Dear Nyana,
Thank you so much for all the information, links and photos. I would love to join the Monday Readers/Writers Club someday. I miss that: Coming together with other authors, readers, journalists and other literature enthusiasts to read and discuss our own texts. I was already thinking about organizing something similar in Bremen for a long time. It would be nice to have an open space with a similar nice atmosphere, as it seems to be in the Club that is organized by Femrite. And yes, sure, I´d love to hear you talking more about Femrite.
Concerning teaching creative writing: I´m sure you will do a great job, because there is so much you know and have to tell about poetry. I´m very impressed by your blog, there is so much to discover, all these exciting interviews (Unfortunately, I have only read three or four till now), brilliant poems and short stories. I have to read more of them in the next few days and I´d like to know more about the tradition of fireplace tales.
Also, I´m very impressed by the work and success of Peter Kagayi Mutanga in teaching, which he describes in the interview on your blog. It sounds as though he is doing very important work in the schools and is having astonishing results. I love to teach creative writing at schools, universities or anywhere else. At university I just taught a class that I have a lot of experience with. I´m working as a prose-writer and as a journalist so, I decided to do a lot with observing and describing in the seminar. Many times the students had to go out to look for something to describe. So, the first step was to watch and the second was to describe what they have seen, preferably (as much as possible) without evaluating, just describing for the moment. The third step was to work with these descriptions. I wanted them to play with and to modify these texts. For writing variations I worked with a book I admire – “Exercices de style” by Raymond Queneau; also I worked a lot with a book, that is written by one of Nikolas teachers in Hildesheim: Stephan Porombka. The book is called “Kritiken schreiben – Ein Trainingsbuch” (“writing reviews – a training book”. I´m sorry, it´s not translated till now).
You have written, that you also work as an editor. I do that as well, at the moment in particular, for a project I worked on with the Bremer Literaturkontor: a new publication series called “MiniLit”. This is a small booklet where we publish the stories of young authors from Bremen. There are always two stories in one edition. The first one is already published, the next one will be printed soon, and the third one is in progress. I´d like to know what kind of editing you are doing.
The home of the Slam Bremen: the cultural Centre Lagerhaus in Bremen
Beyond that, I´m looking forward to hearing about the recitals. I love to go to readings and I love to read my own stories in front of an audience (you will hear more about that in my input-text on Monday). Yesterday, I visited a Poetry Slam in the cultural Centre Lagerhaus, together with 100-150 other people for four hours(!). There is a vivid slam-scene in Bremen. How about Kampala? Are there any Poetry Slams or anything similar like storytelling-competitions?
The winner of the Lagerhaus-Slam yesterday: vorwiegendinmoll
Enjoy your weekend!
Jens
PS: If you like, here´s a video showing the German Poetry-Slam-Champion 2014 – Lars Ruppel (I´m sorry, it´s in German, but maybe it helps to get an impression).
PPS: Something I forgot to say. The German Poetry-Slam-Champion Lars Ruppel is not just a great Poet and Performer, but he is also a great teacher. Twice I attended a Slam-Workshop of Lars; another time, when I worked for the virtual Literaturhaus Bremen together with the writer Jutta Reichelt on a school project called “netzdichte“, we had Lars one day as a guest. He prepared the pupils for their reading. The boys and girls loved working together with Lars, because he is so passionate about what he does. All three times I saw him as a teacher, he did a superb job – I learned a lot and it was fun. The reason why he is such a brilliant teacher, is very simple: He really loves what he is doing, and you can feel that every minute in his workshops. If you love, what you do and you want to share with others, I suppose, then these are ideal conditions to be an excellent teacher.
Hi, am a writer majorly in academic writing and I would like to join the team.
Nambula Isaac
BIT
+256773390207
am impressed and I would like to join. how can I do?
Nambula Isaac from Uganda-kampala.
thanks!
Glad you like to join! We just wrote you back.
Jens, thank you for this post. It looks like there is a lot of good energy at these slams. The poetry scene in Kampala is growing all the time. But there are possibly no poetry slams (that is with the competitive format). Instead there are poetry events where local poets recite or perform. Check out the link on this blog for Poetry in Session.
What I love about your post is that it reflects the interaction and support writers give to each other at such events as poetry slams or workshops. It is exactly what we are doing on this blog and reminds me again of the importance of having such spaces with that creative energy where we can even challenge each other and stimulate creativity.
One thing I do miss about the poetry slam format is the competitive aspect and the format really push the development of performance poetry because poets are forced to think of how to improve their performance every time to stay ahead of the game.Reference
Peter is very inspiring. His vision when it comes to Literature and Art is something else. I don’t know how well I could teach come to think of it.Reference
I guess something I learned today is that when we write, we are not writing merely to amuse ourselves, we are writing in a way as teachers. I wonder if all writers have that in mind or is it something I am just sensing on this exchange?
Joel, I don’t think writers should add that responsibility “writing in a way as teachers” to things they have to do. Our responsibility as writers is to just write. If people can learn from our writing then well and good but if you write with the intention of teaching it will affect your work greatly. Unless you are a motivational writer. Just write and let your work do that for itself.
I do believe however, as in any line of work, that you reach a point when you want to pass on the knowledge you have picked along the way. Things you wish you had known perhaps when you were starting out. Whether on a bigger stage as a Professor of creative writing or the school outreaches by Lantern Meet or a one-on-one. That is great but even that is not mandatory.
Yes, I think I agree with you on that Hellen. Thanks.
First I’d like to apologise to everyone for not responding to your comments for a while, but I’ve been very busy indeed. One of the reasons is that I’ve been preparing a reading I’m sharing tonight with Bremen authors Heidrun Immendorf and Jörn Birkholz on the topic of the internet and the “see-through” human being – 1984-type control by multis and intelligence agencies. It’s in the Villa Ichon, by the way, a photo of which Jens has just posted (thanks, Jens). What I actually want to add is that writing groups are not always sweetness and light, but rather we weak humans often bring in our own vanity and other not-so-wholesome qualities. Has anyone else experienced what the Americans call “cut and slash” in such groups, especially groups where you didn’t know the other writers beforehand? After a few bad experiences in such constellations, I have now decided to have two separate “first readers”, both very good friends and Bremen authors in their own right, with whom I can discuss my – and their – work privately, i.e. “one on one”. One of the problems I had with groups is that they tend to hand out a “homework” topic (or form) for next time, which completely paralysed me. But maybe that was my problem. So I’d say: yes, join a group but be prepared to leave if it turns into a hassle; and maybe it’s better to start one up with people you know already. Any ideas?