Amy Jo Philip
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You know, I haven’t written anything for weeks. It’s not a case of writer’s block as much as one of writer’s break, one of those fallow periods you have now and then. In past years, I’ve found the summer a surprisingly unproductive season: I never write on holiday (so I no longer expect myself to);…
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I like this comment on beauty from composer Thomas Adès (from an article in the Telegraph on his recent piece about the creation): “Why would anyone be ashamed of beauty? It’s a very 20th-century idea that you might be. Thankfully that’s gone.”
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I have a slot on the West Port Book Festival‘s “Four Hour Festival” event. No time confirmed as yet, but I’ll post when it is. You can find the full programme here.
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No apologies for the silence over the past fortnight or so, as I’ve quite enjoyed the wee break. We returned a week ago from seven days in Caradale on the Kintyre peninsula and life has been quite busy since. The weather in Kintyre was very mixed, but the scenery was (as the photos below show)…
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Jane McKie’s Knucker Press launches what looks like an interesting new pamphlet tonight: Way Out by Victoria Macrae. Here’s what the press’s website has to say about it: In early 2008 Victoria Macrae spent 65 days, 19 hours and 37 minutes as an in-patient in Ward 6 of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. During this period…
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As yesterday’s Sunday Herald reports, Edinburgh has a new book festival this year in addition to the established Edinburgh International Book Festival. It’s called the West Port Book Festival, and it’s all free! You can find out more here. The programme doesn’t launch until 11th July, so I can’t tell you any more, but from…
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Time once again to highlight the blog of my good friend and sometime collaborator, the painter David Martin. Two years ago, he embarked on an epic tour of the middle east to gather material for his Salvesen award exhibition, following the trail of Hermes Trismegistus. His blog of that adventure proved him to be a…
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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…
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Why would anyone pay £1.50 for a pomegranate? I like them and all that, but £1.50 for a single piece of fruit? Oh yes, silly me: they’re superfoods, a class of comestible scientifically proven to make the marketing managers salivate three times as fast.* We got two for 35p apiece from the reduced-to-clear basket the…
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There’s an extensive, thoughtful and very positive review of the sampler over at Jim Murdoch’s ever stimulating blog The Truth about Lies. Jim comments on each of the poems in turn, as well as on general aspects of the pamphlet as an object and collection. This is the paragraph that most interests me: As a…
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Somehow, I had missed until the middle of this week the news that Edwin Morgan has won this year’s Sundial Scottish Arts Council book of the year award for A Book of Lives. Shame on me! Not having read the collection–or any of the other finalists, for that matter–I can’t comment on its merits, but…
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Andrew Philip: A Sampler is now listed on the HappenStance website. I’ll update the sidebar in due course. [Sidebar updated.]
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Four poems by Matt Merritt, whose fine HappenStance pamphlet Making the Most of the Light came out in 2005 and whose first full collection Troy Town was published by Arrowhead earlier this year, have just been added to Alex Pryce’s fantastic PoetCasting website. Well worth a listen. PoetCasting itself has just had some good very…
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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…
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It’s been a momentous week in this neck of the woods. As you’ll know if you’ve been following this blog for a while, I’ve been working on a full collection of poetry, swapping manuscripts with Rob A Mackenzie and submitting to publishers. On Tuesday, the collection–The Ambulance Box–was accepted by Salt, who propose to publish…
Amy Jo Philip 