Zizipho Bam

Monday 3 Feb, 19:30: Zizipho Bam is an award-winning poet who is celebrated for exploring love, longing, loss, and healing. Her debut collection, “Sunflowers For My Lovers,” showcases her unique storytelling. Bam has performed at prestigious events like Open Book Festival, The National Arts Festival, and Poetry Africa, where she judged the 2023 National Poetry Slam Competition. She is also the co-founder of Slam City, Cape Town’s premier poetry slam. Her accolades include the 2020 New Coin Prize, the 2021 New Contrast National Poetry Prize, and the 2023 Thomas Pringle Award. Learn more at www.ziziphobam.com. Join on Zoom!

Anne Graaff

Mon 2 Dec, 19.30: Anne Graaff is a poet, artist and art historian living between France and South Africa.  As a writer she has written extensively on the artist Helen Martins and her Owl House. Her most recent book, The Moleskins, about the British War Artist and SOE agent, Cecil Michaelis, was published last year.

Her poetry appears in various publications, including Carapace, Stanzas, and the anthologies of African poetry, Africa, My Africa! and Absolute Africa! (Sun Publishers). 

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Brian Walter

19.30, Mon 25 Nov: Brian Walter (born 1956) taught at Chapman High School in Gelvandale, Gqeberha, and at the University of Fort Hare, Alice. 

His books include Groundwork: An Introduction to Reading and Writing about Poetry (1997), which he wrote with Felicity Wood. His poetry collections are Tracks (1999) Lovedale, Baakens (2000) Lovedale, Otherwise and Other Poems (2014) Echoing Green Press, Poems Packed for Travel (2016) Poetree, Allegories of the Everyday (2019) Dryad Press. He has recently published Down the Baakens Underworld, (2024) Botsotso, a revised version of his Lovedale books. He has won the 1999 Thomas Pringle Award for poetry published in journals and the 2000 Ingrid Jonker Prize for Tracks, as well as National and Provincial awards.