The 2014 Dancing in Other Words Spier Poetry Festival was launched during an intimate evening of poetry, food and wine at Wrensch House in Observatory, Cape Town, on Monday evening.
Host Breyten Breytenbach welcomed guests with open arms, inviting them to feel at home, and after an abundance of paella everyone settled down in the magnificent living room for readings by some of the esteemed poets on the festival programme.
Finuala Dowling curated the evening, focusing on poems that explore the act of writing, with special attention to metapoetry. Dowling set the tone with a poem from her own collection, about making lasagne when she needed to be writing. Rustum Kozain followed, reading three poems including the moving “That River, That River”, a lament about gathering strength at a funeral. After Kozain, Gus Ferguson took the tiny stage, lightening the mood with poems from Arse Poetica, before Ingrid de Kok read a few poems about the vocation of writing poetry.
The first international poet of the evening was Soviet Union-born Ilya Kaminsky, who grabbed the audience’s attention with his unique performance (see video below). His performance, in a strong accent he joked about before starting, was supplemented by projections of the text so guests could follow as he went along. Dutch poet Hans van de Waarsenburg was up next, reading in his native language with translations on the wall. After he left the stage, Dowling read his poem “Dead Poet” to highlight the power of his formulations.
Moroccan wordsman Abdellatif Laabi was set to join the proceedings but had to cancel his trip to South Africa owing to illness. However, the audience was not left without his work, as Breytenbach and Georges Lory teamed up for a captivating rendition of Laabi’s poem “A Man is in Prison”, with Lory reading the original in French and Breytenbach offering his translation.
At the end of the evening Breytenbach, the curator of the festival, noted that he was overwhelmed by the way in which those in attendance captured the intentions of “dancing in other words”, and expressed excitement for the festival proper.
The Dancing in Other Words Spier Poetry Festival itself takes place this weekend, on 9 – 10 May.
To get a taste of the wonderful poems on offer during the event have a look at the two videos below. In the first, Kaminsky reads his poems “I Kissed a Woman”, “A Farewell to Friends”, “Paul Celan”, “An Elegy for Joseph Brodsky”, “Isaac Babel”, and “Marina Tsvetaeva”. In the second, Breytenbach and Lory take turns reading Laabi’s “A Man is in Prison”:
Click here to view the embedded video.
- Not loading? Watch on YouTube
Click here to view the embedded video.
- Not loading? Watch on YouTube
Helené Prinsloo tweeted live from the event using #livebooks:
Book details
- Vyf-en-veertig skemeraandsange uit die eenbeendanser se werkruimte by Breyten Breytenbach
Book homepage
EAN: 9780798166461
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- Terrestrial Things by Ingrid de Kok
EAN: 9780795701467
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- Dancing in Odessa by Ilya Kaminsky
EAN: 9781932195125
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- Groundwork by Rustum Kozain
Book homepage
EAN: 9780795704307
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- Waiting for Gateau by Gus Ferguson
EAN: 9781919930930
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- Homemaking for the Down-at-Heart by Finuala Dowling
Book homepage
EAN: 9780795703201
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- The Past is Never Dead by Hans van de Waarsenburg
EAN: 9781908998095
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
- The Bottom of the Jar by Abdellatif Laabi
EAN: 9781935744603
Find this book with BOOK Finder!