Butcher's Dog Issue (lucky) 7 launch at Newcastle Poetry Festival 7th May 2016

A fine and electric issue of Butcher's Dog available now with new work from Roy Marshall, Barbara Barnes, Bridget Khursheed, Richie McCaffery and many more.

And in launch at the Newcastle Poetry Festival.

Find out more about Butcher's Dog here http://www.butchersdogmagazine.com/. And if you don't know this magazine we suggest you look and then do your utmost to get a poem in it.

And you can also see much else at the Newcastle Poetry Festival which runs 5th until 7th May and looks cracking, plus find out who has won the Basil Bunting poetry award, not to mention Sean O'Brien...more on all that here http://www.newcastlepoetryfestival.co.uk/

Best Scottish Poems 2014 from the Scottish Poetry Library

A lovely treat for Sunday - the best poems from Scotland last year as edited by Roderick Watson.

I am delighted to find p&g poets among their number:

• Judith Taylor with her beautiful poem The Lapland Woman and the Finland Woman http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/lapland-woman-and-finland-woman
• Richie McCaffery with the evocative poem Cold Caller from his fine first collection Cairn http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/cold-caller

You can find the complete poem selection here including work from Kei Miller (seen last at StAnza), powerful new voice Claire Askew and the irrespressible Andrew Sclater to name a few http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/cold-caller

Launch of Richie McCaffery's Cairn

Very good Sunday morning news is that Scottish poet (and poetandgeek.com writer) Richie McCaffery's long awaited first collection Cairn is almost here. The Edinburgh launch is on 10th June 2014.

Special guests are promised in the form of Angela McSeveney, Niall Campbell and Janette Ayachi but looking forward to hearing Richie himself read.

Find the launch at Main Point Books on 77 Bread Street, West Port, EH3 9AH Edinburgh.

You can find out more about Cairn here http://ninearchespress.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/featured-poems-richie-mccaffery.html and the event here https://www.facebook.com/events/770583576305295/?notif_t=plan_user_invited

A p&g magazine plug

Why not treat yourself to a holiday glance at our www.poetandgeek.com magazine?

Featuring the work of poets including Elizabeth Rimmer, Andrew MacCallum, Richie McCaffery, Rafael Ayala Paez, Giles Goodland, Alistair Noon, Vivien Jones, Maeve Henry, Yann Rousselot, Peter Hughes, Michael Pedersen, Tom Murray, Tsead Bruinja, Fiona Sinclair, Daniel de Cullá, Stella Pye, Zion Lights, Shaun Belcher, Natascha Scrivener, Natalie Moores, Susheel Kumar Sharma, Jennifer Sizeland, Bianca Sarafian, B.Z. Niditch, Mary S. McLuskey, Sarah Flint, Jennifer Martin, Allan-Alexander Lawson, Sy Roth, Frank C. Praeger, John Quinn, Phil Isherwood, Felino A. Soriano, Anne Pia, Austin McCarron, Amado Storni, Rehan Qayoom, Joan McNerney, Paul Tristram, Daniel Roy Connelly, Fanni Suto, Marc Carver, Thomas Clark, Sheree Mack, Roger Hickin, Jane Aldous, Michael Lee Johnson, Sara Clark, Sye Sanders, Amy Ekins, B.Z. Niditch, Walter Ruhlmann, Stella Pye, Michelle D'costa, and Ed Waverley.

(And yes of course the qr code works! What do you take us for?)

poetandgeek.com issue 6 now available

Yes. Yes. Yes. poetandgeek.com issue 6 is here and it is good.

You will find new work from Alistair Noon, John Quinn, Phil Isherwood, Andrew McCallum, Felino A. Soriano, Richie McCaffery, Anne Pia, Sarah Flint, Jennifer Martin, Allan-Alexander Lawson, Sy Roth, Frank C. Praeger, DIY taxidermy, Brownsbank gravy stains, pollsters, pelicans, Troy and the hall of the mouth...

Enjoy it all here http://www.poetandgeek.com/issue6/issue06.html.

...we crawled along the aisles.

Musical supermarket interludes interrupted by fish sale announcements,

endless rows of food to nourish creeping, slouching seconds to inevitability.

Sy Roth

Coming soon Issue 6 poetandgeek.com

Violet and delicious and dark all wrapped up with string...

Our Issue 6 of poetandgeek.com is creeping up at you from the bare heath of the imagination and features new work from Richie McCaffery, Felino Soriano, Anne Pia, Andrew McCallum, Jennifer Martin, Alistair Noon and so much more...

We'll let you know when.

It was a worn whisper, dry and papery, and it brushed so distinctly across the ear that, by the accustomed, the material minutiae in which it originated could be realized as by touch. It was the united products of infinitesimal vegetable causes, and these were neither stems, leaves, fruit, blades, prickles, lichen, nor moss.

The return of the native Thomas Hardy

Clamjamfry

I would like to recommend that poets have a clamjamfy; a celebration and a fine thing. And gather an audience of poets. And let us know about it.

The one in Biggar was a one-off; here in the picture are Douglas Dunn and Gerry Cambridge. Don't be mislead by Dunn's beard; he read with wit, and vitriol discarding age like an old cloak on the floor. And the bill didn't stop there; John Glenday, Vicki Feaver, Helena Nelson (reading her own and Tom Duddy's work), Andrew McCallum, Chris Powici, Alan Riach, Jennifer Copley and Alan Sclater all gathered by Richie McCaffery.

I will review the event more fully in the Eildon Tree.

Poets reading to poets always adds a little oxygen to the atmosphere.