Amy Jo Philip
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Imagine my surprise when I clicked on the headline “Poets’ work to form basis of city literature collection” in my daily e-mail from The Scotsman and found it was a report of the poems on pillows commission! As you’ll see if you read the piece, they’ve got rather confused about what is being written when…
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The programme for StAnza 2007 is now available. It’s the 10th StAnza, and the line-up is a good ‘un. I’m particularly interested in hearing Jorie Graham, but I’m disappointed that the Eric Gregory Award showcase reading is at a time utterly inaccessible for me. However, I’m appearing in The Gathering: 100 poets reading a poem…
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The Spring programme for the Poetry Association of Scotland came through the door this morning. The blurb for my reading with Gerrie Fellows on 7 February proclaims us: “Two poets who describe the modern world with an ironic yet lyrical voice.” Other events in the season include a reading by Robert Crawford, Douglas Dunn lecturing…
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Not that I’m given to watching Sunday morning TV, but I happened to see the art historian Brian Sewell pontificating disdainfully about modern art in churches on BBC 1 this morning. I assume the item, which was part of the Heaven & Earth show, was a brief televisual extension of his BBC Radio 3 show…
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Just before Christmas, the Scottish Poetry Library asked whether I’d be willing to take on a commission for a new three-star metro hotel in Edinburgh, Ten Hill Place. The library and the hotel have put together a project to produce poetry postcards that will be left on the pillows at Ten Hill Place when guests…
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I like what Ruth Padel has to say about the so-called difficulty of poetry in her comment article last Saturday’s Guardian: Poetry, in other words, is not only good for you, and protects us against meaninglessness: by the pleasure it gives in its artifice, images and imagination, and in the little nudgy sensual relationships between…
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I’ve added a couple of new links to the “Faith” section: Foundation is an emerging church group in Bristol in which a friend of mine is heavily involved. The site has some basic information about the group and links to blogs by Foundation members, but consists mainly of intimations of events. Perhaps Virtual Theology is…
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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
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The Scottish Executive has published its draft Culture (Scotland) Bill for consultation. This marks an important juncture for arts and culture policy in Scotland, but The Scotsman reports that James Boyle, the head of the Cultural Commission, which the Executive set up to draw up a vision for Scotland’s cultural policy, is not at all…
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The Scottish Poetry Library’s third annual online choice of Scottish poems published in the past 12 months or so–Best Scottish Poems 2006–went live on St Andrew’s Day. As ever, it’s a highly inpidual choice by this year’s editor, Janice Galloway, as you can see if you compare it with the 2005 choice by Richard Price…
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Yesterday’s opening of illuminate went well. Just about the right number of people came to make it feel busy without being crowded. The mulled wine, mince pies and lebkuchen went down a treat and everyone enjoyed the exhibts (some of the children who came particularly enjoyed standing in front of the video projector). Photographs were…
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We spent most of today setting up the illuminate exhibition I plugged in the previous post. Tiring work, but it’s looking good. There are still a couple of things to install before tomorrow’s opening, but I think everyone involved is very pleased with how it looks and hangs together.
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This Christmas exhibition will include three poems of mine presented as a triptych. Readers of Tonguefire will be familiar with two of them–“His Wading Light” and “A Voice is Heard in Ramah”–but the third, which is called “Down Darkness Wide”, is new and takes a different view of the story. Interestingly, although the word triptych…
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Wednesday 7th February 2007, 7.30pm, Scottish Poetry Library with Gerrie Fellows for the Poetry Association of Scotland. Entry: £3 (£2 concessions) I’m very excited about this. I’ve been attending PAS readings since I was a student and have seen numerous fine poets read for the Association, so it’s a privilege to be booked by them.
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There was a good crowd in Mai Thai–the new Shore Poets venue–on Sunday night to hear Alan Hill, Jim C Wilson and Matthew Hollis. The readers strained a little bit to make themselves heard at the back, so I think we’ll might be using a small PA in future. Nonetheless, it was a good reading.…
Amy Jo Philip 