On March 29th, we’re having a party to celebrate being 8 years old this year. We are also setting up a Poetry Fund so that Modjaji Books can sustain our existing poetry publishing endeavours as well as create new and exciting projects. If you are in Cape Town, we urge you buy a ticket and join us. Once you buy your ticket we’ll let you know the venue. Time from 4pm onwards.
We are planning to host future events, such as salons and readings to raise funds for the Modjaji Poetry Fund. We are also considering new poetry projects if the Fund is successful in raising money. We are thinking of a new Poetry Prize or Prizes, mentoring and workshops, as well as Editorial Grants and honoraria for poets – these are the dreams.
In the meantime – we are going to be celebrating in style, with a reading from the following Cape Town based poets, all of whom we have published.
Malika Ndlovu will read and EmCee the event. Megan Hall, Karin Schimke, Beverly Rycroft, Margaret Clough, Khadija Heeger, Christine Coates, Dawn Garisch, Colleen Higgs, Jenna Mervis and Kerry Hammerton will all be reading.
Tickets are R100 (all monies to go toward the Fund) and you will be met with a glass of champagne, some delicious snacks and a general vibe of conviviality and celebration. If you can’t make it, but support the idea of the fund, you can still buy a ticket or make a donation. Click the link to see how.
So far we have had donations to the poetry fund from Robert Berold, William Kentridge, Joan Metelerkamp, Colleen Crawford Cousins, Jenna Mervis, Rachel Zadok, Kerry Hammerton, Dawn Garisch, Helen Moffett, Christine Coates, Margaret Clough, and Beverly Rycroft. Thank you to those who generously contribute time and effort to enable us to continue publishing poetry and other beautiful books.
In case you don’t know our poetry publishing history, the first book we published, Megan Hall’s Fourth Child, came out in October 2007, and went on to receive the 2008 Ingrid Jonker Award. We’ve published 28 collections of poetry, with four more to come this year. Our poets have won Three Ingrid Jonker Prizes, 2 SALA prizes, and one of our poets was nominated as the 2014 Commonwealth Poet of the Year. Most of our poets have been invited to the different poetry and literary festivals in the country, Franschoek Literary Festival, Poetry Africa, the McGregor Poetry Festival, and the Open Book Festival.