Ali Znaidi, Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé" />
  • ABOUT
  • PRINT
  • PRAISE
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • OPENINGS
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • CONTACT
The Missing Slate - For the discerning reader
  • HOME
  • Magazine
  • In This Issue
  • Literature
    • Billy Luck
      Billy Luck
    • To the Depths
      To the Depths
    • Dearly Departed
      Dearly Departed
    • Fiction
    • Poetry
  • Arts AND Culture
    • Tramontane
      Tramontane
    • Blade Runner 2049
      Blade Runner 2049
    • Loving Vincent
      Loving Vincent
    • The Critics
      • FILM
      • BOOKS
      • TELEVISION
    • SPOTLIGHT
    • SPECIAL FEATURES
  • ESSAYS
    • A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
      A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
    • Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
      Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
    • Nature and Self
      Nature and Self
    • ARTICLES
    • COMMENTARY
    • Narrative Nonfiction
  • CONTESTS
    • Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
    • PUSHCART 2013
    • PUSHCART 2014
Alone in Babel, Arts & CultureJuly 10, 2014

Semi-finals: Tunisia-Singapore

PREAMBLE

We’re still in shock after that Brazil-Germany game, but it’s time to pick those jaws up off the floor (a slightly macabre image) and get back to the Poetry World Cup, where the first semi-final brings together Singapore and Tunisia. Singapore have attracted strong support in every round so far, reaching the semis with an emphatic win over Trinidad & Tobago, whereas Tunisia were minutes away from going out in the first round, eventually drawing with Botswana and going through on a ‘golden vote’. Can Tunisia’s poem cause one of the biggest surprises of the tournament and go all the way to the final?

MEET THE POETS

Tunisia’s World Cup poet is Ali Znaidi, an English teacher from Redeyef who says that smoking and green tea are crucial to his ‘moments of revelation’. Ali Znaidi’s poems have been widely-published in recent years (he is reputedly the first Tunisian poet ever to have published a collection of haiku in English), and his work has been translated into German, Greek, Turkish and Italian. He has also translated work by the New Mexican poet Catfish McDaris into Arabic.

Proudly waving the flag for Singapore is Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé. The recipient of the PEN American Center Shorts Prize, Swale Life Poetry Prize and Cyclamens & Swords Poetry Prize, among other awards, he also has a theology masters (world religions) from Harvard and fine arts masters (creative writing) from Notre Dame. His work spans various genres —ethnography, journalism, poetry, and creative nonfiction: ‘I’ve come to realise,’ he says, ‘that… I was meant to work across artistic media. The hats are all funky to wear, and life is a grand party.’

ROUTE TO THE SEMI-FINALS

After edging out Botswana via a golden vote, Tunisia produced a late comeback to finish 3 votes ahead of Bermuda in the second round, then beat Venezuela more comprehensively in the quarters.

Singapore scored the biggest win of the opening round, beating China by 48 votes, and have been in imposing form during high-scoring victories over Cyprus in round two and Trinidad in the quarters.

                     

Talk to Me, Apple

Talk to me apple
before a hungry
mouth devours you.
Talk to me apple
before the sun
dries your skin.
Talk to me apple
before a knife
peels you from
extreme to extreme.
Talk to me apple…

~ Ali Znaidi

Read the full poem

gǎn qíng yòng shì :: impulsive and impetuous
“It was game season, and there was blood and lust in their eyes. It was no different from Rome in the old days. Gladiators, lions, slaves, the ringmaster, thrust in a ring together. No different. No different at all.” In the next hour, Geronimo practically talks to himself, gives himself a lesson in violence as spectacle. “What are the forces of tradition? How do they bear down on these peoples? We are in their debt really. We don’t get to see this kind of steadfastness in the city…

~ Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé

Read the full poem

 

RESULT: Singapore won by 54 votes

Continue Reading

1 2 View All →

Tags

Ali ZnaidiDesmond Kon Zhicheng-MingdéPoetry World Cup

Share on

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Previous articlePrivate Theatre: The LEGO Movie
Next articlePoetry World Cup: Meet the semi-finalists

You may also like

Pacific Islander Climate Change Poetry

Spotlight Artist: Scheherezade Junejo

Nobody Killed Her

Ad

In the Magazine

A Word from the Editor

Don’t cry like a girl. Be a (wo)man.

Why holding up the women in our lives can help build a nation, in place of tearing it down.

Literature

This House is an African House

"This house is an African house./ This your body is an African woman’s body..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

Shoots

"Sapling legs bend smoothly, power foot in place,/ her back, parallel to solid ground,/ makes her torso a table of support..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

A Dry Season Doctor in West Africa

"She presses her toes together. I will never marry, she says. Jamais dans cette vie! Where can I find a man like you?" By...

In the Issue

Property of a Sorceress

"She died under mango trees, under kola nut/ and avocado trees, her nose pressed to their roots,/ her hands buried in dead leaves, her...

Literature

What Took Us to War

"What took us to war has again begun,/ and what took us to war/ has opened its wide mouth/ again to confuse us." By...

Literature

Sometimes, I Close My Eyes

"sometimes, this is the way of the world,/ the simple, ordinary world, where things are/ sometimes too ordinary to matter. Sometimes,/ I close my...

Literature

Quarter to War

"The footfalls fading from the streets/ The trees departing from the avenues/ The sweat evaporating from the skin..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Literature

Transgendered

"Lagos is a chronicle of liquid geographies/ Swimming on every tongue..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Fiction

Sketches of my Mother

"The mother of my memories was elegant. She would not step out of the house without her trademark red lipstick and perfect hair. She...

Fiction

The Way of Meat

"Every day—any day—any one of us could be picked out for any reason, and we would be... We’d part like hair, pushing into the...

Fiction

Between Two Worlds

"Ursula spotted the three black students immediately. Everyone did. They could not be missed because they kept to themselves and apart from the rest...."...

Essays

Talking Gender

"In fact it is often through the uninformed use of such words that language becomes a tool in perpetuating sexism and violence against women...

Essays

Unmasking Female Circumcision

"Though the origins of the practice are unknown, many medical historians believe that FGM dates back to at least 2,000 years." Gimel Samera looks...

Essays

Not Just A Phase

"...in the workplace, a person can practically be forced out of their job by discrimination, taking numerous days off for fear of their physical...

Essays

The Birth of Bigotry

"The psychology of prejudice demands that we are each our own moral police". Maria Amir on the roots of bigotry and intolerance.

Fiction

The Score

"The person on the floor was unmistakeably dead. It looked like a woman; she couldn’t be sure yet..." By Hawa Jande Golakai.

More Stories

Skeletons with Music

“Then you married the bloke from Brown, severed ties, didn’t invite me to your wedding—afraid I’d stick my hand up your bodice…” Weekend Poem, by Eleanor Levine.

Back to top
One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at maryamp@themissingslate.com.

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

Read previous post:
Private Theatre: The LEGO Movie

Film critic Ben Hynes on how 'The Lego Movie' functions as a "devious piece of propaganda for neoliberal capitalism."

Close