AUTOBIOGRAFÍAS / JOANNE MERRIAM

Auto Biographies

by Joanne Merriam (Goodreads Author)

I remember my breath making tiny clouds. My hands mittened on the wheel. The crescent moon high up in the clear sky. I remember the mudflats to the horizon, your laugh and your hand on my thigh. I remember fog waiting doglike at the foot of the mountain. A doe we slowed down for, her eyes redefining silver in the highbeams. The open window turning your hair into a bird.

I remember you breaking the dashboard with your fists. My stillness. A hawk on a birch branch. The way the plastic pops back into place. I remember the black ice slide into the median and the twisted axel. A few spooky bits where trees rose up out of flooded, frozen fields. A few grains of snow piled up in corners. Road kill.

I remember saying I loved you, and later saying I didn't anymore. I remember the way the snow skating over the pavement made shapes that faded as we named them. I remember crying. I remember you crying. Our voice, fences in the darkness, and the riverbeds lined with a mess of broken ice.

TEXTOS SOBRE EL LONDON LITERATURE FESTIVAL

The London Literature Festival will take place from the 3rd to the 12th of June, this is the 6th annual festival and it will return to the Southbank Centre.

This year’s festival will consist of three broad strands: Capital Stories; Arab Revolutions; and poetry slam, Shake the Dust. This promises to be an unforgettable weekend of spoken word performance, with the highlight of this year festival will be a weekend-long poetry extravaganza with the culmination of Shake the Dust, the biggest youth poetry slam competition in the country, led by Saul Williams, one of the most influential voices on the international spoken word scene, and the UK’s very own rap battling, hip-hop MC Kate Tempest. There will be nine teams in total from across the country competing in the final.

Poet, playwright and Southbank Centre Associate Artist, Lemn Sissay, the first poet commissioned to write for the 2012 Olympics, welcomes some of the UK's top spoken word artists. Across the country, young Shake the Dust poets have been learning from the professionals. (El 6 de julio), it's the poet coaches' turn to show they can talk the talk. Nine exemplary artists take to the stage, blurring the line between page and performance in a medley of styles, poetics and regional accents. Joining them, all the way from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is a delegation from First Wave, the US's first spoken word and hip-hop university programme, to show us how it's done across the pond.

Author-journalists José Eduardo Agualusa (Angola) and Dinaw Mengestu (Ethiopia) explore -- in readings and discussion -- the limitations of borders in the imaginative landscape of the African writer. Agualusa's most recent work is My Father's Wives, a novel of music, magic and secrets, that travels from Angola, through Namibia and South Africa to Mozambique. Dinaw Mengestu is the author of Children of the Revolution, winner of The 2007 Guardian First Book Award in the UK and the Prix Femina Etranger in France, and How to Read the Air (2010).

Chaired by Nii Ayikwei Parkes (Ghana) whose novel, Tail of the Blue Bird, which was shortlisted for the 2010 Commonwealth Prize.


The Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival usually pulls in some big names and this year’s no exception… But there’s also some very interesting smaller events and a very strong London theme.                                   We very much recommend catching Icelandic novelist, poet and Oscar winner Sion, Nathan Penlington’s Choose Your Own Documentary (we enjoyed his show Uri and Me), Charlie Dark hosting short story writers battling it out at StorySLAM, a production based on the copy of Shakespeare smuggled into Robben Island, an unpublished Don DeLillo work performed and a free event about the poetry of motorways. For more poetry, head to Saul Williams and Kate Tempest, Lemn Sissay (pictured) or Tony Harrison.
                To make the point that this is the London Literature Festival, Londonist’s current favourite author Craig Taylor talks about his book Londoners, Andrew Martin presents a passenger’s history of the tube and there’s a talk about the London riots.

TEXTO DE PROMOCIÓN DEL 6º LONDON LITERATURE FESTIVAL

Welcome to Southbank Centre’s sixth annual London Literature Festival featuring headline names: Siri Hustvedt, John Pilger, Clive Stafford Smith, Andy Kershaw, Noo Saro-Wiwa, Will Self, Stella Duffy and Mark Haddon, as well as children’s authors Michael Morpurgo and Andy Stanton.
We present the first ever UK performance of Don DeLillo’s The Word For Snow, and bring you Capital Stories, a playful and provocative look at the city that the world calls home. Experience our city afresh through graphic short stories, debate, oral history and poetry.
The world comes to London this summer with a global array of writers, artists and activists from across Africa and the Arab region and dispatches from Mumbai, China and the Caribbean. We unpick the complexities of the Arab Revolutions in day of discussion, performance and exchange.
In an unforgettable weekend of spoken word performance, don’t miss Shake the Dust, the biggest UK youth poetry slam featuring top spoken word artists Saul Williams and Kate Tempest and nine teams from across the country competing in the final. Prepare to be blown away by the energy, originality, honesty and virtuosity of this new generation of writers and performers.
Join us for the UK’s most dynamic literature festival.

DEL FESTIVAL DE LITERATURA DE LONDRES

La Escuela de Escritura Creativa del Southbank Centre ofrece cada mes sesiones prácticas intensivas de dos horas acerca del oficio de escribir. 

En el Festival de Literatura de Londres ha dirigido estas sesiones (5 - 8 de julio) Greg Mosse, líder del programa de MA de CW en West Dean College, quien proporciona a los participantes más tiempo para desarrollar y evaluar su trabajo, con seis talleres de dos horas durante ocho días.
En la planificación de una novela Mosse muestra tres partes: inicio, desarrollo de la historia y obstáculos. Explora las maneras en que el escritor establece un punto de vista y dramático statu quo. Se pueden inscribir a las clases en un conjunto de tres o en sesiones individuales. Las clases se repiten para dar a los estudiantes una mayor flexibilidad.


Book tickets now. Prices: £14 / Booking Fee: £1.75 (Members £0.00) / Concessions: 50% off (limited availability)