Poets in the country through Poetry Association of Malawi (PAM) have revealed plans to come up with an anthology of poems.
In an interview with Malawi24, Immulanie Makande who is PAM Vice President said compiling local poems into an anthology will help the poets to showcase their talent.
“This approach is geared to encourage budding poets, creating a cheap platform where they can expose their work to readers. It will also help because it will be given out freely and poets are going to increase their market share,” Makande said.
“When they will be exposed through the anthology and next time they produce something for sale customers will buy them. Furthermore, we want to show to our customers we publish our work and that PAM can facilitate and publish a powerful anthology,” Makande added.
The anthology is expected to be launched during commemorations of World Book and Copyright Day on 23 April.
According to Makande, the commemorations in the country will take place at MADSOC Theatre, Area 2 in Lilongwe and the event has been organized by PAM in collaboration with Mwezi Arts.
PAM is therefore calling upon all poets in the country to submit their poems and each poet is supposed to submit a piece written in English on any theme.
“The association will review the poems and shortlisted poets will be asked to provide a short bio. In the end, the anthology shall be published in a Portable Document Format (PDF) and distributed to all interested individuals who shall submit email addresses,” Makande said.
On the requirements of poems to be included in the Anthology, he said all poets in the country are welcome as long as they submit poems which are in English.
“No segregation, each poet should submit but to have sizeable compilation, some will not be published and we will keep them for future projects. Poets are only encouraged to be creative and unique in their creations,” the PAM veep said.
He further said that poets are demanded to submit poems that are in English because PAM has for a long time been associated with vernacular poets.
“The association is a mother for all poets and we want to show that we also take care of poets who are expressing their art in English.
“The other reason is that we are strict on language because we want to level the field,” Makande told Malawi24.
Poets can submit their poems from now until 20 April and the collection will be ready by morning of 23 April.
Poets are advised to send their poems to the email address poetryassociationofm[email protected].
During the World Book and Copyright Day commemorations, poets such as Nyamilikiti, Yolanda Kaluma, Immulanie Makande, and Chris Msosa are expected to perform.
Among other activities at the function will be book readings, drama and music.
The event will start at 2PM and entry fee is K2000.
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