Poems in the Big City

Sleepers. A fine idea if you can book a berth but a complete misnomer if cash and demand force you into a recliner (read "seat that hardly moves back") for the eight-hour journey. And my seat on the way down to London was the worst possible option: right next to the door to the toilet area and facing another occupied seat. Lots of shuffling and stumbling about next to my head. Ergo, no sleep till berth time (ie, the return journey).

I arrived in London Euston at 7:01 am--godforsaken shed of a place at that hour. I'd left a sunny Sunday in Scotland to come to a sodden Monday in London, with 13 hours to fill before the reading. I had breakfast at chop'd* in St Pancras; found out when the British Library opened; made my way down to Earl's Court to locate the Troubadour and time the journey, picking up a copy of Geoffrey Hill's Canaan for £1.50 en route in a Samaritans book shop; went back up to the British Library, where I sat in the cafe and mulled over a set for the evening before wandering round the exhibition on the Ramayana (fascinating, but a bit much on so little sleep); had lunch in a random noodle bar and observed the terminally damp Africa Day concert in Trafalgar Square.

Then, at 3pm, I was rescued from my wet solitude when I met up with Siriol Troup and Lorraine Mariner for coffee in the National Gallery. Siriol, Lorraine and I also went to the exhibition of new Alison Watt paintings. Beautiful, haunting work, as I've come to expect from Watt. In these, the sense of presence-in-absence is intensified by a new feature: substantial openings in the folds in the fabric that draw the eye, as you can see in this image.

After the gallery, we hopped on the Tube down to Earl's Court and the Troubadour. Helena Nelson and Eleanor Livingstone were already there waiting for the HappenStance band and supporters slowly gathered. Nell had me sign 50 copies of the sampler (sitting in a back room signing books: another sign of being a writer!). I'd not met any of the non-Scottish HappenStancers, but there were so many of us in the party I didn't get much of a chance to talk to them. However, I did have a great natter with Katy Evans-Bush of Baroque in Hackney fame and the chance to catch up with Sinéad Wilson, who I hadn't seen in a few years.

The reading was downstairs in the cellar bar and, when we headed down there, the place was already reasonably full. I was utterly amazed and delighted to see one of my Dutch friends among the audience, another friend I hadn't seen for ages. (He was in the country for an academic conference and had seen the reading trailed here.)

I was first up. At Nell's suggestion, I read the six uncollected poems from the sampler: "Singularity", "Lullaby", "Still" (which is a response to Alison Watt's painting of the same title), "Saxifrage", "Dream Family Holiday" and "Coronach". Not an easy set for the audience, perhaps, but it went down really well. It wasn't an easy set for nor for the other readers to follow either, but the reader who followed me directly was Rob A Mackenzie, whose set was completely different and superb, as I'd expect from him. (For me, his was the best set of the first half.)

There was just time in the break to chat to one or two friends and audience members but, unfortunately, I had to leave shortly after the second half began. However, I managed to hear Tom Duddy, who read quietly from his very fine pamphlet The Small Hours. For a good summary of the whole reading, see Rob's account. It was a shame not to be able to hear Michael Mackmin, whose Twenty-Three Poems is another strong chapbook, or Gregory Leadbetter, who I didn't get the chance to meet either, but at least I managed to sleep a bit on the train home!

All in all, it was a great trip. The reading buzzed with a livelier atmosphere than anything I've been at certainly in Edinburgh, possibly in Scotland full stop, and the audience was obviously attentive. In fact, the dozen copies of the sampler that Nell put out all sold, as did a good number of other pamphlets. Now, that just wouldn't happen in Edinburgh!

*Daft apostrophe but good hot porridge, which is just what a cold, wet traveller needed.

Sampler Review

Sorlil has very kindly reviewed my sampler on her blog. As far as I know, it's the first review of this pamphlet and I'm very pleased with what she has to say about it. She comments:

"These poems are unlike most of the poems I read these days, there is something very different and at times uncomfortable about them which certainly makes them stand out and difficult to forget",

which is the kind of thing any writer would want a reader or reviewer to say about their work. I'll be interested to see whether there are many comments on her post.

Meanwhile, why not contact HappenStance and order a copy?

Angus Calder

As other bloggers have already noted, Angus Calder has died. I can't claim to have known him well, but he was a kenspeckle character on the Edinburgh poetry scene and a fine writer. I have clear memories of him reading "Deer on the High Hills" at an event to celebrate Iain Crichton Smith and of an energetic reading from his own Horace in Tollcross he gave for the Shore Poets. But my strongest memory is from the launch party for Tonguefire: before proceedings began--before there was more than the merest handful of folk there, in fact--Angus marched up to me with a copy of the pamphlet and slapped it down for me to sign: the first person ever to ask me to sign my work. He will be missed.

LBF on Facebook

Linlithgow Book Festival now has a Facebook presence. With the full programme listed there, it's a great way for Facebookers to keep up to date with what's happening with West Lothian's literary festival.

The Onslaught of Beauty

The audience for Sunday's Shore Poets was a little thinner than usual, possibly because of the holiday weekend. Music was provided by Just Voices, a four-part acapella group, who treated us to French, Bulgarian, Scots and American songs. Beautiful stuff.

Stephanie Green kicked off the poetry in the newcomer slot. I've seen Stephanie around the scene for quite some time (indeed, she's a regular at Shore Poets) but had never heard her read before. The poem of hers that worked best for me was her first: a well-crafted, interesting mediation on her inheritance--genetic and otherwise--from each of her parents. (Her write-up of the evening is here.)

Honorary Shore poet Ken Cockburn read second. Ken is a former convener of the group, as well as former fieldworker/assistant director of the Scottish Poetry Library and founder, along with Alec Finlay, of platform projects. I enjoyed his set, particularly his take on the myth of Penelope and her suitors, in which Odysseus's wife is signed up to an internet dating site, and his translations from German.

I'd heard good things about the evening's main reader, the Belfast poet Alan Gillis, who is now based in Edinburgh. He did not disappoint: intense, serious, funny poems with striking imagery and a strong sound world. The man has a great ear and he reads well. You can hear him read some poems here, though I haven't had a listen to those files yet.

After the reading, I headed up to Waverley to catch my sleeper to London. There was enough time for a reasonably relaxed pint with Rob A Mackenzie before I found my way to my--ahem--recliner and began my purgatorial progress southwards.

Back from London and, after two less than restful nights on the sleeper (the one on the way down was by far the worse) completely puggelt. Proper reports of Sunday's Shore Poets and last night's reading in due course, but suffice to say it was a cracker of a night.

Sampled!

Andrew Philip: A Sampler came through the post today, 12 author copies of a slim, simple and elegant pamphlet--slightly to my surprise, as I wasn't expecting to see it before the Troubadour reading. And a lovely surprise, too: Helena Nelson has, naturally, done a fantastic job on it and it feels beautiful in the hand. I'm really looking forward to reading from it on Monday, when it'll go on sale for the first time.

Troubadour Poems: Helena Nelson

The final poem in the pre-Troubadour series is by Helena Nelson, founder and editor of HappenStance press. It is very much in the spirit of her wonderfully quirky and deliciously, irreverantly playful pamphlet Unsuitable Poems.

Like

I was like Read this poem
He was like You must be joking
I was like Pleeeease
He was like Fancy a drink?

I was like Get lost
He was like I really like you
I was like Read this poem then
He was like Do I have to?

I was like Yes
He was like Omigod she means it
I was like Shutupandreadit
He was like Gimme the poem


*****


I was like Did you like it?
He was like What was that about?
I was like What did you think?
He was like It was like, like…

I was like That’s the point
He was shocked, like.

Mirrorball

Less than a week to go to the Troubadour reading, and there's already another HappenStance date in the diary: several HappenStance poets--including myself, Patricia Ace, James Wood, Eleanor Livingstone and Margaret Christie--will be reading at St Mungo's Mirrorball on Thursday 2nd October. Full line-up and more details nearer the time but, for the moment, those of you in Glasgow and environs put it in your diary!

Troubadour Poems: Andrew Philip

Originally, I wasn't going to post one of my own poems in this series, but I've changed my mind and am posting a piece from Tonguefire that hasn't appeared anywhere else.

Pedestrian

Someone was standing in the middle of the road.
She stood astride it, just beyond
the blind spot on a sharp, countryside bend,
so hidden that I nearly ran her over.
At first, she seemed an ordinary figure
—jeans, a fitted t-shirt, long brown hair—
but for the confidence with which she stood
where any car would slam straight into her.
Almost as soon as we jerked to a halt
and I got out the car to remonstrate,
the space around her ruptured
with the opening of wings
as colourful as the flocks of paradise.
She stretched her hand towards me, said
I know you’ll take good care of it and poured
from her palm into mine a sleeping child,
scarcely the size of a nut and sprouting
from its belly a shoot topped off by a tiny leaf.
I tried to ask the obvious questions, but she
folded herself from our vision.
I felt her gift stir slightly, though it slept
as soundly as it does now in my hand.
How can I drive on with this entrusted to me?
I’m rooted here, keeping watch
on the growth of what is planted in my palm—
this difficult, unasked-for joy.

Troubadour Poems: Martin Cook

Martin Cook's life has included soldiering, tea planting, advertising, marketing and social work--the kind of CV that once was almost de rigeur for a poet. His pamphlet, Mackerel Wrappers, was published in 2007.

Falling
After Chagall’s Los Novios del la Torre Eiffel

We should never have climbed that phallus.
We were, after all, Brits and when you heard
a squeaky fiddle playing Greensleeves
and thought you saw your pet goat taking off
from the Eiffel Tower towards Spain,
you went goofy and leant out to stop it.

I over-balanced trying to save you
but landed, with you in my arms
on a big duck with a cock’s comb.

You’d forgotten your goat and were
clutching a blue fan and dreaming of cherubs
while I had the Kama Sutra on my mind.

Neither grotesque birds nor angels
with violins and silly wings could save us;
we wasted an expensive wedding gown.

Not having been out in Glasgow for absolutely ages--possibly not since I read at Tchai Ovna west end in 2006, unless you count the Mitchell event Helena Nelson and I did with the Scottish Poetry Library--I really enjoyed heading west to join the audience for the reading at Tchai Ovna southside on Friday night. I met up with AB Jackson and Rob A Mackenzie for a quick drink first. Just as well, because I hadn't clocked it was the Shawlands branch we were going to and would have gone to the wrong place otherwise. Rob had been at the Christian Aid book sale in Edinburgh and come away with a fine haul of books at knock-down, bowl-you-over, irresistible prices, including several doubles of books he already had, which he very generously gave to Andy Jackson and me.

As Rob says, Tchai Ovna southdie is a tottie wee place of a venue. It would be a fantastic place to meet someone for a tea (superb tea, it has to be said), but is was a bit too small for the 14 readers plus musicians and audience. The musicians, Wing and A Prayer, were excellent. The quality of the writing was, well, as you'd expect at an open mic session, variable. Rob and Alexander Hutchison were way the best, to my mind, even if the audience didn't seem to connect with what Rob read. Afterwards, Rob and I joined Sandy Hutchison and Cheryl Follon for a swift drink before we scooted back off to the train in my case and bus in Rob's. Pity we couldn't stay longer, but the last train is the last train. I'm hoping to get back through to Glasgow for a Les Murray reading in June, so it won't be quite as long before I'm back out in the city.

Troubadour Poems: Eleanor Livingstone

Eleanor Livingstone is artistic director of the StAnza poetry festival. Her chapbook, The Last King of Fife, from which "The Monimail Spider" is taken, was published by HappenStance in 2005. More recently, she edited Migraasje, migration o words, a pamphlet of Scots and Shetlandic versions of Frisian poems, published to accompany the reading by Frisian poets at this year's StAnza.

The Monimail spider

Not some economic migrant
who’d deliberately stowed away
under a leaf; nor refugee, surely
from that gentle organic space;

rather a victim of a natural disaster
swept up with his plant
then whirled across the county
friends, dependants, web
left far behind.

A dose of water flushed him out
and he escaped over the edge
eight legged it from the pot
to spin his way through fences,
concrete posts and traffic noise

hoping for a gleam of emerald –
or ruby slippers, four pairs
spider size.

Listed

Just a quickie to say the HappenStance Troubadour gig is now listed on the Troubadour site's programme pages. Can't quite believe I'll be heading down to London for it in a fortnight's time! Last time I was in the city was in 2003 for a Keith Jarrett Trio gig. So much has happened since then, and I'm looking forward to having the opportunity to catch up with some old friends.

Troubadour Poems: Gregory Leadbetter

Gregory Leadbetter has been an environmental lawyer, worked in TV production and written TV drama; he is currently researching Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His pamphlet, The Body in the Well, was published by HappenStance in 2007.

The Scientist

All this talk travels years ahead of him,
a laughing gas in the air-conditioning
at the Royal Society and the British Academy,
a memo circulating at the BBC.

Priests declare him a man of the fields
going barefoot in the city streets,
but reluctantly leave room for doubt.

Mathematicians predict he’ll carry
a ball of superstring in his pocket,
but fear it’s not that simple.

Those of us who’ve seen him
are content to tell you stories

because it’s not the man
we’re chasing now

but the butterfly inside his skull
that raises a storm with a wing-beat.

A Charity Case

I've often thought that I would have arrived a little more as a writer if my publications were to pop up in a second-hand bookshop or a charity shop. Not that it wouldn't be a double-edged feeling, but I always assumed I'd take pleasure in it, knowing how many books I've found in such outlets. Well, yesterday, I had the chance to test that out when my Gaelic tutor told me he'd picked up a copy of Tonguefire in a charity shop. Apparently, it was in the window with several other small poetry collections. Now that does please me. It pleases me even more that somebody who appreciates it bought it, but I can't help but wonder who got rid of it and why ...

While we're on the subject, it seems an opportune moment to mention that HappenStance is soon to go to press with a new pamphlet of my work, in time for the reading at the Troubadour towards the end of this month. It's the first in a new series of single-poet samplers: not full-blown chapbooks but 10 or so pages of poems with slightly more substantial biographical information on the back. The print run is 150 copies, but it's not a limited edition in the official sense. My sampler will reprint "Tonguefire Night" with some slight revisions from the version published in Tonguefire alongside six newer poems. It's a tight little selection, if I do say so myself, and I'm looking forward to launching it in London.

The Visible Image

Interesting short post about Christianity and poetry on Todd Swift's blog Eyewear. Swift says:

Christian poetry, in Britain, has become nearly as invisible as God - partially due, no doubt, to the fear on the part of would-be practitioners of such verse, that such discourse would lead away from the irony, or ambiguity, expected (or required) of poetry now, towards something too dogmatic, earnest, or even, "too emotional".

I'm not exactly sure that Christian poetry is that invisble. Of course, it largely depends on what Swift means by "Christian poetry", which he doesn't define, and my reluctance to agree with his assessment might in large part be due to my being an enthusiast and practitioner.

However, I wouldn't call the career of Michael Symmons Roberts, for instance, invisble. Let's not forget that his collection Corpus, which is profoundly Christian in its concerns and imagery while also being fresh and contemporary in the same, won the Whitbread poetry prize in 2004. Nobody can understand Michael's work properly without understanding how it arises from and interacts with his Christian faith.

Perhaps it might not be so obvious that another Cape poet, Robert Crawford, is a Christian, but a reading of his work with this in mind will shed light on the impetus for, and imagery of, a number of his poems. Les Murray, of course, while not being a British poet, is still a well-known figure in these islands and, again, Christianity is a strong feature of his work. Then there's Gillian Allnutt, who might be best described as post-Christian but cannot be described as anything other than a religious poet.

I wouldn't call that invisble.

Swift also says:

Christian poetry... needs to engage with the difficult, the tentative aspects of its style, its subject area ... - appropriate, since language, too, is invested with the same problematic, indeterminate elements as faith. It is only the (empirically or theologically) strident that needs to be resisted, not writing which seeks, inquires, and, importantly, ethically engages, with the mystery - and yes, often the beauty - of existence.

Well, that seems to me to be a reasonable description of what the above-named writers are up to, in different ways and with different musics; it's also not a bad description of what I aim for.

Perhaps the invisiblity Swift feels is less to do with the degree to which faith shapes the poems contemporary Christian writers produce, the way it shapes them or how that shape is received in the wider poetry--which I have generally found to be warm--than with the growing blind spot in wider society's knowledge and understanding when it comes to Christian, or any other, faith. The challenge for religious poetry in this society is not only to do what Swift says above but to find ways of doing it that neither ignore the riches and depths of religious traditions nor lean on them in a lazy, uncommunicative fashion. That said, Swift's small contribution to bringing into wider view the possibilities of contemporary poetry with a Christian perspective is certainly most welcome.

Troubadour Poems: DA Prince

DA Prince was born in Leicestershire of Welsh parents in 1947. Her book, Nearly the Happy Hour, published this month, is the first full-length collection from HappenStance.

What time is it, Mr Wolf?

Mr Wolf has eyes creased tight, his fists
balled into dumplings, concentrating
on the rules. Today he’s learned thistles,
a difficult door-handle, excuse me,
crackle of the cornflakes packet, the cat’s nose,
broccoli, striped curtains, woodlice,
the smell of doormats. He has eaten
half a boiled egg, toast with Marmite
(but left the crusts), a banana.

The sun tickles like a blanket, the sort
his aunt keeps spare in a wheezing wardrobe
where sneezes hide. He knows
he mustn’t laugh at the sun’s fingers
but keep as still as church. He wants to feel
how they creep closer, mummy, daddy,
inching like grasshoppers, like the giggle
that can’t be stoppered. He’s got to get this right,
listening in puckered darkness
for the tilt of shadows,
for light splitting open,
for Dinner time!

Putting the Brakes on the Breaks

The Sunday Herald reports that the SNP Scottish Government is abandoning its manifesto pledge to provide Irish-style tax breaks for artists, musicians and writers and, instead, conducting a substantial review of arts funding in Scotland. It's hardly a surprise that it should ditch the tax plans: the Scottish Parliament doesn't have the powers to implement them anyway and it was always extremely unlikely that the UK Government would enable such a scheme to proceed.

With the bill to merge the Scottish Arts Council and Scottish Screen into Creative Scotland going through the Scottish Parliament now, perhaps it's an opportune moment to review arts funding. Interesting that this news comes hot on the heels of the SAC's latest funding announcements, with significant cultural institutions, including Scottish Language Dictionaries and the Scots Language Centre, receiving none of its three-year "flexible funding". If the review results in more cash to go round, that would be welcome. We'll see what it comes up with.

Troubadour Poems: Tom Duddy

Tom Duddy teaches philosophy at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He is the author of of A History of Irish Thought (2002). His first collection of poems, a chapbook entitled The Small Hours, was published by HappenStance in 2006.

Side Street

I don’t often pass through this part of the city,
though it’s on my way uptown as the crow flies.
I don’t feel at home here, or streetwise - it’s cold,
even when the sun is warming the chimneys,

and dark to boot. My footsteps lose their beat,
the paths are so skewed, so irregular here.
The people are not the same as mainstreet people -
a woman comes dashing out of the shoe repair

(Heels-While-U-Wait) shop and cries Sorry; pieces
of burnt paper float from somewhere behind me,
and the man loping rapidly ahead of me
without looking back shouts Shag off, will ye!

(but not angrily) at some guys just out of range
of the corner of my eye. They say nothing at all,
these guys, as the loper increases his lead,
nor do they overtake me. The hot sharp smell

of burnt paper darts to the back of my throat,
and I think a small fragment, like a green flake
of distemper from the wall of an old porch,
has landed on my shoulder, but I can’t check

or be seen to brush it off. Stepping into mainstreet
is like returning through the looking-glass without
a moment’s notice -- shoppers tucked in behind me,
not a thing on my shoulder, slight catch in my throat.

Rocks, Rags and Russian Dolls

Well, it was a trimmed-back audience last night at the Shore Poets. I don't know whether it was the Grangemouth strike that kept people away, but it can't have been the weather unless everyone had fallen asleep in the sun. Whatever, we were maybe around 20 down on the usual number, but it was a good night nonetheless, if I do say so myself.

Julie Sheridan was the first reader. She read very well indeed, though her voice didn't come over best through the mike for some reason. Some of her work seemed to me to be trying too hard, but there was a lot of promise there and one poem, "Russian Dolls", sounded spot on.

I read the second, Shore poet slot; my last time in the role. In spite of recovering from a tummy bug that had laid me low Thursday and Friday, I felt I read well, and reactions seemed to confirm that. The set was a mix of brand new work and poems I've read before, including the title poem from Tonguefire.

The evening's headliner was Colin Will, blogger, editor and StAnza chair as well as poet. Colin read very well, his looser, more prosaic writing ensuring that we had three very different voices last night. I have to confess, that style of poetry isn't generally what does it for me, but I thought Colin's piece about James Hutton, the father of geology, was superb. The other pieces of his I found most effective were his haiku and haiku-like poems, where the discipline of the short lines and focused, concrete images reigned in the looser approach.

Last night's music was fantastic. It was a real treat to have a mix of blues, rag, folk and jazz from a guitarist as skilled as Callum More. We have some excellent songwriters along to Shore Poets, but fine instrumentalists like Callum provide perhaps the best foil to an evening of words.

Troubadour Poems: Rob A Mackenzie

Rob A Mackenzie is well known in the literary blogosphere as the man behind the popular poetry blog Surroundings. His pamphlet, The Clown of Natural Sorrow, was published by HappenStance in 2005.

Light Storms from a Dark Country

You bend sleetward down grey alleyways,
xxin search of finesse to straighten out
the tangle of the last spat. The sky’s
xxwatery glaze reminds you of that night
you split. A shock of white chrysanthemums
xxdroops from an abandoned briefcase
on the kerb. They shatter in the slipstream
xxof a truck. You count the Christmas trees
that line the tinselled storefront. They flicker
xxpink, blue and saffron like a funeral
in Hollywood. You search for living flowers,
xxas a peace offering, but when you steal
the twisted stems dumped at the cenotaph
xxdays before, you know it must be over.
Freak lightning tears its jack-knife
xxthrough the sky. You swerve under cover
with other hunched men, all asking what
xxflares in love, why it turns to smoke,
why by any other slant of light
xxyou never move forward, never back.

A Shore Poets Swansong

How readings can creep up on you! It's only a few days until this month's Shore Poets, where I'll be reading alongside Colin Will and Julie Sheridan, with music provided by blues/folk/fingerpicking guitarist Callum More. I'm stepping down from the group after June, so this will be my last appearance as a Shore poet. It has been a privilege to be part of Shore Poets, but it's time for me to move on and concentrate a bit more on my own writing.

Speaking of both Shore Poets and my own writing, my latest publication came through the door on Monday: A new orkney anthology, edited by Pam Beasant, the inaugural and outgoing George Mackay Brown Writing Fellow, includes three poems of mine. I haven't had a chance to delve into the contents yet, but it's a beautifully produced volume with contributions from Andrew Motion, the Shore poets who participated in the Shore to Shore exchange and a large range of Orkney-based writers, from the experienced to those seeing their work in print for the first time.

Troubadour Poems: Michael Mackmin

I'm delighted to begin this series of poems with the following nocturne from Michael Mackmin, who is best known as the editor of that beautifully produced magazine, The Rialto. HappenStance published his modestly titled pamphlet Twenty-Three Poems in 2006.

Midnight Garden

As the light moves from deepest blue to black
among the last outlines of vines and roses the white
planes of the painted table top and seats of chairs
slide into that mist where sight and insight wait
the last green flare, phenomenal illumination,
and eyes begin to blur, catching in corners at
the ghosts of rats, auras of uncertainties,
as if and where the lamp of Vichy shines
and the worn cards in their grey gloss fix in the hands.

And then the night: the labouring bee is frozen
on the stem of thyme, the recollections of geranium,
the different reds and white, flitting to those ancient
landscapes of the heart, the voices of sheep
hooves banging on soft stone, all gone dark, obscure,
reliant on memory - the eyes’ pulse
pulling at afterglow, the least glitter, seeing
the sound of the dead wind the tired dry
iron wheels on iron rails, wheels on rails, rails.

HappenStance Troubadours

Over the weeks runing up to the HappenStance reading at the Troubadour, I'll be posting a poem by each of the poets appearing. The full line-up is listed alphabetically by surname below. Poems will appear in a different order and the list will link to the poems as they are posted.

Martin Cook
Tom Duddy
Eleanor Livingstone
Greg Leadbetter
Rob Mackenzie
Michael Mackmin
Helena Nelson
Andrew Philip
DA Prince

Great Grog Again

Last night, though tired out after a busy day that included helping our neighbour to rebuild the fence along our boundary, I headed into Edinburgh for the third Poetry at the Great Grog event.

Elizabeth Gold kicked off. The work she read jumped off from anecdotes, snatches of overheard conversation and tabloid headlines, but took us to unexpected places. She had a cat poem, but please do not run for cover: it was a poem inspired by seeing a cat posing for a portrait of a dog (where else but Hollywood?), written very wittily in the voice of the cat. Really, it was about celebrity, dreams and reality.

Second up was fellow HappenStancer, Margaret Christie. Margaret's wonderfully quirky and individual work is laden with musical references and metaphors and often shifts from serious to hilarious and back again without missing a beat. The poem that impressed itself on me the most was her "Eurydice on Skye", a take on the Orpheus myth from Eurydice's point of view and a sharp observation of the relationship tensions that can arise on a lengthy walk!

Joy Hendry of Chapman fame followed Margaret. Joy is rarely to be heard reading her own work -- I think I've heard her only once before, at some Scottish Poetry Library event or other -- and, indeed, the editor's passion that obviously drives her led her to read not only her own work but a few poems from this book. However, it's her work and performance I want to talk about. Joy has suffered very ill health over the past several years, so it was great to see her looking vibrant and well. She treated us to a lively and varied set of poems in Scots and English, including a Scots translation of the quartet "In a contemplative fashion" from Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers and a memorable defence of women priests in the Episcopal church.

The last and main reader of the evening was Tom Pow. More than anyone else, Tom had to contend with the music and noise from the bar area -- not a problem on previous Great Grog evenings -- but he made a great job of it, reading mostly from his new Salt collection, Dear Alice--Narratives of Madness. The book is based on case notes from the 19th century Crichton lunatic asylum near Dumfries; it looks an interesting read. The asylum is now the university campus where Tom teaches; he quipped that the only problem encountered in converting a lunatic asylum into a university was the lack of parking. (One of the New Voices events I did for the SPL took place there; there's a report here.)

All in all, it was another fine night at the Great Grog, a unique combination of voices I don't think we'd have heard anywhere else. The audience was a healthier size than in February, perhaps partly because the weather was better, but maybe also because the events are establishing themselves. I spent most of the breaks chatting to artist and pamphlet poet Dorothy Lawrenson, who was along for the first time, as well as to Rob himself, and ended up getting a lift home from Sally Evans. Rob has done an incredible job in sustaining the momentum across the three events so far, and June's gig -- with Kapka Kassabova, Mike Stocks, Eleanor Livingstone and Jim Carruth -- looks to continue the quality and distinctive mix.

There is Somebody Out There

We seem to be having a blog-focused day here: in a typically thoughtful post on the hard work and vageries of literary blogging, Jim Murdoch has very kindly highlighted Tonguefire -- specifically the Reasoning Rhyme series -- among a small handful of lit blogs of note. He has succeeded in adding considerably and gloriously to my information anxiety with the other blogs he mentions, none of which I'd come across and all of which look to be fascinating reading. They are Dragoncave, World Class Poetry Blog, Slow Reading, TerryHeath.com and Geof Huth. Jim provides a little blurb about each, along with links to the post streams he's highlighting. The links above will take you directly to the sites, but make sure you drop by Jim's post first.

One of the issues Jim touches on in the body of his piece is the pressure many bloggers feel to post daily so as to acquire and keep a readership -- or clickership, to use the more accurate neologism he employs. Readers of this blog will know I don't manage anything like that. I simply don't have the time, energy or wealth of ideas. A post of any significance generally takes time to conceive and write, so only the quickest brains and fingers could produce a daily blog of genuine worth and quality. That's part of Jim's drift. Of course, I'd like more people to read what I post here, but I'm much more interested in comments and discussion than raw figures -- I never was that sold on arithmetic -- so please contribute!

Baroque Flittin

Katy Evans-Bush, aka Ms Baroque, has moved her fine blog, Baroque in Hackney, from Blogger to Wordpress. I'll update the link in the sidebar. She's a stylish and intelligent blogger so it's well worth following her flit.

StAnzaTube

Elmar Kuiper, one of this year's StAnza readers, videoed various other festival participants reading around St Andrews. There's a selection on the StAnza Facebook pages and the whole lot is on Kuiper's YouTube pages. I particularly like the intense focus of this one, Brian Turner reading the title poem from his collection Here, Bullet:

What Makes a Poem a Poem?

Rob A Mackenzie got himself in slightly hot water with some comment writers on his blog last week for daring to suggest that he might not consider Magi Gibson's work poetry. Unfortunately, instead of following the question of what makes a poem a poem, which could have thrown up some interesting ideas and insights, the comments took a rather more personal and abusive turn. Disgraceful and disturbing. I for one don't want to inhabit a space where perfectly legitimate aesthetic judgements attract abuse, so good on Rob for standing by his judgement.

Anyway, what does make a poem a poem? I'm interested to know what readers of this blog have to say on that. L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poet Charles Bernstein has an intriguing go at answering this perennial aesthetic question here. In 60 seconds. Of course, his answer throws up all sorts of questions. What does he mean by "the timing"? Is it something intrinsic to the poem or is it about the relationship of the poem to a moment in history and, therefore, to society? If the former, in what way does it differ from prosody, if at all? If the latter, is it possible for a piece of writing that once was a poem to cease being a poem and for one that formerly wasn't a poem to become a poem? Or is that more about the poem's relationship to time and is that different? If, as some scientists think, time is an illusion, where does that leave us?

LBF 2008 Takes Shape

The programme for Linlithgow Book Festival 2008 is beginning to take shape. It's looking good, not least with our first Booker Prize-winning author on the festival in James Kelman. Keep an eye the website for further announcements in coming weeks.

A StAnza Blog Roundup

StAnza reports are, naturally, now popping up in the Scottish literary blogomarble. Colin Will offers a StAnza insider's point of view in his brief sketch. Rob A Mackenzie has two reports: one for the Friday* and one for the Sunday. Rachel Fox muses on her mixed feelings here; while Sorlil gives a StAnza first-timer's view here. I'm sure there are/will be more.

*In passing, I'll just mention that, at the weekend, he was far from the only one raving about August Kleinzahler's Friday performance.

Draft Poem: Onding

Will leave this up for a few days for comment. The title is Scots; here is a link to the DSL definition of the word.

[poem deleted 21/03/08]

Stanza 2008: What Andy Did

I jumped into the car first thing yesterday morning and zipped up the road to St Andrew's for my fix of StAnza 2008, listening to The Guardian CD of great 20th century poets on the way to get me in the mood. My first event was the masterclass in translation with Helmut Haberkamm and Fitzgerald Kusz, who both write in the Franconian dialect of German, and, from the Scottish side, Robert Alan Jamieson and Sandy Hutchison. I was irritated with myself that I hadn't managed to do or submit translations of any of the masterclass poems, but it was an extremely worthwhile event for the discussion of dialect writing and translation*. It also gave me the chance to catch up a wee bit with Donal McLaughlin, Jim McGonigal and Chloe Morrish. And I came away with some free back issues of the Berlin-based poetry and fiction periodical lauter niemand and it's English-language adjunct, no man's land.

After a somewhat hurried lunch, I was back in the Town Hall for the French-language translated poets reading. French isn't really one of my languages, but I've complained in the past about translated poets only being during the week when there isn't a hope of my getting to StAnza so, having missed the Frisian and Franconian poets' readings because I was unable to be there on the Saturday, I felt I ought to go to this one. It was a fascinating reading. Neither of the poets--Heather Dohollau and Soleïman Adel Guémar--was actually French. Heather Dohollau is Welsh but has made her home in Brittany and writes in French, translating her own work into English. Soleïman Adel Guémar is Algerian and writes in French but is now living in ... where else? ... Wales!

I have to confess that the exhaustion of the previous day's 1st birthday party was beginning to tell by that point and I didn't get as much out of the reading as I should have done. But I'd certainly look out for their work again. To combat the tiredness, I headed to the Byre for a cuppa before Wholly Communion, a film of a massive reading at the Royal Albert Hall in 1965. To judge by this, poetry--or at least the Beatier end of it--was so much part of the counter culture it could fill an establishment venue like that to the rafters in those heady days. It's a mad, mad film. Some of the camera work made me feel sea-sick (I'm serious; O for a steadycam!), some of the poetry was equally shaky (but some was still good) and some of the audience likewise. (Well, probably most of the audience and writers were under the influence of something. These days, you wouldn't even be able to smoke a cigarette in there, never mind what was probably in the majority of the roll-ups visible on screen.) Adrian Mitchell's "To Whom it May Concern" was one of the best bits of the film and here it is:

After the film, Rob Mackenzie and I had a coffee in the Byre before heading to the pamphlet fair. By the time we got there, it was really winding down, and there wasn't much doing. We browsed what there was and chatted with Jim Carruth and Tessa Ransford, the force behind so much of the promotion of poetry pamphlets in Scotland over the past number of years.

Back at the Byre, I bought myself a ticket for the 5:00pm performance by Belfast poet Gearóid MacLochlainn with guitarist Dave Burnett, on the recommendation of Donal McLaughlin. And I'm glad I did. His billing as a performance poet doesn't tell you the half of it. Readers of this blog will know I'm sceptical of the animal performance poetry, generally thinking the bulk of it is better less spotted and spouted, but MacLochlainn is the real deal. He writes in, across, over and under Irish and English. There's a very strong flavour of the elaborate soundscapes of the great canonical Gaelic poetry and song, such as Duncan Ban MacIntyre to use a notable Scottish example, but it's deeply contemporary in feel and content and--get this--he does it successfully in English too, perhaps not least because he brings this tradition into collision with elements of rap. I was, shall we say, hugely impressed and bought his CD, Rakish Paddy Blues II, my travelling companion on the way home.

The comparison with Duncan Ban is, by the way, not random: one of the pieces MacLochlainn performed was a poem in praise of an Irish travelling piper, Johnny Doran. MacLochlainn's poem emulates the rhythms of Irish "open" pipe music and then slips into those of "closed", dance music (hope I got those terms the right way round!). The distinction sounds not unlike that in Scotland between ceòl mòr (or piobaireachd) and ceòl beag and, of course, Duncan Ban's great poem "Moladh Beinn Dòbhrainn" ("In Praise of Ben Doran") is written in the form and rhythm of a piobaireachd.

Gerry Cambridge mentioned to me that Iain Crichton Smith had translated "Ben Doran" and that the version was in his Collected Poems. I hadn't realised that, despite having the book on my shelf. After a quick look this morning, I'm impressed with the degree to which Smith successfully renders the rhythm, meaning and some of the rhyme (he ignores some of it, presumably because it's just so elaborate it would be nigh on impossible to do in English). Julie Johnstone said she thought one of the films showing on the day's loop was partly about the poem, so I went up to have a look: she was right and, luckily for me, Moladh Da Bheinn (In Praise of Two Mountains) was the last one to show in the loop.

For me, the last event of the day was the Adrian Mitchell and James Fenton reading. Mitchell was a likeable chap with a very loose, relaxed style of presentation but, while I liked some of the poems, much of it did nothing or as near as for me. Probably the best was his slightly updated rendition of "To Whom It May Concern". However, I wish there were more poets as passionately pacifist as he is.

Fenton's work I don't really know at all, I must confess. However, from the extracts of his book on metrics that appeared in The Guardian a good few years back, I do know that he's quite conservative in many of his aesthetic views and that came across in the work he read. At times I found myself wondering whether Modernism had ever happened. That might well be an uncharitable, uninformed view, but it was my reaction. He read some beautiful, powerful, hugely accomplished and intriguing poems--and read them extremely well--but, but ... I don't know, something didn't quite engage me at the level and in the way I really wanted. One of the most interesting and powerful pieces he read was "Jerusalem", certainly worth hearing and reading.

Still, it was an extremely good day, full of good, interesting poetry and conversations with friends and strangers, many of whom I've not mentioned here. That's one of the things I love about StAnza. I overheard somebody say he preferred it to the Edinburgh Book Festival. I know what he means: even people you don't know talk to you, which doesn't happen so much in Charlotte Square. There's a sense of community and everyone seems glad to be part of that community.

*Of course, the term "dialect" is not one I'm comfortable applying to Scots as a whole, but the fact is that, because there is no standardised form of the language, everyone who writes in Scots writes in or out of a particular dialect of Scots, regardless of whether they confine their Scots vocabulary to that dialect.

A Footnote to "Les Troubadours de HappenStance"

"Things often move slowly in the poetry world!" said I. Do you think if we rechristened poetry "slow books" it might become as vaguely trendy as the slow food and cittaslow movements? But then even vague trendiness is probably not what poetry needs. Remember, it was once the new rock 'n' roll. Now, it's The Guardian's new selling point (for a week or so, at least)*.

*See the footnote to this excellent piece by Sean O'Brien.

And, despite my sarcastic tone, a genuine hooray for The Guardian's free booklets (except the Great Interviews series)!

Shore Poets February 2008: Photos

Mark Ogle's family and several Shore Poets past and present.

Alison playing.

The Mark Ogle Memorial Poem trophy.

Hamish Whyte, Jacob Polley and Diana Hendry relax.

Angus Peter Campbell receives the trophy from Lizzie and Deborah.

Angus Peter with Mark Ogle's family.

(These photos, with full tags, are also on the Shore Poets Facebook pages.)

Les Troubadours de HappenStance

News just in: there'll be a HappenStance Press reading at Coffee House Poetry at the Troubadour in London on 26th May. Several HappenStance poets will read, including Rob A Mackenzie, Eleanor Livingstone, Michael Mackmin (editor of The Rialto), Gregory Leadbetter, me and Helena Nelson (Mme HappenStance herself). I've been thinking about trying to read in London for a while, and rumours of something like this happening have been in the air since Siriol Troup passed Tonguefire on to Anne-Marie Fyfe a while back. (Things often move slowly in the poetry world!) I'm particularly looking forward to hearing HappenStancers I haven't heard before. Should be great fun. Now to work out the travel ...

Wading Through ... Or Not

On the train into Edinburgh for Polly Clark's reading the other night, I finally started to read Sean O'Brien's Forward and TS Eliot prize-winning collection The Drowned Book. Now, I might be missing something--I must be missing something, if the judges of both prizes aren't--but I simply couldn't get into it. It's not that it's what one might call difficult poetry, it's just that I found it ... well ... dull. Granted I've only read the first three or four poems, so maybe there's something more later in the book, but it would go against all the principles of constructing a collection to put your least interesting poems at the front.

Has anybody else read The Drowned Book? Do you find it dull? If you don't, I'm willing to be persuaded. I don't intend to abandon it quite yet, but there was little or nothing in those opening poems that would naturally draw me back, especially when I'm having fun reading Milton along with Rob Mackenzie, Jane Holland and others. If you're a Drowned Book fan, what is it about the poems that grabs you or draws you in?

Two by Two

Out last night to Polly Clark's reading at Edinburgh Uni's Office of Lifelong Learning, where she's the Royal Literary Funding writer in residence. Polly was reading along with three OLL students.

Debbie Cannon, who read at last month's Shore Poets, was the only poet of the three. She kicked off with a reduced version of her Shore Poets set, and I have to say I enjoyed hearing the poems again. Of course, hearing poems read isn't like reading them on the page and, if they're any good, they should bear being heard again, which they did. The pleasure changes, of course, from the surprise of discovery to the enjoyment of knowing what's coming--a deeper pleasure in a way.

I'm afraid I can't quite remember the other two readers' names: Sean Morris and Katie something, I think. Sean read an entertaining excerpt from a novel in progress about the "beast girl" (i.e., an animal keeper) in a circus. Katie read from a dark and absorbing mystery set in Victorian London. An interesting contrast to Debbie and Polly's sets.

Polly came after the break, reading from her two published collections--Kiss and Take Me With You--as well as from Farewell My Lovely, a collection to be published next year. Much, if not all, the published work she'd read at the Shore Poets in September but, again, that was no problem for me. The new work she read was mostly about marriage and motherhood, though Polly pointed out that the new book isn't solely about those themes. In the best tradition of contemporary poetry, it was not only celebration but exploration. In fact, it sounded a more interesting and therefore more enlightening approach to writing about motherhood than Kate Clanchy's Newborn, for instance, even if the latter book does contain a couple of beautiful poems.

After the reading, Polly, her husband Julian and I went for a drink before I caught the train back to Lithgae. We ended up in Centraal (where I've been only once before, I think; before a Bruce Cockburn gig at the Queen's Hall a couple or more years back) for one drink and a good, relaxed chat about babies, writing, my day job, vocabulary and where we were on Sept 11th 2001 and the day Diana died.

100 Favourite Scottish Football Poems

One of the questions that one always faces with an anthology is what is its rationale, its purpose and aim? Like its team mates 100 Favourite Scottish Poems and 100 Favourite Scottish Poems to Read Aloud, 100 Favourite Scottish Football Poems, edited by Alistair Findlay, hints at a kind of democratising of the canon in its title and cover design, which is reminiscent of the earlier edition of The Nation's Favourite Poems in typeface and layout. However, although the 20 of the 100 Favourite Scottish Poems (which, presumably, nobody would ever dream of reading aloud) were chosen through a Radio Scotland listener poll, the other 200 are, as far as I can tell, chosen by single editors.

So, if we don't have a popular poll, what do we have? One man's take on how poetry has addressed an endlessly popular subject, perhaps. Findlay instinctively sides with the crowd, which, he says is "really only another name for 'the people'." Perhaps it was an awareness of the disjunct between his role as sole arbiter of what's in and what's out and the requirements of his Marxism that led him to the rather odd decision to number not the pages but only the poems and state that they are "in an order of reading proposed by the editor", which is to state the obvious, really.

But what you really want to know about is the poems. Readers of this blog will know that I'm no football fanatic, though I confess I'm not entirely averse to watching the odd Aberdeen or Scotland game and have been known to kick a ball about. All of which makes me pretty reasonably well-placed to judge the book as an anthology of poems without becoming misty-eyed about the footballing aspect or writing it off in anti-football disgust.

If you're looking for a golden treasury, go to Palgrave. For my taste, there are a few too many paeans to great footballers and I find many of them dull poems. One notable exception in that genre is Matthew Fitt's wonderful "Jim Leighton", a poem that, certainly read aloud (as it is on The Jewel Box), would curely make the hardest footiephobe concede that there must be beauty and heroism in the game.

But don't just turn over to the black and white film on the other channel. There is a lot more to this book than the footballing hall of fame in verse. If it contains a good handful of poems that will interest only the enthusiast, it also contains at least as much that's well worth the general reader's attention. Football runs deep, deep in the Scottish psyche and male Scottish society, and the real strength of Findlay's anthology is that it presents us with a portrait of that deep place in a more profound and, certainly, more entertaining way than any academic study could.

Every aspect of football's appeal is here: the highs and lows, the tribalism and sectarianism, the communal experience and the shared memories, the inextricable link between the sport and Scottish tribal identities. The book shows how far back this goes: the earliest poem is a quatrain from 1580, and one of the most pleasurable discoveries for me--there were plenty, I assure you--was the exerpt from "The Christmass Bawing of Monimusk, 1739", proof that the divines of Scotland have never been Calvinist dourness through and through.

Sectarianism, is of course, unavoidable. Findlay does an admirable job in this regard. "The Fields of Athenry" and "The Sash My Father Wore" sit side by side in the book--could you do otherwise?--and there's plenty sharp, funny and poignant commentary on the sectarian question from several of the poets. Dennis O'Donnell captures so much of the ambivalence, threat and fear in his "Fid. Def." (another poem that stood out for me), while Robert Crawford's "Identity League" sums up the nation's carnaptious obsessions with typical Crawfordian wit and invention.

It's interesting that, although the book includes a good deal by many of our leading poets, it's often far from their best work and that many of the most interesting and effective poems in Findlay's choice are not those by the biggest names. Perhaps there's something in football that raises the game of the lesser writers and maybe the bulk of the greats, MacDiarmid not least, have missed what's most poetic about it. There are also a few odd choices in Findlays list, poems that are shoehorned into either the rubric of "Scottish" or "football", but he does a good job of defending them in his spiky introduction.

Despite this, depsite its slight uncertainties about canon building and democracy, and despite overdoing the eulogies from a general reader's point of view, this book is a lively, entertaining and emotionally informative anthology of poetry. If you want to understand Scotland today, you need to read this kind of stuff, not just the academic and semi-academic analyses of where we are and how we got here. Findlay has done us a service in collecting it between these covers.

"OF MAN'S first disobedience ..."

Perhaps I was too harsh on Rob Mackenzie's schedule for reading Paradise Lost: I made it to the same point as him yesterday. Rob is doing a good job of summarising the poem and there are already a few interesting comments on his first post, so I won't repeat what's already on Surroundings. I have to say, I am enjoying it. Milton writes some truly great blank verse. There are so many justly famous lines and dazzling passages in those first 330 lines. So, many thanks to Rob for the spur to read the poem.

Reasoning Rhyme: Lightness that Drew Me: Rhyme in Gaelic

One question that arises for the new terminology is whether it can cover rhyme practice in languages other than English adequately. It ought to be able to, as it's based on phonetic/phonemic correspondence rather than any single tradition of what does or doesn't constitute a rhyme. In this post, I start to test it out against Scottish Gaelic rhyme practice.

In Gaelic poetry, rhyme is traditionally considered to focus on vowel sounds, with no reference to the coda consonants of the rhyme syllables. Because stress is on the first syllable of a word in Gaelic, the rhyme vowel in end rhyme often falls on the penultimate syllable of the line. However, this isn't feminine rhyme, as the final syllable doesn't participate in the rhyme correspondence. Final-syllable rhymes are nonetheless perfectly possible (there are plenty monosyllables in the language), and it's also common to find internal rhyme, in which a vowel sound rhymes with a stressed vowel at a given point in a preceding or following line. It's also worth noting that vowels do not necesarily have to be identical, but closely related: /e/ and /E/ can rhyme, for example.

Meg Bateman's beautiful short poem "Aotramachd" neatly demonstrates the rhyme on the penultimate vowel sounds:

Aotramachd
B’ e d’aotromachd a rinn mo thàladh,
aotromachd do chainnte ’s do ghàire,
aotromachd do lethchinn nam làmhan,
d’aotrmachd lurach ùr mhàlda:
agus ’s e aotromachd do phòige
a tha a’ cur trasg air mo bheòil-sa,
is ’s e aotromachd do ghlaic mum chuairt-sa
a leigeas seachad leis an t-sruth mi.

Lightness
It was your lightness that drew me,
the lightness of your talk and your laughter,
the lightness of your cheek in my hands,
your sweet gentle modest lightness:
and it is the lightness of your kiss
that is starving my mouth,
and the lightness of your embrace
that will let me go adrift.

There's so much going on in this densely wrought lyric, with its rich mix of semantic, grammatical and phonological parallelism, but the feature I want to focus on is the end rhyme scheme. According to the Gaelic criteria outlined above, the poem rhymes AAAABBCC. The A rhyme is on à (thàladh:ghàire:làmhan:mhàlda), the B on ò (phòige:bheòil-sa) and the C on u (chuairt-sa:t-sruth mi). The first four lines--those that rhyme on à--are concerned with what drew the speaker to the object of her desire; they unpack the attractive lightness of the first line. In the subsequent four lines, as the lightness repels instead of attracts and the lovers drift apart, the rhyme scheme changes and fractures into two couplets.

It will not have escaped the astute reader's notice that the scheme of "Aotramachd" is more or less nuclear rhyme. In fact, analysed in these terms, we can break it down further into a clear A1A1A2A2BBCC structure. Before we do that, a quick note on Gaelic phonology is necessary.

Gaelic understanding recognises two classes of vowels and consonants: the broad and the slender. Slender vowels are i and e in the orthography, which represent the high front vowels /i/, /e/ and /E/; the rest are broad vowels. The slender vowels are sounds that, across languages, cause palatalisation of consonants*. And that's what the slender consonants are: palatalised versions of the basic, broad consonants (except that, in some dialects, the /rj/** is pronounced as a [T] or [D]). This means that what might be a secondary articulation for a consonant English is a significant difference in Gaelic, significant enough to create a separate class. I'm sure I needn't point out the importance of that for the possibilities in rhyme.

The A1 rhyme thàladh:ghàire transcribes roughly as /hAl6G:GArj@/. The rhyming vowels are identical. In the codas***, we have /l/ and /r/, which linguists class together under the term liquids. The correspondence of /h/ and the voiced velar fricative /G/ is less obvious but, if we take into account the morphophonemics--the interface of grammar and phonology--we get a clearer relationship. In their unmodified form, the rhyme fellows are tàladh and gàire, so their first sounds are /t/ and /g/ respectively: two non-nasal stops. However, because they follow the possessive adjectives mo (my) and do (the singular and familiar form of your) in the poem, they are lenited. That is to say, the stops weaken to fricatives. In the change from the velar stop /g/ to the velar fricative /G/, the place of articulation stays the same. However, in Gaelic, the voiceless coronal stop /t/ always lenites to the voiceless glottal fricative /h/. Not a close correspondence phonetically or even necessarily phonemically, but a clear morphophonemic correspondence.

I don't even need to transcribe the A2 rhyme for it to be obvious that it's a texbook example of segmental swapping: làmhan:mhàlda. However, perhaps a comment on dialect is appropriate here. In all dialects of Gaelic, the grapheme mh represents /v/ when it occurs at the beginning of a word. The word-medial mh in làmhan would be realised as /v/ in some dialects but, in others, it would be a /w/. Happily for my analysis, a recording of Meg Bateman reading the poem is on hand in The Jewel Box: it reveals her pronunciation to be /lAv@n/. Even if it was a /w/, it would still share the labial place of articulation with /v/, so it would be a case of featural swapping rather than segmental.

The B rhyme, phòige:bheòil-sa, transcribes as /fO:kj@:vjO:ljsa/. As is clear from the orthography and transcription, the place and manner features of the onsets are identical; the only major difference is in voicing. The codas might seem less closely related, but the /kj/ is a palatalised velar stop, which brings the blade of the tongue into a position much closer to that for /lj/ than in an unpalatalised /k/ so, in Gaelic terms, both codas are slender consonants. Interestingly, in the second rhyme fellow, the onset consonant /vj/ is palatalised. There's a lot going on in this apparently simple rhyme.

Finally, there's the C rhyme, chuairt-sa:t-sruth mi. It transcribes as /xuartjsa:tru:#mi/. Again, there's some segmental swapping going on here, with a /rtj/coda becoming a /tr/ onset. The second rhyme fellow has an empty coda. We could borrow the /m/ from mi, which would involve the sonority and the stop features of the /m/ breaking into the /r/ (sonority) and /t/ (stop) from the coda in chuairt.

There's much much more I could say about the poem, but this analysis indicates two things: that rhyme in Gaelic can, in fact, go beyond the vowel and that the new terminology is well placed to describe a non-English rhyme tradition. I might, in future posts, test it against older Gaelic poetry, but this will do for starters!

*Note that the presence of a vowel in the spelling doesn't necessarily mean it's pronounced. Like English, Gaelic has plenty of digraphs (two-letter symbols that represent one sound). However, the orthography often indicates historical pronunciation and the presence of slender vowels around a consonant always means that that consonant is slender.

**I use the /j/to indicate palatisation. Hence, /rj/ is a palatalised form of /r/.

***In these words and several others in the poem, what I'm treating as codas would probably be better described as the onsets of the second syllable. Therefore, as there are clear relationships, we can say that they are borrowed from the second syllables, which doesn't really participate in the rhyme scheme, as is shown by the varying vowel sounds and the variation between syllables with and without codas.

PaLoReaMo?

Rob Mackenzie has thrown down a gauntlet: to read Paradise Lost with him this month. "Paradise Lost in a month?" I hear you ask, as you fall off your chair in disbelief. It seems so. I will be joining him, although I guarantee I'll fall behind his exacting and somewhat artificial schedule, which apparently works out at about 300 lines a day! There's an online study guide here, although I haven't the faintest whether it's any good.

Much more manageable is the latest incarnation of Rob's manuscript collection, which I read a couple of weeks ago. There are some really cracking poems in it, I have to say, and it's certainly a stronger book than when I last saw it. I enjoyed reading it so much I could hardly put it down. He just gets better and better, so somebody should snap him up. (Any publishers listening?)

Three-Michelin-Star Tele

I've only ever got hooked on two--ahem--reality TV shows: Musicality and Masterchef. Both, of course, are basically talent shows with a reality TV element injected into them. (Perhaps we could call them soft reality TV rather than the hard reality [sic] TV of, say, Big Brother. Who I'm not watching. Ever. Sorry.) Both also lack the glitz, pizzazz and superhype of other talent shows such as The Zzzzz Factor, Any Idea Will Do or How Do You Solve a Problem Like the Ratings?. Instead of hype, the focus in the two Ms is/was on unadorned talent, hard work and, in the case of Masterchef certainly, sheer creativity.

Another crucial element both programmes--certainly in the latter stages of the competitions--is the narrative arc of the contestants' development. The lack of glamour and the narrative focus together give the impression of following a real personal emotional and experiential journey, as opposed to observing the manufacture of another identical pop unit for market consumption. That even goes for Musicality, where the ultimate prize was to perform in a West End show. That narrative arc is what hooked me. That and, in the case of Masterchef, the madcap, prodigious brilliance and innovation of Emily's dishes.

Another thing: in one sense, Masterchef shouldn't work. The crux and climax of a programme is the contestants' cooking, which only the judges are able to assess. The viewer can assess presentation, of course, but not flavour, seasoning, consistency or texture. That's the opposite of Musicality or the phone-in voting contests, where everyone has seen and heard the contestants' performances and everyone has an opinion on them.

But perhaps that's the genius of Masterchef as reality TV: it forces the viewer to imaginge what the dishes must taste like. In the other shows, the viewer's imagination is uncalled-for. In fact, it's cancelled out, particularly by the higher-budget, glitz and glamour end of the genre. Masterchef therefore has soul in a way that not even Musicality, for all its emotional journey, could manage. Perhaps that's why I finished watching the grand final last night and felt that drive to write returning with fresh vigour.

Whaur Extremes Meet?

I know this is a bit behind the times, but there's an interesting post on "official verse culture" over at Eyewear, on the back of the result of the TS Eliot Prize. One wonders whether Edwin Morgan--one of those whom Todd Swift and other bloggers (well, Rob Mackenzie at least) hoped would win those laurels--didn't get the prize partly because he's always sat slightly athwart that culture. I've said this kind of thing before, but it seems to me that ability to straddle the mainstream and experimental is something that Scottish poets are particularly good at. I have no idea whether the proportion of poets from Scotland to whom that applies is any greater than that among the ranks of our English and other Anglophone brother and sister poets but, if it isn't, we certainly seem more readily able to recognise and celebrate them. Perhaps it's a function of size: oh, we can be a gey carnaptious lot, but sometimes we just stick together.

The Oscars? Who Needs the Oscars?!

It was a packed house and a night of surprises. A night to remember, even if it wasn't a night of tears. No, I'm not talking about that minor award ceremony in Holywood. I mean the Shore Poets reading last night. The crowds turned out--well, the Mai Thai was crowded--to hear Jacob Polley, Debbie Cannon and Diana Hendry and for the first Mark Ogle Memorial Poem, from Angus Peter Campbell. It was lovely to have a strong contingent from Mark's family there--his widow and daughter with their partners and his twin sisters--as well as several of Mark's old friends.

Angus Peter may have missed out on the Oscars and we may not have been able to compete with Tinseltown on glitz, red carpets and sartorial swish, but the lack was made up in depth and quality of speech. It was one of those nights when everything fitted together as neatly as if it had all been planned in detail. Debbie Cannon kicked off with a good set well read. For me, her first poem--a strong sonnet about seeing her mother's face in the mirror--had the most impact. (You can read it here. The closing couplet is what makes the poem stand out.) It set the theme for most of her set and, in a way, most of the evening.

Diana Hendry continued the family theme all through her set of typically sharp, witty poems form her forthcoming new collection. Jacob Polley started off in family vein with "Smoke" from his first collection, The Brink, but, with poems from his latest book, soon introduced the second theme of the evening: rain. There were smiles among those of us who knew exactly what was following his set. Diana and Jacob share another link: friendship with the late William Scammell. Diana read a poem for Scammell, while Jacob read one of Scammell's poems.

The reading culminated in the Mark Ogle Memorial Poem. It's a new feature of Shore Poets life but a celebration of one of the group's earliest members. In fact, as founder-member Brian Johnstone said, it was Mark joining him and Morelle Smith that made Shore Poets a group as such. And my! Haven't we grown! Brian's tribute to Mark set the tone of celebration. Mark's widow, Deborah Nelken (who bakes the famous Shore Poets lemon cake) spoke about how much the inauguration of the memorial poem means to Mark's family and his daughter Lizzie presented Angus Peter with the trophy that comes with the commission. It's a beautiful, simple carving of a boat, representing Mark's family connection with the sea and his conviction that life is a journey. Into the top is carved a line of Mark's: "a secret ballast/ steadied your spirit".

Angus Peter then read. He had been asked to respond to a poem of Mark's--"English Rain", which you can read here (third poem down)--and had written three poems, one in English as a direct response and two in Gaelic as slightly more oblique responses. He read the latter two first, before reading Mark's poem and his direct response,"Our Rain", beautifully and movingly. I'll post a link to "Our Rain" once it's been published on the Shore Poets website.

Music for the evening was provided by our very own Alison Reeves on the fiddle. Alison played three sets of three tunes, a lively mix of Irish and Scottish music. She wrapped up the evening by bringing us full circle to family with tunes she'd written for her parents' 50th birthdays. A suitably celebratory note to round off a night of magical connections.

Mark Ogle Memorial Poem

Besides the usual fine fare at Shore Poets this Sunday, with Jacob Polley, Diana Hendry and Debbie Cannon, there'll be something extra special: acclaimed Gaelic poet and novelist Angus Peter Campbell will launch the Mark Ogle Memorial Poem.

Angus Peter will read Mark Ogle’s poem “English Rain” and “Our Rain”, the poem he has written as a response.

Mark Ogle (1948–1999) was one of the earliest members of Shore Poets and one of the first to read at the group’s original venue, the Shore Gallery in Leith. A poet of great depth and sensitivity, his reading so impressed the founders that they invited him to become the third Shore Poet.

Always closely involved in the running of the group, Mark played a considerable part in organising the appearances of Norman MacCaig and Edwin Morgan at the 369 Gallery. Mark continued this level of involvement even once the group had been expanded and gave many memorable readings at all Shore Poets venues.

It was with particular sadness that group members heard of his final illness and subsequent death, at the early age of 50, in February 1999. A Memory of Fields—a selection of his poems edited by Brian Johnstone and Hugh Dailly of Shore Poets, in consultation with Mark’s wife Deborah Nelken, with an introduction by Stewart Conn—was published by Akros in 2000.

In 2007, Mark's family and Shore Poets decided to commission a poem annually as a memorial to him. The commission is offered to the poet among the previous year’s Shore Poets readers whom we feel is most in tune with Mark’s sensibilities.

The poet is asked to respond to a poem of Mark’s, chosen by his family, and receives a fee of £500, plus a year’s possession of the Mark Ogle Memorial Poem trophy. The fee and trophy are presented and the poems read at the Shore Poets event in February, the month in which Mark died.