The Annual SHP Chapbook Competition   The prize for the annual SHP Chapbook Competition is a $1000 cash award, publication, ten books, and a reading at The Hudson Valley Writers' Center. At the discretion of the judges, a second chapbook may be selected for publication with an award of $250. SHP uses a blind judging system and subscribes to the CLMP contest code of ethics.   2013 Guidelines and Rules   The Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Competition is open to all writers who have not yet published a collection of poems in book or chapbook form.   Individual poems can be previously published, but poems should not have been published as a group in any form, including self-published collections.   Manuscripts may be either a collection of poems or one long poem and should be a minimum of 16 pages and a maximum of 20 pages (not including the title page, table of contents, or cover sheet).   All poems should be single spaced and typed in size 12, Times New Roman font. Handwritten manuscripts will not be considered.   Manuscripts should include a title page (bearing only the title of the manuscript), a table of contents, a separate cover sheet with the title of the work, the author's name, address, phone number, email address, bio, and acknowledgments, and a completed SHP Manuscript Submission Form.   Entrants names should not appear anywhere on the manuscript except for the cover sheet.   Each manuscript should include a title page. This should only have the title of the collection on it and should come before the poems and after the cover sheet.   Each manuscript should be accompanied by a $15 reading fee. Poets may submit more than one collection, but a $15 reading fee must accompany each entry. Please make checks payable to The Hudson Valley Writers' Center.   If requested, a copy of a previous published SHP chapbook (chosen by SHP) will be sent to the entrant provided an 8x10 envelope with $2.20 in postage is sent in with the contest manuscript.   Enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope for results only. If you would like a notification of receipt of manuscript, include a self-addressed and stamped postcard.   The reading period for the competition begins on February 15. Entries must be postmarked by May 15. Submissions will only be considered if received between those dates.   The author of the winning manuscript will be announced in September. Questions and submissions can be e-mailed to ryan@writerscenter.org or sent by mail to: SHP Chapbook Competition 300 Riverside Drive Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591

--First Annual Poetry Contest--

DASH Journal welcomes submissions to its first annual poetry contest. To celebrate our love of competition, we're handing out a $1,000 prize for best poem.

Send up to 3 unpublished poems per entry (max 33 lines each). Include name and contact information on coversheet only.

Fee: $10 ...or $15 for contest plus one-year subscription. Check payable to DASH Journal.

Deadline: Feb 15.

All poems blind-reviewed by a panel of editors. Finalists will be published in our 2013 issue.

 

Contests are hard copy only. Submit to:

DASH Journal
Department of English and Comparative Literature
California State University Fullerton
800 N. State College Blvd.
Fullerton, CA 92831.

The Trouble with the

Nigeria Prize for Literature

November 22, 2012

By Justin Scott 

The richest literary prize in the world, the Nobel Prize, carries a US$1.1 million purse. The richest lit prize in Africa, the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature, doesn’t quite match up, but it does guarantee the winner a whopping US$100,000. It’s been around since 2004, with the purse increasing from $20,000 to $40,000 in 2006 and finally to $100,000 in 2008. The latest prize, awarded at the start of November, went to Chika Unigwe for her novel “On Black Sisters Street.” Though there has been widespread praise for Unigwe across the Naijanet, talk of the politics of her win has been muted.

These politics have been addressed before, but critiques focus mostly on the kinds of novels — those that confirm Westerners’ pessimism and faithlessness about Africa’s future — that tend to win. Thus far, talk of who sponsors the prize and why that matters has been nonexistent.

In the case of the $100,000 attached to the Nigerian Literary Prize, the money comes from Nigeria LNG Ltd. NLNG is one of Nigeria’s petroleum sector giants, producing around 10% of all liquefied natural gas (LNG) consumed globally each year. The notoriously corrupt Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation owns a 49% controlling stake in the company; the remaining shares are held by Shell (25.6%), Total (15%), and Agip (10.4%). Reports on NLNG’s role in individual spills and human rights abuses are hard to come by — maybe because Shell works overtime to cover up its wake of destruction — but there exists plentiful hard evidence of NLNG’s shady business practices. Of course, any company with direct links to Halliburton should be watched with a careful eye.

Activists in Nigeria have long insisted that firms operating within Nigeria’s impossibly complex oil economy must be held accountable for the murkiness that characterizes the sector’s business deals. So too must they answer for the lack of jobs and poor living standards that have continued to define life for most Nigerians, all while their country’s oil wealth seemingly vanishes into thin air.

To what extent has NLNG used the illusion of corporate philanthropy to clear its name in the eyes of the public writ large? The always-reliable Arundhati Roy recently addressed similar questions in a piece for India’s Outlook Magazine.

Her article is mainly focused on the vagaries of Indian electoral and “civil society” politics, but halfway through she shifts her attention to India’s big businessmen and their foundations. She writes them into an account of business’ links to philanthropy as it emerged first in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. While these foundations were initially attacked as distractions or as whitewashing attempts — “if companies had so much money,” the argument went, “they should raise the wages of their workers” — over time the material gifts that corporate foundations provided, and the real good they did, muted the criticism. Roy reminds us of the real intentions behind corporate giving:

Like all good Imperialists, the Philanthropoids set themselves the task of creating and training an international cadre that believed that Capitalism, and by extension the hegemony of the United States, was in their own self-interest. And who would therefore help to administer the Global Corporate Government in the ways native elites had always served colonialism. So began the foundations’ foray into education and the arts, which would become their third sphere of influence, after foreign and domestic economic policy.

What’s behind NLNG’s decision to offer such a large annual award for literature, as well as its equally large prize for scientific research? Is it a coincidence that, as the company’s corrupt practices came under increased fire in 2008, it increased the value of the award by over 200%?

And what of those who accept the prizes? One can easily argue that artists and scientists, perpetually squeezed for cash, need the money (at least if we buy the stereotype of the starving artist). And because winners are not censored in any way, what’s the harm in accepting the prize money, especially if it helps them to create more affecting art or to make new scientific breakthroughs in the future? Roy addresses these questions toward the end of her article, excusing those poor young Indians that accept grants from foundations with questionable origins and intents. “Who else is offering them an opportunity to climb out of the cesspit of the Indian caste system?” she asks. It’s a fair question. But Unigwe isn’t stuck in the cesspit of a caste system. She’s not even crawling through the urban chaos of Lagos. She’s in Belgium, far from the tainted oil that paid for the prize.

It is reasonable to expect that NLNG uses its awards as marketing tools, to distract Nigerians from the issues it creates on the ground, in real life, every day.

Should that matter to prize winners? Should it matter to Unigwe?

AN EVENING WITH

CHINUA ACHEBE

Through his fiction and non-fiction works, Nigerian author Chinua Achebe has sought to repair the damage done to the continent of Africa and its people as a result of European colonization. This is best exemplified in his most famous novel "Things Fall Apart," one of the first African novels written in English to achieve national acclaim. Set in the 1890s, the novel deals with the impact of British colonialism on the traditional Igbo society in Nigeria. Published in 1958 -- just two years before the end of a century of British rule in Nigeria -- the novel celebrated its 50th anniversary of publication in 2008. "An Evening with Chinua Achebe" featured the author reading from his celebrated work.

__________________________

teachingliteracy:

Chinua Achebe:

12 Quotes On Stories

1. If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.

2. To me, being an intellectual doesn’t mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means taking pleasure in them.

3. Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am - and what I need - is something I have to find out myself.

4. My weapon is literature.

5. People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.

6. Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control.

7. It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.

8. The emperor would prefer the poet to keep away from politics, the emperor’s domain, so that he can manage things the way he likes.

9. We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own.

10. If you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all.

11. The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience. 

12. Stories serve the purpose of consolidating whatever gains people or their leaders have made or imagine they have made in their existing journey thorough the world. 

Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. He is best known for his first novel and magnum opus, Things Fall Apart, which has sold more than 8 million copies around the world, and been translated into 50 languages. Achebe is the most translated African writer of all time.
Nelson Mandela referred to Achebe as a writer ‘in whose company the prison walls fell down’.
Achebe is the recipient of over 30 honorary degrees. He has been awarded the Man Booker International Prize, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, an Honorary Fellowship of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Nigerian National Order of Merit.

by Amanda Patterson

From Writers Write

(via 37thstate)

In pictures:

Nigeria under water (BBC)

 

In recent months, various areas in Nigerian have been hit by torrential rainfall which caused widespread flooding across the country as the Niger River banks burst and overflowed. The worst floods in 50 years, over 300 people have been killed and more than two million have been displaced, with hundreds left homeless.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has called this year’s floods a ‘natural disaster’, as it has also raised concerns of a food crisis in the nation according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) in Nigeria.

In the above pictures, ohotographer Gideon Mendel visited communities in southern Nigeria battling to recover six weeks after their homes were flooded. He found many people’s houses in Igobeni, Bayelsa state, still waist-high with water.

Bayelsa state forms a part of the Niger Delta region, an area known for it’s massive crude oil production (home to Africa’s biggest energy industry), but has been severely neglected by both the oil industry and the federal government of Nigeria, resulting in detrimental environmental damage to the area.

Eaten By The Heart (Part 1)

Eaten By The Heart is a video installation and documentary project conceived, produced and directed by film-maker and video artist, Zina Saro-Wiwa.

Commissioned by The Menil Collection, Houston and supported by the Houston Museum of African American Culture (HMAAC.org) for the Menil’s exhibition The Progress of Love, the piece explores intimacy, heartbreak and love performances among Africans and African Diasporans.

Eaten By The Heart forms part of Zina’s video performance practice which currently focuses on the mapping of emotional landscapes, its resulting performative behaviors and cross-cultural implications. She states: “So many of us cite with confidence that Love Is Universal. But the performance of love is, it seems, cultural. I wonder how the impact of how we choreograph and culturally organize the performance of love impacts what we feel inside and who we become.”

The documentary aspect of the Eaten By The Heart project will be expressed in three online films throughout the life of The Progress of Love exhibition. To experience the video installation – an hour-long series of kissing performances – visit the Menil Collection’s The Progress of Love exhibition on-site, in Houston.

We would love to hear from you. Wherever you are from. Please share comments and also your own stories of kissing, heartbreak, and where you think love lives in your own culture.

__________________________

 Zina Saro-Wiwa

Photo courtesy of the artist / Zina Saro-Wiwa - b. 1976, Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Nigerian-born Zina Saro-Wiwa grew up in Sussex, UK, and attended the University of Bristol, UK. She has been involved in journalism and media since her teen years, contributing to BBC television and radio and the New York Times. Saro-Wiwa has also created several documentaries, shorts, and experimental video works, including the recent This is My Africa, 2008, which has received numerous awards and premiered on HBO in 2010.

As a video artist, Saro-Wiwa often explores highly personal experiences, mapping their emotional facets and exploring the connection between documentary film and performance-based video. Her work seeks to make tangible the space between internal experience and outward performance and brings cross-cultural considerations to bear on these articulations. She often addresses the subject of “Africanness,” actively dismantling the assumptions that surround it. More recently, Saro-Wiwa has begun to work with food as a medium, engaging the cultural and ritualistic aspects of feasting.

Saro-Wiwa co-curated the exhibition Sharon Stone of Abuja, Location One Gallery, New York (2010), and is the founder of the multimedia company AfricaLab, dedicated to reimagining Africa. This is My Africa launched the Forex series at Stevenson, Cape Town (2009); and has been screened at the Newark Museum, NJ (2010); Brooklyn Museum, NY (2009); and October Gallery, London (2008). Other video works have been exhibited at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2011); and Stevenson (2011); and she has been a guest artist at Third Streaming, New York (2012). Her films have been shown at film festivals worldwide, including the Toronto International Film Festival (2012); Film Africa, London (2011); and the Africa in Motion Festival, Edinburgh (2010).

>via: http://www.theprogressoflove.com/?p=201

Friday, May 18, 2012

NAIJ: A History of Nigeria

I saw this docu-film NAIJ: A History of Nigeria this evening at the LifeHouse.

The 2007 film by director Jide Olanrewaju, tells the story of Nigeria through its tumultuous transition from British Colony to Oil State. Using a combination of rarely seen archive footage, historical papers and interviews, the film attempts to explain how Nigeria has developed into the country it is today while shining a light on some of the individuals whose actions have helped shape the nation.

Whether you agree with the views of the director as presented in this film, you will relish the video, audio and newspaper footage shown in the film. It was a revelation for me to hear the voices of Tafawa Balewa and to learn how Anglicised he sounded. And indeed most of the early political leaders spoke in very polished tones. It was interesting to see how this changed over the years.

The director Jide is not a professional film-maker nor has any formal training. He made this film on his home computer over a period of 2 years. Working as an investment banker in mergers & acquisitions, his typical work day ended at 2am, after which he would return home and spend an hour on the film.

I was stunned to learn of his dedication to this and made me realise that, if you're sufficiently motivated, you can do anything.

This is a trailer for the film.

I'm not sure how you can get to see the whole film, but I commented at the Q&A that many Nigerians need to see it.

Read posts on Naij: - My Random Thoughts - Afrogreek

Q-TIP Beats Rhymes

and Features

– Colm K

“Back in the days when I was a teenager, Before I had status and before I had a pager, You could find the Abstract listening to hip hop, My pops used to say, it reminded him of be-bop”

… or it’s full title of “Beats, Rhymes & Features – The Extensive Adventures Of The Abstract Poetic Q Tip mixed by Colm K”.

Colm K, Corkonian, DJ and producer extraordinaire has taken time out to lace us with this great little mix of Q-Tip’s solo work in anticipation of our Dublin show in August which features Q-Tip himself and Colm supporting. (more details on that show here)

Some gems on here featuring Q on the mic and behind the boards.  You can’t beat an emcee that rhymes, produces and collects records.  It’s the epitomy of hiphop and something you don’t see too much of these days but then again there’s not many emcees who can stand up to Q-Tip in terms of rhymes, production and overall legacy.  Old school and New school – the mix below speaks for itself.

Beats Rhymes and Features – Colm K by ChoiceCuts

Tracklisting

1. Intro

2. Q Tip & Stanley Clarke – 1,2 To The Bass

3. Janet Jackson – Got Til Its Gone feat. Q Tip

4. Nas – The World Is Yours (Q Tip Remix Instrumental)

5. Mos Def – Mr. Nigga feat. Q Tip

6. Nas – One Love feat. Q Tip

7. Mobb Deep – Drink Away The Pain (Situations) feat. Q Tip

8. Q Tip – Gettin Up (Colm K Remix)

9 The Roots – Ital feat. Q Tip

10. M.C. Interlude

11. Nuyorican Soul – I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun (Kenny Dope Remix feat. Q Tip)*

12. Craig Mack – Get Down (Q Tip Remix)

13. The Crooklyn Dodgers – Crooklyn Instrumental

14. The Brand New Heavies – Sometimes (Ummah Remix feat. Q Tip)*

15. Slum Village – Hold Tight feat. Q Tip*

16. Q Tip – Lets Ride

17. The Lone Ranger (Q Tip) – Its Yours

18. Q Tip – Official

19. Q Tip – Higher*

20. Raphael Saadiq & Q Tip – Get Involved

21. Q Tip – ManWomanBoogie

22. The Jungle Brothers – Black Is Black feat. Q Tip*

23. Q Tip – Even If It Is So

 

* Indicates tracks not produced by Q Tip, all other beats produced by Q Tip.

11 produced by Kenny Dope.

14, 15 & 19 prod. by Jay Dee.

22 prod by The Jungle Brothers.

Complied, mixed & arranged by Colm K

 

Call for Papers (Reminder):

Connecting Cultures

and the Commonwealth,

ACLALS Conference

The 16th Triennial ACLALS (Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies) Conference will take place in St. Lucia, West Indies, August 5 –9, 2013. ACLALS invites scholars working in a variety of media (literature, linguistics, film, the visual and musical arts and popular culture) to present papers on the theme “‘The current unbroken/ the circuits kept open’: Connecting Cultures and the Commonwealth.” The deadline for submissions is December 15, 2012.

Description: In “Sometimes in the Middle of the Story,” a poem that revisits the perilous event of the Middle Passage, the eminent Walcott scholar, Edward Baugh, gives primacy to the connecting currents of the “ocean” as a central motif. While the sea is viewed as an archive of history as Nobel Laureate and St. Lucian poet, Derek Walcott has argued, Baugh mobilizes this metaphor to both recognize the traumatic beginning of the colonial encounter in the Caribbean and the rich “refashioning of futures” of cultural connections that the Middle Passage engendered. No doubt the colonial encounter of slavery and indentureship in the Caribbean could have led to cultural enclosures, but in Baugh’s view, “the paths of ocean” represent connecting currents between and beyond the cultures of Africa, Asia, Europe and the Indigenous Caribbean. The sea, in particular, the Atlantic Ocean, was a site of treacherous travel and trade, yet that very sea is a source “connecting us still”.

Not all colonial encounters carry with them the violence of such ruptures; but whether we had traumatic or benign beginnings, we wonder what future consequently has been imagined for these and other Commonwealth lands? What global zones of power and influence haunt the seemingly ecumenical and liberal discourses of cultural exchange? What cultural connections and disconnections have emerged over time? Whose cultural currents are unbroken: whose cultural circuits have been kept open? What is the currency of indigenous language and linguistic legacies? In the commingling of cultures in the postcolonial circuits of exchange, what is the relationship between indigenous and outside cultures? Is the implicit comparative critical lens fostered in early postcolonial theory still viable? What do these connecting comparisons obscure or reveal? What is the relationship between economic currencies and cultural circuits? What are the historical and critical currents that mark postcolonial and commonwealth studies at this time? What connections are there between different genders, sexualities and ecologies? How valuable is the more recent deployment of concepts of desire, intimacy and affect to postcolonial and Commonwealth studies? What useful connections can be made between such disciplinary paradigms as globalization, diaspora and cultural studies to Commonwealth and postcolonial literature and language studies? In general, how might literary and language studies help us to understand the value of cultural connections and disconnections throughout the Commonwealth?

Submissions: Abstracts of maximum 300 words for papers of 20 minutes duration, and maximum 400 words for three-paper panels (with the names of the panelists) which engage with these and other relevant questions along with a short bio not exceeding 100 words should be submitted to ACLALSCONFERENCE2013@gmail.com by 15 December 2012.

For more information, see http://caribbean.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2012/11/06/connecting-cultures-and-the-commonwealth-aclals-conference/

Derek Walcott’s painting “Church in Gros Ilet” (above) from http://www.wnyc.org/articles/slideshows/2008/aug/12/walcott/