Seaberg

The Ecca Poets launched their newest collection of poetry Brood at the Hogsback Spring Festival in September 2010. The reading took place in the popular Rose Theatre at the Starways Arts Centre. In December they joined forces again to read at the Jane Wiley Art Gallery in the quaint town of Bathurst.

Good news is that Mzi Mahola is joining the Ecca Group as from 2011.

The Ecca poets hope to present quite a few readings and projects this year. Readings are scheduled for Autumn in East London and Port Elizabeth.

Ecca is an informal group of poets from the Eastern Cape, South Africa, a group of colleagues and friends, really, who get together to work on poetry projects. The group currently is Cathal Lagan, Norman Morrissey, Brian Walter, Quentin Hogge, Laura Kirsten and Marris Everitt, the latter two being new members of the group. Garth Green and the late Basil Somhlahlo have also worked in the group. The group was formed while the founding members, Lagan, Somhlahlo, Walter and Morrissey taught on the staff of the University of Fort Hare, Alice. (Morrissey and Lagan are pictured,left).

The group does regular readings and runs creative writing workshops in and around their home towns of Port Elizabeth, King William’s Town and Hogsback, and have also worked at WordFest and the National Festival of the Arts, Grahamstown.

Walter and Lagan, with artist Hillary Graham and friends, currently have a Words and Images display at WordFest, in Grahamstown.

The poets have publications of poetry in print: Lagan’s Sandbird (Lovedale Press), and A Lark in the Labyrinth (Seaberg), Morrissey’s Seasons (Lovedale Press), God’s Spies, Dog Latin, St Mark’s Diary and Typtych (Ecchoing Green Press), Walter’s Tracks and Baakens ( Lovedale Press, Alice), and Mousebirds (Seaberg), Lagan and Hogge’s Borderlines, and Everitt's On Gardening (aerial publishing) all reflect the poets’ individual preoccupations.

Over the years the group has also put together a number of collective booklets associated with their readings, a number of which are still available (contact horus@telkomsa.net).

Echo Poets, 1989 Alice: Echo Poets, 1989
Echo Poets, 1993 Alice: Echo Poets, 1993
Cast, Alice: The Ecca Poets, 1996
Timespan, Alice: The Ecca Poets, 1997
Scenter, Alice: The Ecca Poets, 1998
Holdall, Hogsback: Seaberg, 2002
Passover, Hogsback: The Ecca Poets, 2003
Dispositions, Hogsback: The Ecca Poets, 2004
Threads, Hogsback: The Ecca Poets, 2005
The Living Years Vinyl, Hogsback:The Ecca Poets, 2006
Amathole, Hogsback: The Ecca Poets, 2007
Keynotes, Hogsback: The Ecca Poets, 2008
Spaces, Hogsback: The Ecca Poets, 2009
Brood, Hogsback: The Ecca Poets/Seaberg, 2010

Their poetry also can be found in South African poetry journals, particularly New Contrast, Carapace, New Coin and Fidelities, as well as in the Fort Hare Creative Writing Journal, Tyume, with which members of the group have also been associated.

Lagan and Walter have both won the Eastern Cape Premier’s Arts and Culture awards, Lagan the Philip Stein award and Walter the Pringle Prize for poetry in Journals and the Ingrid Jonker Prize for Tracks.

Cathal Lagan is an Irish/South African poet who has worked and written in South Africa for longer now than he has stayed in his native Ireland. He describes himself as a “habitual writer”, and his varied backgrounds - sailor, lecturer in English literature, priest - all emerge in his verse through his gifted use of word and image. He explores keenly the memories of a childhood in the Ireland of the mid-twentieth century, as well as more recent reflections of South African life and landscape, finding both correspondence and difference in the experiences. He has published collections of his own poems, Sandbird, A Lark in the Labyrinth and - with Quentin Hogge - Borderlines.

Norman Morrissey, the author of three collections of poems -Seasons, God’s Spies and the collection to be launched at the dispositions exhibition, St Mark’s Diary - has worked in conservation education and as a lecturer in English literature. His verse is a terse - often witty, often poignant - reflection on both inner and outer landscapes and seasons, and St Mark’s Diary crystallizes this struggle as it witnesses the international malady of conflict in the Gulf region from within the wards of a psychiatric hospital. His latest works are Dog Latin, and Tryptich. He is working on his collected poems, for Ecchoing Green Press (who also published his latest two works.

Quentin Hogge’s verse travels from Greece to Stonehenge, the Renosterberg to the Fish River, from kids surfing at Kowie to San paintings, always casting a fresh eye on people, relationships and society. His joint collection with Cathal Lagan, Borderlines, introduces both the movement of his work and his sense of place, particularly -- in this collection ― the Border region where Hogge, an educator of many years standing, currently lives.

Brian Walter’s first collection of poems, Tracks, suggests a preoccupation with the earth, with landscape, and with reading the signs of past experience. This focus is expanded in Baakens, a collection that explores past and present in the Baakens River Valley of Port Elizabeth, with hints of a journey into an underworld. Walter, who has been a lecturer in English literature and currently works in rural teacher development, treads firmly on the soil of his home province, the Eastern Cape, but with suggestive echoes from a wider world. His latest collection is Mousebirds (Seaberg).

Laura Kirsten is 'n pianis en digter. Sy het Bmus grade van die Universiteit van Pretoria. Sy is tans besig om aan 'n een-vrou stuk te werk, Ingrid Jonker Dans Weer, wat beweging, gedigte en musiek kombineer. Sy is gabaseer in Hogsback in die Oos-Kaap.

Mariss Everitt is a Grahamstown poet, also into quilt-making, a craft that inspires some of her poetry. She has a published volume, On Gardening ( Aerial Publishing) , She works in the archives at the National English Literary Museum (NELM), Grahamstown, South Africa.

Contact info@seaberg.co.za for prices of Seaberg books.