Ubud encounters: start the day with Lemn Sissay

Enjoying a panel at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali on writing across platforms with British poet and playwright Lemn Sissay.

His published work includes the poetry collections Morning Breaks in the Elevator and Rebel Without Applause; the poem Stoned On War; and the children’s poetry collection Emperor’s Watchmaker.

An official poet of the 2012 London Olympics, Sissay said that every morning he tries to send an original Tweet describing the morning.

“You know, the morning has been described for eons, every which way,” Sissay, a BBC host with an accent that makes him sound like a Beatle, says. “There I am every day, trying to find a new way to describe it.

“Some days, I fail miserably.”

Totally globalized native New Yorker and former broadcast news producer Muhammad Cohen is author of Hong Kong On Air, a novel set in his adopted hometown during the 1997 handover about television news, love, betrayal, high finance, and cheap lingerie. See his bio, online archive and more at www.muhammadcohen.com; follow him on Facebook and Twitter @MuhammadCohen.