10 sec. 1 bayt. {+992-98-537-89-54}
Call for Participation in Tajikistan:Mon Oct 12 (noon) to Wed Oct 14 (noon), 2009
Many Tajiks are aware that for those cell phone users who have a plan with the Central Asian telecommunications company named Babilon, the first ten seconds of any phone call are free. To take advantage of this freebee, strategic users have developed a new art form – the ten second conversation.
Inspired by this contemporary cultural form and the Tajik tradition of 2-verse poetry (or ‘Bayt’), REV-, a New York-based art organization (www.rev-it.org) is initiating a competition for the best ten second poems. You are invited to participate; newcomers to Tajik poetry are invited to try their hand.
The project’s title, ‘Bayt’ (pronounced ‘bite’ in English), refers to both the Tajik word for the short 2-verse poem popularized to Western audiences by the Rubayat, written in the 12th century by poet Omar Khayyam. ‘Bayt’ also resembles in sound the English noun that means, ‘a small piece’ (as in, “Just a bite”), and the ‘byte’, an internationally recognized unit used to measure quantities of digital data.