Thanks Vickie!

Dye Hard Interview with Pravasan Pillay: Humour Me

Pravasan Pillay was born in 1978 in Durban. He has published a chapbook of poetry, Glumlazi (2009), and a collection of comedic short stories Shaggy (2011), co-written with Anton Krueger. Pillay's poetry and short stories have appeared in numerous books and journals and on websites. His short story 'Mr Essop' appears in The Edge of Things, an anthology of South African short fiction published by Dye Hard Press.His humour pieces have appeared in A Look Away Magazine, Mail & Guardian and McSweeney's. He is the editor and co-founder of the small press Tearoom Books. Pillay has worked as a freelance journalist, philosophy lecturer, production and project manager, and copy editor. He currently lives in Sweden and works as the international editor of a Swedish trade magazine. Read more HERE.

Review of Gary Cummiskey's Romancing the Dead by Kobus Moolman

With the appetite of a new razor blade, Gary Cummiskey’s latest collection Romancing the Dead (Tearoom Books, Durban), slices through pretence and politeness. It is tough writing. It is uncomfortable. In your face. Tough and uncomfortable and in your face the way Lesego Rampolokeng is, or Cormac McCarthy, in his early novels – Child of God and Outer Dark.

But unlike these two authors, Cummiskey’s eye and ear are far too world-wise (and weary) to take themselves very seriously. He knows that it is through ‘sleeping on a razorblade’ that he has acquired his poetic sensibility, but also admits that he likes his ‘reality stirred with milk and honey’.

So, a contradiction. A paradox that runs through all of his writing: beauty and horror in the same breath; intense lyricism and feverish crudity. And in a truly exceptional poem like “Blue just like the Sky”, he pulls this tension off with great skill. It is a poem that baffles the reader, and at the same time lures them on to continue discovering more and deeper levels of reality and imagination. How else are we to approach my favourite lines, ‘Do not mix with murdered sheep or with the remains of children. The jet plane there is easy to swallow’, except by disassembling our narrative minds, and reading instead with eyes that look at the world slantways?

Romancing the Dead is the second book brought out by Tearoom Books, an independent press in Durban. Run by Pravasan Pillay and Jenny Kellerman-Pillay it aims, according to its blurb, to ‘publish pamphlets of contemporary poetry, fiction, non-fiction and humour’.

Tearoom Book’s first publication was Glumlazi by Pravasan Pillay, a collection of off-the-wall, but trenchant, three-line and two-line poems. Hooray for small publishers, I say. They are often the only ones brave (or crazy) enough to take on work as provocative and uncomfortable as Cummiskey’s latest.

Linda Stenman on Glumlazi

Glumlazi (Tearoom Books, 2009) is the first collection of poems from Pravasan Pillay. The format is more booklet than book, and the poems are very short.

I was a bit nervous when I started reading Glumlazi, since this is my first review copy. I was afraid that I wouldn't like the poems and would have to write a one-star review (despite the generosity of Tearoom Books). I worried for no reason. Pravasan Pillay's poems are unique - and really good.

Some of the poems remind me of Oscar Wilde's witticisms. Some of them are almost zenlike in an everyday manner. And some are filled with simplicity and sadness. You could read one each day and enjoy it until the next day.

I say: ****(*)

First published on Linda Loves Books

Gary Cummiskey's Short Review of Glumlazi

Glumlazi is a first collection by Durban poet Pravasan Pillay, published by new small press Tearoom Books. A beautiful little debut volume, these SMS-like poems range from two to seven lines each. Two of them are as follows:

House was the grenade
Mama was the pin

and

down the tunnels
where the lights are always on
there are still shadows

Available at R40 including postage. For order information, contact tearoombooks@gmail.com

This review first appeared here

Haidee Kruger's Short Review of Glumlazi

Witty, brittle, wry vignettes. Beware their simplicity - some will leave you smarting. A distilled kind of complexity. One of my favourites:

mama was the pin
house was the grenade
mama was the pin

(And I have to say: I love the cover.)

First published here

Anton Krueger Reviews Glumlazi

Not so Glum Lazi
by Anton Krueger

It was a real treat to crack open Pravasan Pillay’s collection Glumlazi this morning.

Instead of trying to muse philosophical about the impact of his poems on my mind, it might be more appropriate to document the effect they had on my face. Here were some of the expressions I went through while reading through this sardonic little compilation over my coffee: laughter, wincing, more laughter, puzzlement, laughter, surprise,brooding head nodding, enjoyment, smiling…

Each of the tight little poems in here packs a punch. I was reminded of Piet Hein’s Grooks from the 70’s with their pithy comments on states of affairs. The influence of Wopko Jensma is also acknowledged and is occasionally evident, but most of all Pillay has created an idiosyncratic style all his own. Many of the poems seem to emerge out of his rueful murmurings on failed relationships, and yet even at his most bitter there is an ironic self-deprecating humour.

best
i’m not the best of the
insecure poets

And throughout the book there is an appeal to take things easier, to relax from the strain of taking ourselves too seriously.

letter to upstarts
my ideal job would be
to unsharpen your
pencils

There are also political overtones and an awareness of larger structures, and yet, politics is always entwined with the personal:

nats vs. gnat
she accepts the penance
of the nats but not mine

And then there is the more sultry side of his cynicism. If some of the contents had been toned down for a more commercial consumption, this booklet might have been a bestseller, but Pillay doesn’t compromise, and some of the humour is biting.

swamp blues
her swamp need a
thing

and

vibrator
her vibrator’s got a
better car than me

and

beeswax
got her beeswax
on my mind

By the end of this all too brief foray into Pillay’s personal perspective, there is an acknowledgement of the limitations of what desire, love and politics can do. Even the capacity of what poetry itself can achieve is quietly derided.

three pin plugs, two pin sockets
this so-called extra sense of
poets
will not bring them power

The one thing that remains when all of these have fallen away, is the humour. We can often do without the philosophy, without politics, even, perhaps, without love, but it is hard to get by without laughter.

This review first appeared here

Tearoom Books' First Publication

Tearoom Books is an indie press based in Durban, South Africa. Run by Pravasan Pillay and Jenny Kellerman, it aims to publish pamphlets of outstanding contemporary poetry, fiction, non-fiction and humour. Tearoom's first pamphlet, Glumlazi by Pravasan Pillay, was released in January 2009. Glumlazi, Pillay's debut, is a collection of short poems,concerning revenge, sex, and the blues. The majority of poems run no-more than two lines.

Write to tearoombooks@gmail.com for order information.