. It was a pleasure interviewing Theresa. She has a great love for poetry and her great sense of humor shines through the interview. Working on the projects with Mary Zeppa and Kate Asche was a wonderful experience. We spent several months on it, meeting at Mary's house on Wednesdays, and each time I drove away, I had learned so much that all I wanted to do after the meeting was stop at a Borders or a Barnes & Noble and just be in the company of books, aware that on these shelves a great book would find its place one day. For the last 30 years, Sacramento has done a lot in keeping the flame of poetry going, and I feel honored to have been allowed a glimpse into this rich past. As I type this I am steali...

Sunil Sharma, a writer and scholar based in India, has published his first novel, The Minotaur . I featured Sunil's short story, "The Cacti", in the July/August 2009 issue of Munyori Literary Journal . He was also instrumental in the conception of the idea of the Indian-Zimbabwean short fiction anthology, which I am going to co-edit with him. Here are more details about the new publication: The Minotaur is a chilling but familiar account of the rise and fall of a third-world despot. Riding the tidal wave of popular support, Caesar the Marxist, soon turns into a dictator and plunges his impoverished, exploited nation into a bloody civil war. Fleeing from his burning nation, he lands up in a remote island and declares himself the King. Then the personal descent of a once charismatic doctor-turned-guerilla leader into personal hell begins. The Minotaur is born and finally finds his nemesis, in the form of a radicalized native, on that remote island… A dark tale of power-cra...

What happened after breakfast, when I mentioned that I was going to leave in an hour, surprised me. It all started with Tete’s eyes glinting in the direction of Viji, who shook her head to signal that she had nothing to do with it. “So what are you leaving us?” said Tete. I didn’t have to think about this one. “I will leave love, lots of love,” I said, looking at Viji. “I mean something we can touch and smell,” Tete said. I could tell by the darting of her eyes that she was getting upset. Even her lips quivered, but she bit them and looked down. Viji came to my rescue: “She’s talking about a sign, you know; something you’ll leave before you leave.” “Sign?” I asked, shaking my head to show that I was confused still. “You know, something to show commitment,” Viji said. “I am sure you know what Tete is talking about.” She sighed. I must have taken too long to respond to Viji because Tete spoke before I did. “Show us that we can relax knowing you are not planning to waste our time. Show u...

Perhaps as a way to demonstrate how plot works to shape a piece of fiction, Margaret Atwood wrote this humorous piece of inter-connected plot pieces. I am going to be talking about plot as a writer's tool at UCDE on Tuesday, and I thought I must share a link to Atwood's story. Here it begins: John and Mary meet. What happens next? If you want a happy ending, try A. Read the rest of "Happy Endings" here . After you read, challenge yourself and write a short piece of metafiction (it should be a story that talks about stories in some way, could even sound like a lesson on how to write stories or certain aspects of stories). Why do this? Because you can, and you have the time to do so. Who knows, you may actually end up producing an award-winning piece. Just like that.

We have been receiving lots of poetry and fiction (by our modest standards), and we are convinced that we are ready to make selections for he next issue, which should be out by November 5. We could use some more work in the following areas: Book Reviews Essays Artwork/photos author profiles interviews send your works to manu@munyori.com, or visit Munyori for guidelines.

The event was inspiring. I read a Dambudzo Marechera poem first, followed by mine. Then I got to introduce other performers. Well-attended event. For those who may not know the full story, Bob is the newly-installed Sacramento Poet Laureate, who is also the president of the Sacramento Poetry Board, which I am part of. Actually, it was Bob who introduced me to the Sacramento poetry commmunity since I had lived in the city for ten years without participating in poetry events. We were colleagues at Sacramento City College, and one day we started talking and I mentioned something to the effect that I scribbled poetry ( I was seriously putting together my collection), then he told me about the Sacramento Poetry Center, invited me to attend an event. I soon realized I had found an artistic home. More details about the event have been covered by Kate Asche on her blog .

The Sacramento Poetry Center presents John Amen and Scott Weiss on Monday Oct. 5, at 7:30 PM. John Amen is the founder of the online literary journal The Pedestal , which was the first to publish and pay me for the first short story in what I am now calling the Mukoma series. That story is entitled "Mukoma's Marriage" and an early version of it can be read at The Pedestal Magazine. I am happy that John will be in Sacramento, although I cannot attend the event due to a schedule conflict. I, however, would like to talk briefly about his latest poetry collection, At the Threshold of Alchemy , which I was reading earlier today. First, you need to know that John Amen takes his poetry seriously, like all poets do, of course, but he goes above and beyond in terms of promotion. He is currently on a national tour, visiting several major cities. And he has reason to; his new collection is spellbinding. John Amen has been described as "brutally realistic", a poet who ...