Gerry Loose at the Scottish Poetry Library

One of those lovely evenings in the poetry library where you can spy among the audience many friends of the poet who have arrived to listen. Gerry Loose cast his spell. Like the recent Zaffar Kunial and John Glenday reading in the same venue, attentive poets have a magical effect on any poet's silences. Not to mention that the accompanying tales are well-received and often received with some good-humoured heckling.

This was a nuanced reading of a book with a strong message.

now water under
thin scabs ice crusts
fox & I look 
for retreat
neither able
to walk on water
any longer

The Fault line of the title takes in change, geology and transformation and the nuclear installations that perch on the landscape in Faslane. The poems are beautifully drawn; their contained precise presence invokes a seasonal cycle of growth, the Highland fault line itself,  man's drawing of lines and boundaries, and nature's power to traverse and overcome these lines.

The stanza quoted above continues:

fox walks
through wood
crows sit on 
ice floating rocks.

I look forward to reading and rereading. Learning the rocks and stones and water.

And that is to say nothing about the pleasure of the cover and the handling of the cover - which I recommend that you go into any bookshop and do! Vagabond Voices have done a great job.

You can find more about the book and where to buy it here http://www.vagabondvoices.co.uk/authors/gerry-loose/

PS failed to take the photo I had promised myself of the reading as my attention was taken by blethering to old friends, so I have made free with this one which is from Gerry's website here http://www.gerryloose.com/index.html

Back from travels...and all the gossip

Glad to say that I am back from various destinations and working hard on my first collection The exact colour of snow. (And that was what has been keeping things quiet in October btw!)

Lots to share:

• An excellent reading by John Glenday and Zaffar Kunial at the Scottish Poetry Library. Zaffar's Faber new poets series' work is a great delight and John has a new book due next year - judging by what he read last week that too will be a must-read.
• Scott's treasures reading coming up on the 18th November - http://www.scottsabbotsford.com/event-registration/?ee=44 - more on why you should attend coming soon
• Please consider purchasing the anthology The Journey http://www.lulu.com/shop/maggie-mcgeary/the-journey/ebook/product-21874462.html in aid of Marie Curie - more on what and why to follow
• Gerry Loose launches Fault Line in Edinburgh this Tuesday 4th November - I will be attending and reporting back
• And finally bit of a new look planned for the p&g magazine site - also coming soon - it has changed to an upgraded server if you have been looking and wondering why?

New Gerry Loose - Fault Line

You can catch the launch of Scottish poet Gerry Loose's new book Fault Line at Waterstone's in Glasgow Argyle Street at 6.30pm on Wednesday 24th September 2014. Or available online now.

Robert Macfarlane says:

"fault line is a very special piece of work. It feels as if this is a book born of a decade or more's looking and watching (surveillance). I relish the form: field-note, jotting, face-off, counter-movement. There's movement across the sequence, but no neat arc, and somehow over 100 pages there's no sense of repetition in the sense of stagnation, though of course the whole is bound and patterned by its recurrences - the white hart, the wild-flowers, the subs. Words flit and slide, 'fault' is not pure division but a kind of friction and slippage that is productive of vision as well as signalling separation and mutual harm. The atomic dark-stars of the submarines versus but also because of the glowing white deer. It's a poem - poems - of menace and mixture and anger, that finds its way into the immense complexities of contemporary 'nature', recording the beauties born of collision, while also keeping room for 'old aesthetics'. I heard shades of Buile Suibhne, hints of Mercian Hymns, though it is of course its own thing also. And there, too, were glimpses of domestic life lived on amid all this: kindling split, beans shelled, sights seen - the registration of 'enduring beauty' hard up against 'danger of death'.

Or find out more here https://www.facebook.com/events/806497846061794/.

Tell it slant poetry bookshop launch, Glasgow, Scotland 13th December 2013

The 'tell it slant' poetry bookshop popup stall and launch party: another great event on Friday 13th - poets don't fear the day! There will be readings, music and visuals.

Not to mention CAKE! (You have sold it to us of course by this one word)

The event is at the onecubeortwo space 134 Renfrew Street, G3 6ST Glasgow, 6 until 9pm and we believe that entry is free. Please let us know if not.

You can find out more here https://www.facebook.com/events/771107342903698/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming

Walking with Gerry Loose

There is about a week left to share some time with poet Gerry Loose down at Dawyck Botanic Gardens near Peebles in Scotland. He will be there until the end of September.

The gardens are full of the sugar and spicy smells of evergreen trees, the high quiet repetitive call of goldcrests (I saw a family working the branches together overhead) and when I visited the omnipresent sounds of the Scrape Burn after heavy rain the day before. Not to mention the jewel like blusher mushrooms I thought were a precious stone caught in the stones of the path.

Find out more about what is happening on Gerry's blog here http://walkingwithpoets.com/