Amy Jo Philip
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My friend the Belfast poet Ray Givans published his first full collection, Tolstoy in Love, with Dedalus Press last year. The collection, which was one of only four books shortlisted for the Eithne Strong Award, is by turns playful, passionate and contemplative but always well crafted. I caught up with him over Facebook to explore…
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I’ve been toying with the idea of running a regular evening poetry workshop based in Linlithgow, perhaps starting next year, but I’d like to gauge whether there would be any takers for it before I make any hard and fast plans. Linlithgow is very easily accessible by train from Edinburgh, Glasgow and the metropolis of…
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Here’s some competition news, by way of public service blog announcement. This year’s National Poetry Competition is already open for entries. The judges this year are the estimable George Szirtes, Deryn Rees-Jones and Sinéad Morrissey. The prizes are: £5,000 for the overall winner, £2,000 for the second, £1,000 for the third and seven commendations of…
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Salt is opening a new Scottish arm based in Glasgow and plans to extend its Scottish list significantly. On Saturday 29 May, there’lll be a series of events in Edinburgh to launch and celebrate this new venture, culminating in a reading of new fiction and poetry 4:30 pm for a 5 pm start, finishing at…
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Last week, Scotland’s official makar and most inventive living poet Edwin Morgan reached the grand age of 90 and published a new book Dreams and Other Nightmares: New and Uncollected Poems 1954-2009. Simply amazing still to be publishing at that age and to have uncollected poems worth collecting from that stretch of time. But then,…
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I was asked by my church leadership a while back to write something based on the prayer from chapter 2 of the Book of Jonah to be used in a sermon series on the prophet’s story. Requests like that are always tricky, but I accepted and, having managed it, I read the piece at the…
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As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m delighted to be reading at this year’s Dundee Literary Festival on Friday 25 June in the lunchtime “Poem and a piece” strand at 12.30. For your £5, you not only get to hear — <modest cough> I didn’t write this bit of copy — “this stunning new…
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The category winners for the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust book awards have been announced. The first book prize went to Sarah Gabriel’s Eating Pomegranates. Congratulations to her and commiserations to my fellow nominees JO Morgan and Momus. I confess I haven’t read her book yet, but I certainly will. It sounds like a powerful volume.…
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It’s turning into a year of collaborations with visual artists for me. Douglas Robertson, who interviewed me on my blog tour, has an exhibition coming up at the Scottish Poetry Library from 8 May to 14 June, which will include a sequence of small theatre-like assemblages entitled ‘Horizontals’, based on five one-line poems of mine…
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The Rialto, which has a swish new website — at least, new since I last looked, which will be a while ago — is planning a feature on “younger poets” (35 and under, not under 35 as reported in some quarters) and is seeking submissions. The deadline is 31 March, so there’s less than a week…
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Having just worked out how to embed content from Vimeo, I thought I’d post properly Alastair Cook‘s beautiful video for Jane McKie’s “La Plage“:
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It is, apparently, World Poetry Day, a fact that nearly passed me by until I saw it mentioned on Facebook by those marvellous folks from the Scottish Poetry Library. I, er, marked it by not managing to get to StAnza at all this year. Ho hum. Still, I did manage to read the WPD message…
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I have my time slot for the this collection McEwan Hall reading on Friday. There will be two stages in the main hall and two in the upper gallery. I’ll be reading on the right hand stage in the main hall at 8:00 pm for around 20 minutes. Also on that stage are Russell Jones,…
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At last I’m able to unzip my lips and announce that The Ambulance Box has been shortlisted for the first book category in the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards 2010! I’ve had to sit on the news for about a fortnight until the Scottish Arts Council, which administers the prize, made it public. I…
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I mentioned this collection in the previous post. Here‘s* a video from the project by Alastair Cook for Jane McKie‘s poem “La Plage”. (Lovely poem. I particularly like “They will rubbish quieter worship”.) *Can’t get it to embed, unfortunately.
Amy Jo Philip 