Scottish Book Trust Live Literature

Back from holiday and work commitments and MSc dissertation preparations to find the wonderful Scottish Book Trust have updated the Live Literature Author Directory database with a snazzy new frontend. Lots of fantastic, surprising and inspiring authors and poets and so much more available to come to your writing group, school, college etc.

Fascinating for writers to check out the range and heft of Scottish writing talent too.

You can play with it here:

https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/authors/

The profile itself was fun to write - here is my quote:

"Some people describe me as a nature writer. This is fine with me as I think nature makes sense of the world. Disruptive text, sound art, art poetry, spoken word, scraps, recipes, contextual poetry, peripatetic writing, engineering, hacking, online text. That's more like it."

New Causeway/Cabhsair @CausewayMag

Couldn't agree more with Brian Johnstone.

"Good to receive my copy of the latest Causeway/Cabhsair in the post the other day. Two poems of mine in here, in the excellent company of Christopher Whyte, Bridget Khursheed, Seth Crook, James Robertson, Sheena Blackhall & Derrick McClure. Look forward to a good read over the weekend."

Causeway/Cabhsair publish new writing by Irish and Scottish writers in all the languages of both countries. And publish both new and established writers in all of issues. C/C also reviews new publications.

You can find more about Causeway/Cabhsair and how to subscribe here http://causewaymagazine.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

After Norman MacCaig

This is a poem that is playful and terrifying in equal measures.

The deceptive 4 line stanzas with their loose, assonant and ultimately absent abab rhyming scheme provide an initial sense of calm underpinned with something not quite right. The images in the first stanza hint at Thomas Hardy but next quickly swing into a hallucinogenic world of milking sunsets and fiery dew.

Stanza four for me is where the poem becomes truly disturbing - the entrapment of "distance" and its captivity for our pleasure sets a scene of power and oppressive control that is almost Blakean but with no sympathy for the underdog.

And then the killer blow: what is it we are missing who live like this? Find out in the last stanza.

Refer back to title.

Pow. A hit, a very palpable hit.

After

Let’s choose a pretty word, say, evening,
And climb through it into the past,
or stand on a towering If, surveying
The rosy kingdoms we have lost.

From every corner creep a thousand
Boredoms saying, Greet us.  We’re life.
Let’s round the sunset up and milk it
Into a jug and drink it off.

Or in the hawthorn let us tangle
Our dreary look like gossamer
To shudder with that sparrow’s chirping
And when the dew falls be on fire.

Or drag the distance home and chain it
There in the corner of the room
To charm us with its savage howling
And beg for fragments of our dream.

There’s a clue somewhere.  Can you find it?
Can you say it over and over again
‘Love’, till its incantation makes us
Forget how much we are alone?

Norman MacCaig

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/.

1814 year of Waverley - Walter Scott in context

A very nice book on Scott crossed our path today here at p&g. The kind of book Scott enthusiasts have been waiting for.

 

It is by Christopher Harvie and he describes some talks he is giving below: if you don't know Scots - Chris says he'll be speaking in English too.

 

Tales o' anither Grandfaither, Chris Harvie an his Chapbuiks: he’ll tell ye three tales aboot Sir Walter an oor Borderland, tho he’s a kynd chiel, an they’re no aa in the auld tung! An there’s rhyme an (un)reason forbye. 

• At eleven i the forenoon, young Walter’s borderland, his faimly an freens
•  Twae efter noon, the stations o’ WAVERLEY, when Charlie cam tae Selkirk
•  Thrie, afore tea, hoo Sir Walter took on the warld, no tae speak o Boney!

 

 

You can catch Christopher Harvie's talks at Abbotsford - the home of Walter Scott (i the Gift-hoose …as Harvie puts it)- where he will be signing books on the 17th August 2014. They also have an archery competition. Nice stuff. Scott virtually invented Robin Hood as we know him today.

More on how to get the book here http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/190893123X/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE and the Abbotsford event here http://www.scottsabbotsford.com/events/ or @AbbotsfordScott

 

 

And btw if you haven't found us on Twitter yet - it is @poetandgeek

Zaffar Kunial and John Glenday reading Edinburgh 23rd October 2014

A grand night out in the company of the two poets - topping my current want-to-hear list - courtesy of the Scottish Poetry Library and The Wordsworth Trust (at which Kunial is currently Poet-in-Residence). And as suggested by poetandgeek.com.

Zaffar Kunial is also a Faber New Poet for 2014. John Glenday needs little introduction: his collections Undark and Grain were Poetry Book Society Recommendations. (btw when is someone going to republish his excellent The Apple Ghost?)

This event takes place at 6.30pm at the Scottish Poetry Library - found at 5 Crichton’s Close, Canongate, Edinburgh EH8 8DT. And you need to book a ticket. Price is £5/£4 (concessions) - this intriguing meeting of poets will be well worth it!

You can find more here and book http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/connect/events/zaffar-kunial-and-john-glenday.

StAnza's map of Scotland in poems

The poetry map of Scotland - as seen by StAnza - is starting to take shape.

This is just a taster image above.

You can find and explore the interactive map here https://mapsengine.google.com/map/embed?mid=zlqrqfPpHmPI.ki3k4OoDqFXQ or go here http://stanzapoetry.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/the-map-revealed/ to find out how to add your own poem.

The politics of poetry June 20th 2014 Ayr, Scotland

Burns, Jamaica and the Scottish slave trade.

Linton Kwesi Jones and Kevin Williamson read their own work and explore Robert Burns' response to the Scottish slave trade in Jamaica in poetry.

This event is at Alloway at Burns' home and it is free but you need to book tickets.

You can find out more here https://www.facebook.com/events/557292754387734/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming, book tickets here http://scottishpenallowayevent.brownpapertickets.com/ and more about Burns' cottage here http://www.burnsmuseum.org.uk/.

Fragments update

The writing Fragments project has entered its next phase with the introduction of poets to writers (on a very wet day in Melrose). Both our meetings have hit on key Scottish holidays - St Andrew's Day and Burns Night - which I feel must be auspicious.

This time there wasn't much chance to wander round the abbey given the weather. Most of the time was devoted to a reading of the new work being developed for the project.

There will be further details posted on the writing Fragments blog itself here http://fragmentsinwords.tumblr.com/ but it looks like the first chance to get to grips with the responses will be on the 5th April 2014 as part of the Fragments of Red event at Melrose http://www.fragmentsproject.co.uk/#!fragments-of-red/c1fca.

Ross Sutherland podcast

While I have been hunting up some Scottish poet podcasts, I came across this one from Ross Sutherland

"Inspired by cut-ups and technology" (who isn't?), his latest collection Emergency Window (Penned in the Margins) feeds classic poems through Google Translate many times until they become other and dedicates sonnets to characters in Street Fighter 2. Sutherland also takes an interest in the hairstyles of millionaires.

You can find the download here http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/connect/podcast/ross-sutherland and more on Sutherland himself here http://www.rosssutherland.co.uk/main/ and Emergency Window here http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/index.php/2012/07/emergency-window/

Projection of wonder, Melrose Scotland 21st January 2014

Come along to this look at the rise and rise of contemporary Scottish and Scots poetry from 7.30pm in the Ormiston Institute. There will be some sounds and stuff but I cannot promise not to sing! Thanks to Colin Will for letting me borrow from his poem The ascent of magic for the title.

Small charge for visitors. Full programme here http://www.melrose.bordernet.co.uk/literary-society/

Black Middens

New Writing Scotland 31 is out. A large and beautiful anthology, it is crammed with good poems and writing featuring many of the poets who have appeared in p&g.

We recommend it: just look at the cover for a start. (Although don't judge it from that alone...obviously.)

You can purchase the book and much else here http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/scotlit/asls/NWS31.html

Glitter

Looking forward to meeting Rab Wilson this Saturday.

He is currently Writer in Residence as part of the Ettrick and Yarrow Development Project. But also better known to me as the writer of this glittery unseasonable gorgeous poem in Scots:

Lorry Load o Christmas Trees

Snell November, fludes an wuin an rain,
The glumshy Nith laps up agin the waa's,
Glaumin oot tae threitin aa the Saunds.
Fowk daunce wild reels, fechtin wi umbrellas.
Whyles ower the Buccleuch brig cams rummlin,
A lorry haipit up wi Christmas trees!

...............

I will ask him if I can put the rest up but for the moment you can find it here (and more about Rab) http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/lorry-load-o-christmas-trees

Valve the Third: Showcase Evening Glasgow, Scotland 3rd August 2013

Valve 3! It is coming and to celebrate sneak in a night out with the Valve crew.

"From experimental prose to poems and porn – it’s what you might call a ‘mixed bag’ of literary wonderment. " And a quick sneak preview is in the offing plus light schmoozing and conversation...what could be nicer?

7pm until 11pm and only £3...

More details here https://www.facebook.com/events/472797946144162/

Tardigrade, Edinburgh, Scotland 4th May 2013

Meet me at the cemetery gates...or to be more precise the Old Calton Burial Ground:

Alexander Hutchison says "A note of announcement to any friends or interested observers: I’ll be reading bits from my poem/pamphlet “Tardigrade" alongside David Hume’s mausoleum at 11.00 am on Saturday May 4th, and you would be very welcome to join me."

10 to 15 minutes of reading at the graveyard (27 Waterloo Place) so don't be late.

Keats and Yeats are on my side.

More information available here https://www.facebook.com/events/486295311437369/?suggestsessionid=f46b9e560795402ca664f087606091f9

Neu! Reekie! 34 14th June 2013 Glasgow, Scotland

We like the thought of a bit of sunny weather especially when broken up by a brief hard summer storm of poetry.

Each (?we only have dates for one so far...) night entices you with 2 spoken word artists; 2 musical acts and a series of curated animations - plus a maker's file showcase.

Good stuff at the Poetry Club, 7-10.15pm, how much is it? we don't know yet but more details can be found here https://www.facebook.com/events/439288232831272/?notif_t=plan_user_invited

Tangled web

Spring arrives and the indefatigable Borders poet writes about death.

Andrew McCallum Elizabeth Rimmer Clanjamfry Biggar 2012

Andrew McCallum, the man from Biggar, whose work you can also read in the soon to be released Issue 6 of poetandgeek.com, does what he does best. Enjoy his enigmatic twist on contemporary Scots life with a gothic dash here http://andramccallum2013.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/poking-dead-things-with-a-stick/

Stravaig Scottish geopoetics

Issue 2 of the the online journal of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics is out now and features new work from Scottish poets and writers including Elizabeth Rimmer (who also edited this issue), Bridget Khursheed and Susan Richardson.

Stravaig is a Scots word meaning a special kind of walk or tour; infinite and open-ended and minded...Robert Macfarlane gives a good definition in his book The Old Ways.

You can view it here http://www.geopoetics.org.uk/online-journal-stravaig/stravaig-issue-2/

Scottish by inclination

New Writing Scotland publishes works by writers resident in Scotland or Scots by birth, upbringing or inclination.

The deadline for next year's anthology is coming up at the end of the month and you can find full details of how to submit your work here http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/scotlit/asls/NWSsubs.html.