Poetry Africa Festival, Durban, South Africa 05

October

Thanks for dropping by.  Winter is officially entering the building. I have my own internal light box to counteract the onslaught of darkness. Must find switch.

There's a big bag of gear in here. There's at least an albums worth of material that can be downloaded on the recordings page. You can see my tribute to Manchester, a commisson by property developers argent and media agency Bubble. To see it ust click on the recordings page  tab.

On the other hand Manchester, moss side in particular, is experiencing a hail of gunshot. More black young men are dying. . When living there I wrote a piece and published it in Rebel Without Applause. The poem is in the blog. Click on My Blog to read Gunshot.

Check out the poems page on the poems tab on the right of this page and read Invisible Kisses in English and in Spanish translated by professor Esther Gomez of Manchester University. You can hear it too. It's a popular poems and has been read at weddings across the world. 

This picture was taken by Madeleine Waller at Zigni, an Eritrean restaurant  in Islington. You can see the other poets at http://www.madwaller.co.uk.

I christened our new London apartment with its first photo shoot today. The photographer was Toby Madden at  http://www.tobymadden.com. . It was for an article about me in The Independent on Sunday. It's out September 24th and at http://www.Independent.co.uk. 

And it’s national poetry day on October 5th, I’ll be out of the country and in the US.  I think National Poetry Day is the one day poets should take off.  I return to England  on 23rd October to begin “poet in residence” as part of  Poetry International Festival. There are some great gigs at Poetry international. You can check them all out on the readings page listed in the upper right column.  But if there is one gig you should go to on National Poetry Day it's this one organised by the wonderful Michael Horovitz. Click here.

Each day of Poetry International a new unpublished poem of mine will be projected onto the side of the Royal Festival hall. . Yes to illumination and the shedding of light in dark October. ! It is part of my Poems as Landmarks campaign that started in Manchester over ten years ago. Click on Public Art on the left for more information about that campaign.  

Back to photo shoots.  Rankin has shot everyone from Madonna to Kate Moss, from The Gallagher Brothers to Robbie Williams, Alek Wek and the like. Last week the subject was me!  The massive photos will be placed on the hoardings around the Royal Festival hall as an outside exhibition by one of Britians most famous photographers.

Have a great month. Don't forget to have a look at the other pages, there's live gigs listings under readings and there's a ton of recording stuff for you and poems on the poems page. Any of your suggestions for the site will be taken on. Till next time, enjoy the pages.  Just one more thing.    

Here's what I have said in previous months - click on the month:

JULY 2006, AUGUST 2006 SEPTEMBER 2006