Triple treat for culture club

Bahrain’s art enthusiasts are in for a treat beginning this month with the kingdom’s culture club, Elham, hosting a list of programmes for its Autumn/Winter sessions.

On September 25 three renowned creative personalities will present their skills and talents at the Lina’s Café in the Wind Tower, Diplomatic Area, Manama.

• An artist – Arthur D’Souza will discuss the unique technique which he used to to create his innovative photographic artworks, which he refers to as ‘Positively Paper’. Combining positive film with coloured paper, layered between sheets of glass, the result is dramatic images with amazing depth and colour. Mr D’Souza is currently running an exhibition at the café.

• A writer - South African Melissa van Maasdyk will read a short essay set in Paris that reflects her passion. This has also seen her work as a food and travel writer/editor for magazines including Marie Claire, Style and Elle Decoration in SA and the UK, while pursuing a ‘travelly’ novel that, four years on, she’s begun to refer to as ‘the never-ending story’.

• An oud player and award-winning poet - Bahraini poet Hameed Al Qaed, will recite poems from his most recent work - an anthology entitled ‘Pearl, Dreams of the Shell’.
Published in the USA and launched in Bahrain in August, this anthology includes poems by 29 of Bahrain’s leading modern poets translated into English by Hameed.
Apart from contributing to various publications and recitals, both at home and abroad, Hameed has published two collections of his own poetry, including ‘Noise of Whisper’ (in Arabic and English), which won Bahrain’s coveted Distinguished Book Award in 2003, and will be bringing out another shortly. Hameed’s partner in this one-off collaboration, Bahrain-born Hasan Al Hajair will also visit the club from Japan, where he is currently completing a postgraduate degree in economic history, while actively pursuing a sideline in music.
Having played the classical guitar from an early age, Hasan took up the oud while studying in New York, where his experiences following 9/11 compelled him to rediscover Middle Eastern history, society and arts.
 In Tokyo today, he often collaborates with various musicians in an effort to promote understanding and cultural awareness.

• Elham (Arabic for ‘muse’) was launched in November 2006 by writer Ali Al Saeed, writer and lecturer Deonna Kelli Sayed and artist Phoebe Boswell with an aim to provide a forum for Bahrain’s creative people to meet up and showcase their work.
With growing popularity, the club now hosts monthly gatherings.
Each session showcases the talents of at least three people, including both aspiring and established artists in fields from filmmaking to fiction-writing, via painting, sculpture, music and photography.
This season Elham is adding a few satellite sessions that include a date with British sculptor Ronn Beattie, who will introduce interested parties to her organic, cerebral pieces made from recycled materials on September 29, a weekly writers’ circle from October 20, a photographer’s day out on December 7 and a jazz jamming session on December 14.  The programme starts at 8.30pm. For more information, call on 17-717 441 or visit www.elhambahrain.com.

Poems by Bahraini poet Hameed Al Qaed:
GREEN COFFEE
The man sitting in the café
Drinking his cold coffee
Counting his days by the number of those dead
Suddenly he remembered that he had sunk in the cup
When he extended his hand to pull himself out
He realised that the lady with green eyes
Who was sitting in front of him
Had stolen his heart

STRANGER
The airports gather up their luggage
And depart
The stranger never departs himself
He is secluded inside 
Alone
Blaming himself of sins
That snaps at his calmness 

NIGHT
He went to extinguish the night
The stars protested
He came back with his heart gouged out

OLD ADVICE
The road of poetry is agony
Wrought with thorns
And ending in depression
Said my father when I was young:
“You have chosen to burn”
“How delicious,” I replied, “the taste of ashes”