Portrait of Rommy with a Plan as a…bobo nkiti. (I nearly said as a young man).

Z10 & OUT!

My mobile life is currently in a mess. I recently switched networks from Orange to Vodafone and got the new BlackBerry Z10. The Z10 is pretty. The technology is bold and innovative.The still and video cameras are excellent. The photo studio is mind-blowing. The BBM experience is enhanced and just wonderful. The Z10 by the way has the best voice command I have ever encountered in a mobile device.

But...ahem... This phone is a colossal successful disappointment. The navigation is an agent of frustration because the touchscreen gestures are temperamental, deciding when to work and when not to work. Getting out of apps is capable of inducing depression in a black man - no mean feat, that. I had to look up how to save a number when somebody calls you whose number is not in your phone book. The instruction was to place a finger on the number for a menu to pop up, but each time I placed a finger on the number the eager Z10 immediately began calling it. I found on the internet that this simple requirement is driving Z10 users mad across England.

Then sometimes the onscreen keyboard will not work at all. And since there is no alternative way around it, I had to switch the phone off and reboot it and wow, the keyboard came to life.

Then I needed to install Whatsapp. After downloading it, I got a message that installation failed because my Z10 only had os10 and I needed to update my software to os10.1.3. No problem. I attempted to update the software but got a message that the file was too large to download over the network, that I must use Wi-Fi. No problem, I set up my Wi-Fi, but the Z10 was not having it, said the Wi-Fi in my home was limited. I called Vodafone to ask how I could get over this. The Wi-Fi in my home is not at all limited; my laptop, my wife's laptop, and our other phones all tap into this Wi-Fi and when we have visitors they all hook up their phones or laptops to this Wi-Fi and it works. The smart Vodafone staff advised me to take the Z10 to a Vodafone store then each time I needed to update my software, that they would do it free. The nearest Vodafone store to me is in Eltham! I have to drive 20 minutes each way (if traffic is light) just to get my phone's software updated?

Finally had to take the phone back and cancel the contract. I am in the process of porting my number out of Vodafone temporarily to Orange but should be back on Vodafone with a new, more stable phone sometime next week.

Nnorom

SPM Publications “Nine East” Press Release

 

NINE EAST BY UCHE NDUKA

 

SPM Publications, London, proudly announces the publication of Nine East – a new book of poetry by award-winning poet Uche Nduka – author of such critically acclaimed books as Flower Child (1988), Second Act (1994), The Bremen Poems (1995/99), Chiaroscuro (1997), If Only The Night (2002), Heart's Field (2005), eel on reef (2007), Tracers: e-book (2010), and Ijele (2012). Nduka, a poet, essayist, songwriter, collagist - is ranked among the most innovative writers of his generation.

 

Nine East was released on the 31^st of May 2013 by SPM Publications – a London-based publisher whose other authors include Roger Elkin, Mandy Pannett, Afam Akeh, Molara Wood, Nnorom Azuonye and Obemata.

 

ABOUT NINE EAST

Nine East uses 100 poetic observations to explore our collective human environments; teasing, questioning, celebrating, and enjoying life and how we live it, how we love, how we know and use our bodies and how far we push our minds and spirits. It is an assured, mesmerising and fun book of poetry in which every breath of love and life is captured in organic music.

 

REVIEWS

 

"There is much to appreciate in Nduka's joyous language, his percussive rhythms; his sense of movement runs like a river..."

          -Library Journal

 

"In Nine East, Nduka locates the grace of our graphic, bodied days, in verse somehow both free and arresting – volleyed between playful compound neologisms and stark, unaffected prose these lines capture the poet's life in all its quotidian wonder, the word recalling always our dual anatomies, formed of cell and sentence. The edges blur as we enter the pace of these pages, knowing ourselves here, asking ourselves (as Nduka asks himself, and us) why we are waiting for a bus as the poem's face is lifting off, almost slipping out of the page, making room for the unintended. They are poems for now, and for here."

          - Lynne DeSilva-Johnson, Managing Editor Exit Strata

 

"The trouble with Uche Nduka is that he is incapable of writing a single poem that does not confirm his reputation as a – no, make that “the” – the master of the word. In Nine East, every word is a world ajar, beckoning. Reader, you must enter this world – Uche’s world made ours – where an enthralling marriage of perception and lyricism guarantees that your senses shall never be the same again. This is what we ask of the truly great poet, what we ask of great poetry of the sort that Uche Nduka delivers in this book."

          - Pius Adesanmi, Winner, Penguin Prize for African Writing

 

Nine East is now available to order direct from SPM Publications at www.spmpublications.com and through such online retailers as Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

 

Until Nine East becomes available in Nigeria and other African countries, SPM Publications will deliver directly to Africa from England.

 

Details of Book launches and reading tours in the United States, the United Kingdom and Nigeria will be announced in due course.

Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition (June 2013)

Closing Date: 30 June 2013

Details: For previously unpublished poems in English language in any style, on any subject up to 50 lines long. Poems entered must also not be under consideration or accepted for publication elsewhere and may not be entered into another competition running at the same time.

Eligibility: Poets of all ages, gender and nationality living anywhere in the world are eligible to enter.

Prizes: £150 (First), £75 (Second), £50 (Third), £10 x 3 (High Commendation) + Publication in Sentinel Literary Quarterly magazine.

Fees: £4/1, £7/2, £9/3, £11/4, £12/5, £16/7 and £22/10 poems.

Judge: Claire Askew author of The Mermaid and the Sailors.

Contact: Enter online or download Entry Form (for postal entries) at http://www.sentinelquarterly.com/competitions/poetry

Postal Entries: Cheques/Postal Orders in favour of SENTINEL POETRY MOVEMENT, Unit 136, 113-115 George Lane, South Woodford, London E18 1AB.

Last Flight to Abuja - an Obi Emelonye film - DVD

Last Flight to Abuja - an Obi Emelonye film - DVD