10 Minutes, Four Hours, One Day

Here is the full information for my reading tomorrow at the Four Hour Festival:

Venue: Evolution Cafe, Evolution House. This is the entrance to eca on the West Port. It's a big glass building right on the corner of the crossroads, apparently.

Time: I'm on at 3pm. The event starts at 1pm with Shore Poet Nancy Somerville. Rob Mackenzie is on straight after Nancy and Ryan Van Winkle is on at 2pm.

Cost: Your time, not your cash. (But if you'd like to buy a pamphlet I'd be most grateful.)

I plan to read from Andrew Philip: A Sampler, the manuscript for The Ambulance Box and one new poem. Hope to see you there.

Slotting In

My time for the "Four Hour Festival" event has been confirmed: I'm on at 15:00 and it's a 10-minute set. Plenty time to get myself organised for that.

The event is open to prose as well as poetry and I've no idea what the balance between the two will be, but it should be fun. It also includes Shore Poet Nancy Somerville at 13:00; fellow blogger and HappenStancer Rob A Mackenzie at 13:10; and the Scottish Poetry Library's new reader in residence, Ryan Van Winkle, at 14:00. That's three other poets at least. I don't recognise any of the other names on the bill, so I'm looking forward to hearing some unfamiliar writers, including the fabulously named Jimmy Warblegoose.

Against the Football

Shore Poets on Sunday went head to head with the Euro 2008 finals. That, coupled with the start of the holidays, might well have had something to do with the somewhat reduced numbers. I have to say, it was a cracker of an evening.

The new poet, Simon Pomery, was one of the best we've had for a while. He wasn't the most relaxed in his introductions but, once he got into the poems themselves, he read well. And there were some really strong poems in his set. There's some of his work here. He read "Jeremiah" and several poems from his "Divina Lux" series, but not the ones you can view online. Simon has a pamphlet coming out with Tall Lighthouse in the autumn, if I remember rightly; worth looking out for.

Roddy Lumsden is behind the Tall Lighthouse pamphlets, which provides a link between Simon and the Shore poet for the evening: Angela McSeveney, with whom Roddy overlapped at Edinburgh University. Angela read with her usual skill and aplomb from Slaughtering Beetroot, her fine new Mariscat pamphlet. She's currently poet of the month on the Scottish Poetry Library website.

Richard Price, the main reader, read from his first two books as well as new work. Richard is a fabulous, mesmerising reader. His work is always fascinating, stimulating and strangely beautiful. You can hear him on PoetCasting and the Archive of the Now and I recommend you take a listen. Better still, buy Lucky Day, Greenfields and/or some of his pamphlets.

Interestingly, Richard has been writing a lot of rhyming poetry recently. Although this takes him away from the spare modernism of earlier work to a certain extent, a Richard Price poem in ballad form is still unlike anything else you'll read or hear. Nonetheless, there's an extremely strong song element to these poems, so it's no surprise he's been writing song lyrics too. In fact, her read one song; you'd be hard pushed to distinguish it formally or stylistically from some of the recent poems. And I mean that as a compliment.

That gives us a kind of link to Sunday's music. Stewart Hanratty was excellent, with powerful, jazz-tinged songwriting and guitar playing. After his song about hats, it was inevitable that Angela should read her poem on the same subject. You'll just have to buy the pamphlet to read it, though!

Sunday's event was my last as a Shore poet. I've stepped down from the group after, I think six years, owing partly to a busier family life. It has been great fun to be part of Shore Poets, but it's time to concentrate my energies elsewhere. I still plan to be around the readings, so this won't be the last SP gig report you'll read here. I went out on a high, though: I won the famous Shore Poets lemon cake.

A Beetrooty Launch and a Groggy Reading

A week past Tuesday, I went to the launch of Angela McSeveney's new Mariscat pamphlet Slaughtering Beetroot at the Scottish Poetry Library. I can safely say it's the only launch I've been to where beetroot cake was on offer. Angela had baked it herself, and it was, you may say, delicious. And the poetry was at least as good. I think this could be Angela's best collection yet. Her characteristic "clear-water shine" (Iain Crichton Smith) is, of course, in evidence, but it grows ever stronger mixed with a certain wry determination and a sense that she is perhaps more relaxed in herself and her writing than in previous work. Well worth parting with £5.00 for it.

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Last Sunday was the final Poetry at the Great Grog before the summer break. Jim Carruth was the first reader. His is a distinctive voice, bringing the farming experience to us urban dwellers in unsentimental, inventive poems. No hint of the romanticising of the rural life here, although there is plenty of anger and regret, often below the surface. His love poem to silage (I kid you not) was a tour-de-force of rhyme. I'd quite like to get a hold of it and subject it to my usual "Reasoning Rhyme"-type analysis.

My memory of the order has gone a bit hazy at a week's remove, but I'm reasonably certain it was Mike Stocks next, before Eleanor Livingstone. Mike read very well from his collection of sonnets, Folly. However, I have to say, although there were some fine examples of what you can achieve within those confines, it left me feeling you can have too much of a good form, as do Alan Spence's all-haiku readings. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy such readings at all. Mike can write powerful* and funny sonnets, but sometimes I wanted him to make the form disappear.

Eleanor read well, mostly from new work, including memorable poems about her Fife childhood escapades and her daughter's reading habits.

Kapka Kassabova was the final reader. Kapka is from Bulgaria, via New Zealand, and writes about the experience of exile in a way that communicates strongly to us non-exiles. I say "us non-exiles", but there were other exiles in attendance and, besides, there's something in the Scottish psyche that could almost be described as exiled from itself or from its own history and culture. To me, Kapka's work speaks to that aspect of Scottishness, perhaps not directly, but powerfully.

I also met Julia Rampen, who will be reading at the Great Grog at some point next year. Julia was one of the Foyle Young Poets winners in 2005 and 2006, as well as a runner-up in the Tower Poetry competition in 2006 and one of the winners in The Rialto's fifth young poets competition. To judge by the poems I've linked to, she's obviously talented; I'm looking forward to hearing her read.

Poetry at the Great Grog will be back in September with Michael Schmidt, Helena Nelson, Dorothy Baird and another Foyle Young Poet, Charlotte Runcie.

*Perhaps none more so than the one here, which nearly made me cry when I read it. It wasn't in his set.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

Skating on Poetry Loch

One of the things I love about Shore Poets is that the format of our events often produces rich and varied evenings of music and poetry. October's reading with James W Wood, Christine De Luca and the wonderful, quietly intense Gillian Allnutt was no exception (the only problem being that Allnutt's quiet reading voice didn't carry well in the Mai Thai acoustic).

The reading this Sunday just gone was another case in point, with Rachael Boast, Nancy Somerville and David Kinloch, plus music from Ben Young. I'd met Rachael Boast before, but didn't know her work, so it was a pleasure to encounter such accomplished writing at Shore Poets in the newcomer slot.

David Kinloch's set consisted entirely of new poems, displaying all his typical richness and imaginative verve. He's working on a sequence of poems about Scottish painters, from which he read, closing with a poem that entertainingly imagines a painterly wager as the source of the recent controversy over whether Raeburn really did paint The Rev. Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch.

David is one of the driving forces behind the Glasgow Poetry Society, otherwise known as Vital Synz, which enjoyed a hugely successful launch early this month (I wasn't able to be there, unfortunately). There's an interesting programme of events coming up next year.

As well as organising the Vital Synz events, the society is running a new competition: the Edwin Morgan international poetry competition. Unlike most competitions, this one has a college of three judges--and an extremely varied one at that--in Colette Bryce, Donny O'Rourke and Richard Price. Given the diversity of poetics represented there, it looks like they're aiming to make it a stylistically broad competition, appropriately enough for a competition celebrating the protean Mr Morgan.

Orkney: Thursday

When Christine De Luca, Diana Hendry (with her partner the poet and publisher Hamish Whyte) and I touched down on a overcast but none too windy Orkney a week past Thursday, we were met very warmly by Pam Beasant, whose brainchild our visit was. While Christine sorted out her hire car, Pam drove Diana, Hamish and me to our hotels in Stromness.

Anyone who has visited Stromness will know what a quirky wee town it is. The narrow, flagged main street is so tricky to negotiate--what with pedestrians, parked cars and vehicles coming the opposite direction--that even some Orcadians refuse to drive along it. Imagine a single-track rural road with sheer banks of masonry and you'll come quite close. The rest of the town stretches the short way down to the waterfront or up the hill, much of it in narrow closes reminiscent of Edinburgh's Old Town.

Stromness is also, of course, the hometown of the late George Mackay Brown. Wander along the main street away from the hotels, shops and pubs, past the library and you'll find this unassuming council house. The only thing to indicate that it was GMB's home is the blue plaque on the wall:

Mackay Brown's is still a strong presence in the artistic landscape of Orkney, 15 years on from his death. There are mentions of him and quotations from his poetry and prose all over the place. I didn't have any of his work on my shelves before I went, so I bought the Collected Poems from the fantastic little bookshop in Stromness. The shop is that rare thing in this day and age: a real bookish bookshop, crammed with volumes of all kinds and with an interesting poetry section. One delight of the place is the slightly surreal and witty comments on the shelves where one might expect something denoting the genre. The only one I can remember was on the poetry shelves:

In celebration of national poetry day on 8 October, we will be closing.

Anyway, much of my first day in Orkney was not spent in Stromness. After lunch, Pam whisked Christine and me through to Kirkwall for an interview at the pokey and couthy wee BBC Radio Orkney studios. The recording was partly for the weekly Tullimentan (think that's the right spelling) arts programme and partly for Around Orkney. It was a slightly curious experience to come down to breakfast the next morning and hear myself on the radio.

On the Thursday evening, there was a reading at Woodwick House. None of us was involved, but we, of course, went along nonetheless for the fun. When Pam, Diana, Hamish and I arrived at Woodwick, there were flocks of starlings (at least, we think they were starlings) filling the surrounding trees in the half light. Rather eerie. That's what looks like bats in this unfortunately rather blurred but nonetheless atmospheric photo.

The house is another unusual place (anyone spot a theme developing?). Apparently the rooms don't have TVs. Guests are encouraged to walk or to read from the sitting room's wonderfully eclectic little library. The sitting room also contains an upright piano in a beautiful, ornate casing so abysmally out of tune that it can only be described as an unprepared piano. And, along with a varied selection of films on video and DVD, the only TV in the building.

The reading featured Orkney residents Ron Ferguson (former leader of the Iona Community), John McGill and Nigel Wheale plus Shetland writer Laureen Johnson. Quite a varied line-up of prose and poetry. Laureen's set was notable for being entirely--introductions, chat, poems and all--in Shetlandic. John read a gorgeous exerpt from his novel, The Most Glorified Strip of Bunting, in which the main character, marooned on a ice floe, is watching the aurora borealis. Ron read a mix of poems and football prose. Nigel read from his book and very effective new poems the arose from his job as a care worker on Orkney.

Music was provided by flautist Gemma McGregor and pianist Glenys Hughes, who is also director of the St Magnus Festival. They played pieces by the 18th century Scottish composer James Oswald. His work was new to me: a clear and effective combination of Scottish traditional music and European classicism. All the more surprising given that he was writing in the late Baroque era.

The evening passed convivially and a starry night came. That was the end of the first day for me on Orkney.

Packing Anxiety Cure Wanted

Well, it was a couple of hours ago, but I got over the anxiety and packed. Off to Orkney tomorrow with fellow Shore Poets. It's just possible there might be an opportunity to blog in situ, but I expect I'll write something about it on my return.

Gearing Up

I'm off to a course with Matthew Hollis and Colette Bryce at the Lumb Bank Arvon centre tomorrow, so this online tongue will stop wagging for the next five or six days at least. Still, there's a reasonably amount for you to enjoy in the virtual cupboard under the stairs.

It should be a fun week. I know Matthew Hollis from his days at Edinburgh University, when he was president of the university's poetry society. He was a couple of years ahead of me and was largely responsible for making EUPS an interesting place to be. I last saw him when he read for the Shore Poets in November. Colette Bryce I met and chatted to briefly when she read for the Shore Poets in, I think, 2003. The course is about working towards a first collection, so it comes at just the right point in time for me.

Speculating as to what kind of people the other course participants might be is always* fun but a little less necessary in this instance, as it transpires that Alex Pryce of Poetcasting note is going on the same course. She'll have her podcasting gear with her, so it looks like I'll be recorded and cast ahead of the expected schedule**. Poetcasting is an impressive project, all the more so given that it's the brainchild of a 19-year-old student. It's one of the most interesting and vibrant UK poetry websites--unique in its mix of emerging and established voices, performance poets, mainstream literary poets and more experimental writers--and I'm looking forward to meeting the person behind it.

*I say "always", but I've only ever been on previous Arvon course, which was way back in 2002.

**Alex is planning a Scottish recording trip early next year.

Shore Poets Programme 2007-08

Here's the Shore Poets programme from September 2007 to June 2008 (guest poets in bold, Shore poets in italics and new poets in plain text). Don't forget our special Orkney event on Sunday 29th July.

2007
30th Sept
Polly Clark, Ian McDonough and Gilly Garnett

28th Oct
Gillian Allnutt, Christine De Luca and James W Wood

25th Nov
David Kinloch, Nancy Somerville and Julie Sheridan

2008
27th Jan
Elizabeth Burns, Jim C Wilson and Lauren Pope

24th Feb
Jacob Polley, Diana Hendry and Debbie Cannon

30th Mar
Martin McIntyre plus OPEN NIGHT

27th Apr
Colin Will, Andrew Philip and Rachael Boast

25th May
Kate Clanchy, Ken Cockburn and Stephanie Green

29th Jun
Richard Price, Angela McSeveney and Simon Pomery

Blues that Stays News

I can't help but think that last night's Shore Poets event could have shown some of Thursday night's slammers a thing or two about how imaginative and contentful something that might be described as a performance poem can be. Nowhere was that more the case than in the closing set, from the night's main reader, WN Herbert.

Bill Herbert would be a hard man to beat in a slam. He has always been a poet of many guises, a writer with a flair and versatility few can match. Ballads, sonnets or blues; rhymed or unrhymed poetry; metred or free verse; lyric or narrative; surreal or realist; tender, witty, erudite or scatalogical--this man can do it all with equal aplomb and intelligence. And he does it in Scots, English and all the fluid gradations between the two sibling languages.

Bill's set last night leant heavily towards the more performancy end of his writing, especially with his early poem "Talking Water Blues" and the title poem from his most recent collection, "Bad Shaman Blues". Both push the blues into unexpected places. Don't think of Auden's use of the form. Or, if you do, think of it crossed with MacDiarmid and dropping acid like chocolate buttons. "Cognitive freefall" is how I once heard him describe his writing technique. That's maybe not a bad description of the imaginative riot at the heart of the work, but it belies the degree of effortless craft in the poems.

June's Shore poet was Angela McSeveney. Angela is a much less showy writer than Bill Herbert, but her performance was no less assured or sparky than his. She delivered the night's most memorable piece--a vivid, hugely entertaining poem about slaughtering beetroot, which she dedicated to Hamish Whyte who had just celebrated a significant birthday. Her set was packed with gems of her clear, honed, crystalline writing.

The opener this month was Dorothy Baird, whose new collection is just coming out with Two Ravens Press. A good, assured set. I particularly liked "The Cry of the Night Child" and the poem of hers built on the conceit that dawn is the only word for the dawn in English. She spoilt the conceit slightly by saying "dawn is the only word for the sunrise in English", but the poem was good nonetheless.

The music was from three lassies from the Edinburgh Youth Gaitherin, a traditional music project. Ailsa, Becky and Mairi (I didn't get their surnames) must be in their early 20s at most but are already accomplished traditional singers and treated us to three excellent sets of Scots, English and Irish songs.

Usually, the Shore Poets season finishes in June. However, this year, we have a special event in July for our Orkney exchange. The shame is that, although I'm going to Orkney on the exchange in October, I won't make it to next month's reading because I'll be heading off to this Arvon course. Normal Shore Poets service resumes in September, when Polly Clark will be the headliner.

Island <> Shore

The next reading I have in the diary at the moment isn't until October, but it's one I'm particularly looking forward to. Pam Beasant, the first George Mackay Brown writing fellow, contacted Shore Poets convener, Christine De Luca early this year enquiring whether we would be interested in an exchange with some Orkney poets. We readily agreed, and so Pam, Yvonne Gray and Alistair Peebles will join us for a special event on Sunday 29 July, while a clutch of the Shore poets--Christine, Ian McDonough, Diana Hendry and I--will head Orkneyward for a weekend of events 12 and 13 October. This will be my first reading on any of Scotland's islands, and I'm delighted to be going, not least because I've never been to the northern isles and have itched to go to Orkney for ages. I hereby promise to blog about the trip. Who knows, I might even treat you to a photo or two.

The Knoxian Shore

Richard Dawson, musician of the month, provided a fine complement to the poetry, as on his previous Shore Poets appearances. In fact, to Richard goes the best rhyme of the evening: gregarious:areas. If I remember rightly, the lines were: "my pocketbook guide says they [bullfinches] are naturally gregarious; and found in cemeteries and heavily wooded areas."

First poet was Rob Mackenzie. I particularly enjoyed his more surreal, quirkier poems, such as "Advice to the Lion-Tamer on becoming a Poetry Critic" and "Scotlands". You can read his assessment of the evening here.

My set was almost exclusively unpublished poems, with the exception of "Wandelvakanties dicht bij huis" and "Sketchbook of a Trip to the Hebrides", although perhaps we could also count "Waukrife", which is about to be published in Lallans. I was slightly apprehensive about the two newest poems I read, partly because they were longer pieces. Moreover, one of them is in Scots with a fair bit of German thrown in--much too much to gloss--and the other is quite intense and concentrated. But both went down well.

We were fortunate that Alistair Findlay could bring forward his reading by a whole year to replace Kate Clanchy, who was suffering with bronchitis. Fortunate in more ways than one, because his reading was hugely entertaining. He read from Sex, Death and Football as well as from his new book, The Love Songs of John Knox. The latter poems dissected aspects of the Knox myth and today's Scotland but were saturated in a wonderful surreal, postmodern wit. Sophisticated and imaginative stuff. Very Scottish. I bought the book and might blog on it a bit once I've had a proper read.

Change to Sunday's Line-up

Just got word that Kate Clanchy has had to cancel for Sunday due to bronchitis. Fortunately, we have managed to secure a last-minute replacement: Alastair Finlay, writer of Sex, Death and Football* and, more recently, The Love Songs of John Knox, both from Luath.

The rest of the line-up and other arrangements remain as advertised. It should make for a lively, interesting and varied night--with, I expect, a fair bit of demotic Scots from Alastair Finlay. Just a bit of a pity it's turned out all male.

*A book I enjoyed very much, somewhat to my surprise given the title. I haven't read the John Knox book.

Readings Update

Due to family circumstances, I've had to pull out of the 100 Poets Gathering at StAnza and won't be able to make it to the festival at all. This means that my next scheduled reading is at the Shore Poets event in May, when I'll be appearing alongside Kate Clanchy and my fellow HappenStancer, Rob A Mackenzie. The music that evening will be provided by the excellent young Northumbrian singer-songwriter Richard Dawson.