Ecca poets and their poetry
Ecca is an informal group of poets from the Hogsback and surrounding regions, a group of friends, really, who get together to work on poetic projects. The group currently is Cathal Lagan, Norman Morrissey, Brian Walter and Quentin Hogge. Garth Green and the late Basil Somhlahlo have also worked in the group.
The group does regular readings and runs creative writing workshops in the Hogsback and King William's Town regions, and have also worked at WordFest and the National Festival of the Arts, Grahamstown.
The poets each have publications of poetry in print: Lagan's Sandbird, Morrissey's Seasons and God's Spies, Walter's Tracks and Baakens (all published by and available from Lovedale Press, Alice), and Lagan and Hogge's Borderlines all reflect the poets' individual preoccupations.
Over the years the group has also put together a number of collective booklets associated with their readings. Their poetry also can be found in South African poetry journals, particularly New Contrast, Carapace, New Coin and Fidelities, as well as in the Fort Hare Creative Writing Journal, Tyume, with which members of the group have also been associated.
Lagan and Walter have both won the Eastern Cape Premier's Arts and Culture awards, Lagan the Philip Stein award and Walter the Pringle Prize for poetry in Journals and the Ingrid Jonker Prize for Tracks.