Writer & Creative Facilitator
Last Saturday (23 May), I headed to Rotherham for a workshop run by A Firm of Poets. Ralph Dartford put us through our paces before we performed as A Firm of Poet Associates. I performed “Wrinkly Bellies” (recording coming soon) alongside four other talented poets, including Kev Titterton, Liz Ferrets and Carol Eades. The main crew were amazing. Gav Roberts (ROMP) …
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There are some fantastic events on this weekend in South Yorkshire. You can head to Rotherham to a poetry workshop run by A Firm of Poets and ROMP, followed by performances by Ralph Dartford, Victoria Garbutt, Gav Roberts, Alison Dunne and Wayne Dyson. In Sheffield there will be fantastic performances and readings by Kei Miller, Ben Wilkinson, Kayo Chingonyi, …
Continue reading “South Yorkshire Poetry Festival, 22-24th May”
We’re getting closer to going live with Verse Matters: a new feminist arts event that I am setting up in Sheffield. We’re teaming up with a fantastic new cafe at The Hide on Scotland Street where we’ll be running every first Thursday of the month from 7.30pm. Verse Matters provides a platform for poetry, spoken …
The South Yorkshire Poetry Festival kicked off last night with more than a splash of Henderson’s Relish at the Fat Cat in Sheffield. Four poets performed their work as part of Gorilla Events’ Pound a Poet. Sarah Chomasin’s set, which included “Misogynist Sandwich” jostled alongside some striking open mic performers, including Anamoli Meraki. The crowd was super supportive and there was …
This is a proof of an article I recently wrote for a special issue of the Postcolonial Studies Association newsletter on the Arab World: In the midst of a revolution, we do not always expect documents, records and archives to be at the forefront of people’s minds. And yet, the destruction of documents and seizure of records, …
Continue reading “Archives and Transitional Justice in the Arab World”
This is the draft of my review of Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table – recently published in Wasafiri: Review: Ondaatje, Michael. The Cat’s Table. London: Jonathan Cape, 2011. Hardback. ISBN 978-0-224-09361-3, £16.99, 286pp http://www.vintage-books.co.uk ‘You fellows know that there are those voyages that seem ordered for the illustration of life, that might stand for a symbol …
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Return عودة : The Yard Theatre, 3-7 July (Tube Hackney Wick) Return is a stunning and timely piece of verbatim theatre that tells the story of Dina Mousawi, a British Iraqi woman from Bradford, and her return to Baghdad after the Occupation of 2003 to ask women about their ‘stories’. This is no stereotypical tale of woe, …
This is the proof of an interview that was first published in the Journal of Postcolonial Writing (48.1) in March 2010. INTRODUCTION ‘If the discourse in the metropolis aims to de-humanise Arabs and make them disappear in order to justify ‘collateral damage,’ my fiction and writing aims to humanise not only the Arabs, but the English, …
Continue reading “Arab authors & literary institutions: Interview with Fadia Faqir”
There is a prevailing assumption that children and politics do not mix. That parenting is apolitical, and that women who talk about children cannot, at the same time, be talking about resistance, justice, struggle or emancipation. This was brought home to me recently, when in a recent Facebook post I wrote the following: “I received …
Whilst this blog is not meant to be solely devoted to children’s literature, I can’t refrain from commenting on the books in Thomas & Friends’ Pocket Library (Egmont Books, 2010). Given the popularity of the cheeky blue engine and his pals, the overt moralising and unrelenting utilitarianism are shocking. The engines literally learn to toe the …
Many illustrated books for children are packed with stereotypes. From ‘naughty’ Spot who won’t eat his dinner, to mummies dressed in pink aprons, and daddies who read the paper and go on adventures, the children’s literary marketplace seems to be dominated by conditional parenting and conservative narratives. Although there are fantastic children’s illustrators and writers, we …
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Rachel Bower