Oriental Touches is a wonderful evening of music and poetry organised by the Oriental Cultural Forum. Iraqi poet, Hatif Janabi, currently residing in Poland and British poet, Agnes Meadows, will perform excerpts from their collections, while Ahmed Mukhtar will play some of his outstanding music on the Oud (an Iraqi lute).The evening will be held at the Poetry Café (which belongs to the Poetry Society)

At 7pm on the 4th February 2009. £5, concessions £3

his event will mark the beginning of an exciting programme of events from the Oriental Cultural Forum, which will be held on the first Wednesday of every month. 

Address:

Poetry Café The Poetry Society, 22 Betterton Street, London WC2H 9BX

Nearest Underground: Covent Garden (Piccadilly Line), Holborn (Piccadilly & Central Line)

orientalculturalforum@googlemail.com 

Hatif Janabi

Was born in Iraq, near Babylon, where he lived, studied and started to write his first poems. He has lived in Poland since 1976. Hatif is a well-known poet, writer, essayist and translator. He is the author of 19 books of poetry, criticism and translation. He has published eight volumes of poetry.
"Although exile, alienation and bad times with reversed values occupied much space in the soul of Hatif Janabi and became the main link of his words, with continuous glide like a wind in various directions of the land of poetry, his poems are open to various climates and broad horizons. They show a rich world and loving details of life in exile, in hectic reality. This world fills up with visions of perfectly co-existent similarities and contradictions, wholes and parts of swollen emotions"

(Dr. Yousef Sha'hadeh, rocznik Orientalistyczny, University of Warsaw 2003)

HATIF JANABI earned a B.A. in Arabic Language & Literature from the University of Baghdad (1972), an M.A. in Polish Language & Literature, University of Warsaw (1979) and Ph.D. in Drama from Warsaw University (1983), where he now teaches Arabic Language & Literature. He was a lecturer of Arabic Literature and Drama in the University of Tizi-Ouzu in Algeria (1985-1988) and a Visiting Scholar at Indiana University (1993-1994).

He has won numerous international poetry prizes. His poems have appeared in more than 10 languages: Arabic, English, French, German, Czech, Kurdish, Slovakian, Spanish, Persian, Polish and Russian

Agnes Meadows

currently lives in London, has been a journalist, arts funder, freelance consultant, and is now a Performance Poet. Agnes has an established reputation on the Performance Poetry scene both in London and other parts of the UK, having toured throughout the country. In 1999 she began developing a solid international reputation, and subsequently performed in the USA, Turkey, Spain, Poland, Palestine and Israel.She has nine times been a Featured Poet with the Austin International Poetry Festival giving performances and workshops all over Texas, and has twice won AIPF's Christina Sergeyevna Award for Outstanding Writing.

Agnes ran Creative Writing Workshops for a number of years in London. She worked with Indian Classical Dance for many years, she has written and narrated shows for some of the UK's leading Indian Dancers, and toured with them in the UK.

Agnes has written five books of poetry, entitled "You and Me", "Quantum Love", "Woman", "At Damascus Gate on Good Friday", and ‘This One Is For You', She is also on the Board of Apples and Snakes, the UK's premier poetry/spoken word organization and is an Advisory Board member of the Austin International Poetry Festival. She currently runs two popular poetry events in London, featuring some of the UK's best spoken word performers, poets, and writers. ‘Loose Muse', a monthly event for women writers, which she hosts at the Poetry Society's Poetry Cafe, is the only regular event of its kind in the capital. Agnes has also been an adviser on Poetry for Channel 4 TV.

Ahmed Mukhtar

Was born in Baghdad and has played the Oud and Arabic percussion since 1979.  He studied Oud and percussion with the masters of the Ouds in Baghdad. He went on to study Oud and Western percussion at the High Institute of Music in Damascus. Later he studied at the London College of Music and University of London's SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies).

He is currently teaching Oud, percussion and Arabic music theory in many places in London. Since 1990 he has been performing, teaching and touring throughout the Middle East and Europe.

Mukhtar has released two CDs, in 1996 and 1999, both of which contain traditional music and original work. The ARC Music Company has released another two CDs (Rhythm of Baghdad, 2003) and (Road to Baghdad, 2005) of music composed by Mukhtar. 

The UN chose Ahmed and sixteen other musicians from all over the world to release a CD for the benefit of the victims of terrorism and wars, which has been endorsed by the Human Rights Association. His performances include more than 20 international Festivals.

FROM NEWSPAPERS IN WORLD PRESS

"The unfretted Oud may be the hardest of all instruments to play, with its delicately flattened intervals, but Mukhtar extracts magic: he can make it dream, gallop, or thunder, and he uses silence to great effect." Michael Church (The Independent on Sunday 23 March 2003)