Those of you who keep your ears to the ground about literary events and the like will, no doubt, have heard about a tour of four South African poets across the UK during November.

For those who haven’t the gist is this: this month The South African Poet Laureate Keorapetse Kgositsile (alongside Lebo Mashile, Don Mattera and Phillippa Yaa de Villiers) will be performing in venues across the UK with the support of Apples & Snakes, The British Council and Sustained Theatre.

I am lucky enough to be featuring at one such event tomorrow night @ The Albany Theatre, London. Here’s a link to the facebook event page. I will be one of five poets from the UK working with the poets from South Africa on new work to be shared on the night. Would be lovely to see you there.

One of the poets from the UK featuring at the Albany tomorrow is Jay Bernard with whom I was recently in Stratford Upon Avon for a planning weekend at the RSC (we were there as representatives of the Poetry Society). Have a shufty at the link attached to Jay’s name for a run down of the weekend.

It’s been a pretty bard-heavy week, all told. Whilst in Stratford we were treated to a performance of ‘Twelth Night’ and on Friday I went along and saw the Northern Broadside’s ‘Othello’ at Trafalgar Studios (the one with Lenny Henry as Othello in an impressive Theatre debut). The latter is well worth getting along to if you’re in London as is the former if you’re in the vicinity of Stratford or willing to travel (there is west end transfer planned, though).

In homage to Billy the Bard I’ll leave you with this:

It strikes me that an update is long overdue. My time away from the blogosphere has been pretty hectic with work ranging from literature-in-education projects, in London and Bristol, to performances in Sheffield, Bradford and at The London Literature Festival as well as a whole heap of other stuff.

The pinnacle of these past few months was working on a project with Youth in Action, a performing arts collective from South Africa, who were formed to help provide home based care in the community as well as raise awareness in order to tackle the HIV/AIDS pandemic. These young people (he’s says like he’s an old man) were truly an inspiration and reminded me that performance can have another purpose other than merely ego play. Youth in Action were invited to spend a month in Portishead, Bristol going into schools to share their experiences with the students and participate in lessons and creative workshops (enter myself and fellow poet, Joe Kriss). During the four or so weeks, the group gave a number of concerts in which they sang traditional South African songs interspersed with dramatic pieces exploring the reality of life in their community.

My involvement in the project culminated in the performance of a number of poems, generated in workshops we led, alongside songs, dance and drama at St. Georges Hall (a gorgeous converted church which is now a music and arts venue). The poems were written and performed by both students from Bristol schools and young people from Youth in Action. I was very proud to have been some part of the project and particularly enjoyed the way in which a  number of people from disparate backgrounds came together in friendship. The finale was a particular sight to behold as the 200 or so students took to the stage and proceeded to create what can only be described as a mini carnival on stage.

This week I am assiting on a project where 14 british poets will be filmed reading their work. These videos will then be uploaded to the net and shown by Lit Up at the Singapore Young Writer’s Festival in September. Watch this space for further news on that.

Oh and be sure to swing by Pomegranate (a literary web zine created to showcase the work of poets under 30) and check out their latest issue which features a new poem of mine entitled ‘Gnosis’.

I’ll leave you with this (which I am quite taken with, currently):

\’Solid State\’ – Joker

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