Poetry, poetry, everywhere

[asra]

Last week was basically poetry week: we had the poet Gili Haimovich, from Israel, on campus. She did a few workshops with our students and gave them interviews, and everyone loved her. We also went to a poetry festival to listen to her, on a panel with Singapore-based poet Alvin Pang and Berlin-based poet Ulrike Almut Sandig. Alvin Pang stole everyone's hearts; we couldn't even buy copies of his books because they were all sold out, but he chatted with us after the panel and gave us the link to a website where we can order his books. Here he is reading 'Candles', a poem in 'Singlish' (Singapore English), a conversation between a man and his son who steals candles from a church so he can study.

We also had a three-day book exhibition on campus. Thanks to the funding for my research project, I could go wild buying books. I also ordered tonnes for our library, and one of the stalls was so thrilled with my orders that they gave me a free book. *hearteyes*