Gary Cummiskey (born 1963) is a South African

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

and

publisher Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

Life

Cummiskey was born in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and moved to South Africa in 1969 with his family for a few years and he returned in 1983 as an adult. He is the founder and editor of Dye Hard Press, which, since 1994, has published writers such as Khulile Nxumalo, Gail Dendy,

Arja Salafranca Arja Salafranca (born 1971, Málaga Málaga (, ) is a municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 578,460 in 2020, it is the second-most populous city in Andalus ...

, Alan Finlay, Philip Zhuwao,

Roy Blumenthal Roy Blumenthal (born in 1968 in Johannesburg, South Africa) has been an active poet since the early 1990s. He is the founder of Barefoot Press, which started out printing free Pamphlet, pamphlets. Five editions were published, with a print run ...

, Gus Ferguson,

Kobus Moolman Kobus Moolman (1964) is a South African poet. He has published eight volumes of poetry, a collection of radio plays, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing, and the coordinator of the Creative Writing programme in the English departmen ...

, Pravasan Pillay, Grame Feltham and Allan Kolski Horwitz. He edited ''Green Dragon'' literary journal from 2002 to 2009. Cummiskey is co-editor with Eva Kowalska of ''Who was Sinclair Beiles?'' published by Dye Hard Press in 2009. A revised and expanded edition was published in 2014. Also in 2009, Cummiskey compiled ''Beauty Came Grovelling Forward'', a selection of South African poetry and prose published online at www.bigbridge.org. He was a participant in the 2008

Poetry Africa Poetry Africa is an international poetry festival held annually in Durban, South Africa. More than twenty poets, predominantly from South Africa and elsewhere on the African continent, participate in the 7- to 10-day Poetry Africa, an international ...

International Festival held in

Durban, South Africa Durban ( ) ( zu, eThekwini, from meaning 'the port' also called zu, eZibubulungwini for the mountain range that terminates in the area), nicknamed ''Durbs'',Ishani ChettyCity nicknames in SA and across the worldArticle on ''news24.com'' from ...

. Through Dye Hard Press, Cummiskey published an anthology of South African short fiction, ''The Edge of Things'', selected by Arja Salafranca, in 2011. Cummiskey's work has been translated into French, Bangla and Greek. Three of his poems have inspired short films. He published a book of short fiction, ''Off-ramp'', in 2013. The collection was shortlisted for the Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award 2014. From 2014 to 2016 he was editor of the South African poetry journal ''New Coin'', which is published by the Institute for the Study of English in Africa, at Rhodes University, Grahamstown.

Bibliography

* Poetry **''The Secret Hour'', Dye Hard Press, Johannesburg,1994 **''Lost in a World'', Dye Hard Press, Johannesburg, 1994 **''Visitations'', Dye Hard Press, Johannesburg, 1995 **''River of Dreams'', Dye Hard Press, Johannesburg, 1995 **''City'', Sun Belly Press, Johannesburg, 1995 **''When Apollinaire Died'', Firfield Press, Plumstead, 1996 **''Head'' (with Roy Blumenthal), Dye Hard Press, Johannesburg, 1998 **''Reigning Gloves'', Dye Hard Press, Johannesburg, 2000 **''Bog Docks'', Dye Hard Press, Johannesburg, 2005 **''Today is their Creator'', Dye Hard Press, Johannesburg, 2008 **''Romancing the Dead'', Tearoom Books, Durban, 2009 **''Sky Dreaming'', Graffiti Kolkata, India, 2011 **''I Remain Indoors'', Tearoom Books, Stockholm, 2013 **''Don't Stop Until Incinerated'', Tearoom Books, Stockholm, 2016 ** 'In Naked Field', Concrete Poets Press, Leicester, England, 2019 *Non-fiction ** ''Conspiracies of the Interior: a surrealist film scenario'', Dye Hard Press, Johannesburg, 1995 **''Who was Sinclair Beiles?'', with Eva Kowalska, Dye Hard Press, Johannesburg, 2009. Revised and expanded edition, 2014. *Fiction **''April in the Moon-Sun'', Dye Hard Press, Johannesburg, 2006 **''Off-ramp'', Dye Hard Press, Johannesburg, 2013

References

External links

Dye Hard press column on Kagablog

Dye Hard Press blog

Dye Hard Interviews blog
South African poets 1963 births Living people English-language South African poets {{SouthAfrica-poet-stub