BNPA Fundraising campaign for Storymoja Hay Festival and Poetry Anthology

Mulimutya, BNPA is fundraising for Storymoja Hay Festival, Nairobi-19th to 22nd September and for the production of the poetry anthology, A Thousand Voices Rising. We kindly ask for your financial support. If you can send 10,000/- via mobile money to 0782 764335 or send through Western Union or directly to the account, which we can provide, much gratitude. Storymoja accommodation is 640 US Dollars Transport costs are 300 US Dollars Poetry Anthology design and lay out-500 US Dollars Printing costs 2,000 US Dollars. Thanks again.

A THOUSAND VOICES RISING: AN ANTHOLOGY BY AFRICAN POETS

This anthology is a collection of personal journeys of Transculture, freeing our literary minds from critical attitudes. It is a summation of many conversations, lots of reading, sharing of dreams and taking risks so that this product would come to be. It is a product of BN Poetry Foundation work. The compilation and editing was done by Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva. In 2009, I began an annual poetry award for Ugandan women because I felt sincerely that poetry would change the political, economic and social system in Uganda and corruption would recede with each new verse from well-meaning poets. While there has been significant positive change and growth over the past five years from the award, the system remains the same. We can still however, through poetry, free ourselves from the rigor of this very system. I still believe in art for social change but more profoundly, I believe that poetry ultimately frees individuals. Poetry is borderless, colourless and timeless. It speaks every language and understands every joy and predicament. It is fine literary art. While I do believe in the advantages of discipline and structure from academia, family and tradition, I firmly believe that within that, we can still be free. Members of the writers here were part of the Crossing Borders writing and Radiophonics mentorship programmes which ran from 2001 to 2010. The mentors from Lancaster University used creative virtual discourse to engage the writers. There are poems here from novices, winners of the Caine Prize, Sillerman Book Prize the BN Poetry Award and those shortlisted for Poetry Foundation Ghana prize, the African Poetry Book Fund prize, Short Story Day Africa, those published and unpublished, poems about heartbreak, genocide, love, leadership, inspiration, next door neighbours, money, faith, landscape, personal journeys, family, children and education. There are poems from spoken word poets and from timid poets those who speak English as a second language and have translated their poetry from Luganda, French, Acoli, Runyakitara. Poems from Algeria, Caribbean, The Democratic Republic of Congo Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and poets based in Norway, The U.K and The U.S. That is the essence of this anthology. It is about new life and old life, about every day, the past, the future and the unknown. We have decided to include African Poetry in the title because of many reasons, one of which can be summarized from Tendai Huchu’s essay, The Problem of The African Reader, published in Afro Futures magazine in 2012. He said that while African writers argue that Western writers do not suffer the same limiting label, a large fundamental cause is because African writers can barely exist without the larger Western audience and until more readers emerge from our continent, this problem will remain. I did not help the poets in this anthology to write but merely guided a few in the process and I know that with extensive reading, their literary desires will be met. As Professor Rainer Rilke said in Letters to a Young Poet, “There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must", then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose.” Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva Founder of the annual BN Poetry Award that coordinates annual poetry competitions for Africans. BN stands for Babishai Niwe, formerly, Beverley Nambozo. http://www.bnpoetryaward.co.ug http://bnpoetryaward.blogspot.com

MYSTERIOUS LIVES OF WRITERS WE KNOW

This information, apart from the Mulekwa quote, is from On writers and Writing, 1998 Desk Diary, by Helen Sheehy and Leslie Stainton. In Finnegan’s wake, he replaced the days of the week with “moanday,” tearsday, wailsday, thumpsday, frightday, shatterday. He estimated he spent 20,000 hours writing Ulysses. He advised a writer friend not to plan ahead. Jules Verne: He wrote a lot but never sold until he was involved in Nadar’s project to build a huge balloon and travel across Europe. The balloon was successfully launched but the flight failed which resulted in a depression and his first novel. This book became a bestseller. In writing his 90 novels, Verne followed Dumas’ advice. He wrote everyday from 6:00 until noon. After lunch, he rested, then walked his dog. Charles Mulekwa (Ugandan playwright). (This quote I not from the Writer’s Diary). Inspiration is a very mean thing. If it comes by and you play hard to get, it vanishes. Peter Mark Roget 1779-1869 The word thesaurus in Greek means treasury. “A misapplied or misapprehended term is sufficient to give rise to fierce and interminable disputes.” Jane Bowles Described as a writer’s writer’s writer. “When I was little, I had to imagine that there was some limit to physical pain in order to enjoy the day.” A nurse dropped her when she was a baby; later she broke her leg failing from a horse, and then she developed tuberculosis of the knee, which left her with a limp. She married Paul Bowles and at one time they lived with a cat, duck, parrot, kitten, armadillo. Fanny Trollope, 1779-1863 She wrote her first book, The Domestic Manners of the American which became a bestseller, to save her husband, herself and their 6 children from financial ruin. She began work punctually at four each morning and completed her quota of words before her family rose for the day. Her dedication was such that between 1834 and 1836, when she lost her husband and 2 children to illness, she wrote 3 books…She reaped for bread, and reaped that honour. Mary Webb: 1881-1927 She was 20 years old when Graves’ disease struck her, rendering her an invalid unable to eat, drink, or sit without help. As a child, she had learned from her father to pay attention to its minute parts: bees, flower buds, clover, the effect of wind on a field of grass. Marguerite Duras: 1914-1996 “When the past is recaptured by the imagination, breath is put back into life.” At the height of her career, she produced books at the rate of nearly one per year. She spent her last years in an unorthodox relationship with a young homosexual man.

Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva, Harriet Anena and Susan Piwang shortlisted for the Poetry Foundation Ghana 2013 prize

Ghana Poetry Prize is a major new poetry prize of Gh cedis 2000 (approximately $1000) targeted at the celebration and promotion of poetry worldwide. The prize is sponsored by Poetry Foundation Ghana. Susan Piwang won the 2012 BN Poetry Award which I (Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva) coordinate. Harriet Anena works for the Monitor Publications. More information from the Poetry Foundation Ghana website is below. The winner will be announced at an event hosted by the Department of Modern Languages and English (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology) and Poetry Foundation Ghana. The venue and date for the event will be communicated later. The Ghana Poetry prize in its first year was opened to the world but in the subsequent years it will be opened to only Ghanaians. An important part of our project is to give voice to fresh, new, unpublished poetry. The Longlist Anthology shall be made available in print during the event at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and the date will be communicated later. The Shortlist Below is a list of the poems selected for the 2013 Ghana Poetry Prize Shortlist. We appreciate the many that supported our poetry project by contributing in our very first year. The many admirable and beautiful entries made the final selection difficult but it was ultimately done. Woman Ezeiyoke Peter Nonso The Leashed Goat Bleats Daniel Kojo Appiah Gratitude To Papa Elizabeth Akrofi The Pretty Beads of Suma-Glory Crystal Tettey I Baptise You with My Child’s Blood Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva My President Mikail Oluwadare Bashir Passages on Kakum Canopy Walkway, Ghana (To Alba K Sumprim) Uzor Maxim Uzoatu Dylan was right Rehan Pochkhanawala OUR GOD, OUR DEVIL Delasi Livingston Senya We Arise Harriet Anena Grandmothers Kofi A. Amoako Man Bailer Wisdom Hanson A Day’s Work Omonegho Imoagene Negro Hate Samuel Osei Mensah Junior Losers And Abusers Kwaku Krobea Asante Resigned to Fate Susan Piwang I Do Not Have A Wife Tony Adebamiji The Picture on The Wall Sarah Nyarko Again Here? Philip A. Alawonde Beautiful Africa William Kumi Du Bois

Birthday Wishes Riding Upon The Waves, poem by BNN

Birthday Wishes Riding Upon the Waves I want my birthday wish to open up the graves of my dreams To make my Daddy come back and for crocodiles To have the jaws of a thousand grains of corn, So that our fear is devoured by perception. I want the skin of the serpent to change into a mirror. I want us to look at our reflection in that mirror and See that we were the predators all along. And watch as the serpent sheds off its skin. I want my birthday wish to ride upon the waves of my life To be my surfboard; so I can play with my troubles And then burst them like bubbles. I want my birthday wish to make you come to me So that we can be Free to make love on a bed of our dirty thoughts And our repentant hearts Because life has taught us that there is nothing As incoherent as desire And nothing as liberating as you and me. If my birthday wish could cure me of cancer If chemotherapy could be a party of afros and models If consultation fees went into consultation If marrying me was your highest manifestation Then my birthday wish would ride upon the waves of my life. © Bev Nambozo Nsengiyunva, July 2013

CHIEF GUEST SPEECH AT BN POETRY AWARD 2013

I send you greetings from Rt. Honourable Rebecca Kadaga, the Speaker of Parliament and Patron of the BN Poetry Foundation. It is a privilege to be part of Uganda’s literary heartbeat, to feel the pulse of words and creativity through projects such as this. Literature is one of the most vital tools for any country to survive. Through various historical stages, our country has been immersed in joy and pain. Literature, especially poetry, is able to define those moments in way that no other art can. The efforts of the annual BN Poetry award, which is now in its fifth year, will not go unnoticed. The steadiness and determination of its founder, Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva, are immeasurable. I congratulate her and the entire team for joining hands to create a platform to promote poetry. When I heard that in 2014, the award will extend to the entire continent, I was impressed by the growth and vision of the project. On behalf of The Speaker, I continue to encourage Beverley and each of you here to keep on working towards realizing your dreams. A dream is the seed for success. Hard work and faith are the ingredients for continuity, growth and life beyond our wildest dreams. Every artist and promoter of the arts who are here today should never give up no matter how hard the struggle. This BN Poetry Award is a testimony to the fact that anything is possible. I congratulate all the poets that have participated in the award since 2009, especially the winners. I believe that each poet is a winner but sometimes there is only space for one in that seat. It is a joy to stand amongst creative talent today and I hope that I get opportunity to share more of the success of literary growth in this country. There are many poets and literary groups that have shaped and continue to shape the arts in Uganda. Amongst them are Okot p Bitek, Professor Timothy Wangusa, Justice James Ogoola, Uganda Women Writers’ Association, The Lantern Meet of Poets, Poetry in Session, to mention just a few. There is a lot of power in your pens and in your head. We should unleash it to the world so that we can live in a better place. Change history through your dreams. Make a difference through your words. Tomorrow, renowned Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong’o will be holding a lecture at Makerere University at 2pm. I hope that you will also be a part of this because when we listen to elders in the trade, we learn wisdom which we can use and pass on. This year I also understand that they are also going to produce an anthology of poetry with all the winning poems and also other poets of the continent. Once again, I congratulate Beverley Nambozo and her organizing committee. I congratulate the winners and wish them all the best as the award reaches the entire continent of Africa in 2014. Thank you and God bless you Honourable Flavia Kabahenda MP Kyegegwa

MESSAGES FROM GUESTS AT BN POETRY AWARD 2013

Congratulations Beverly. The Femrite family is very proud of you and wish you the very best as you go continental. With best regards, Hilda Hullo BN, thanks for initiating the award and for all the effort you put in to make it happen. I personally have a natural passion for literature and such awards like yours provide a great platform for me to develop my work. I was not an A level literature student because I did sciences. However in my O level i did Literature for 2 years knowing I would not have another opportunity to study the subject. I hope to continually get my writing better through learning and actual writing. Blessed week! Julia K Thank you very much! It was a wonderful evening. Congratulations on the achievements. And thanks for talking about Jali sustainable. Happiness, peace, good health, and love be with you you always. Patience. Dear Beverley, It was inspiring and great having an evening out at the BN Poetry Award! Great: people, music, poetry, food, drinks and you looked great in the african outfit. I congratulate you and indeed BN for a successful event. To the Winner ma congrats. I was touched and happy to have my daughter there-Molly Nalunga as one among the 25 that received certificated. Molly she is a performer with House Of Talent. Thanks for the invite and many thanks for the NUVO festival mention! Bev, It was a wonderful event. You keep the literature light shining brightly in Uganda. And look gorgeous doing it! D Baingana hi Bev, thanks for the wonderful award ceremony...as usual, you did not disappoint... the the guest of honor, the guests, the reception, everything was perfect. I have just viewed the three winning poems and noticed that time is timeless and it set me wondering for the nth time, how do people manage to create like that? Oketta You are welcome Beverly. It was quite an event filled with humour great poetry and great people. Keep it up and may you soar on the continental level. Ivan Mulumba Hi Bev....first a congrats for the immense success of BN, more so on going continental......one word:::: You inspire!!! Ivan Okuda