Books Glorious Books
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I had an amazing weekend at Wigtown Book Festival. My previous experience of the town, described here, could not have been any more of a contrast. There was a real buzz about the place and, unsurprisingly, I kept bumping into people I know from the literary scene. The town seemed to have come into its
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Jennifer Williams keeps it short and to the point: When on the Aeolian Isles (thanks to a travel bursary but sort of like a holiday as it was so stunning) writing my first collection … Metamorphoses by Ovid Collected Poems by C.P. Cavafy JL Williams’ poetry has been published in journals including Poetry Wales, The
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This is an edited version of a piece that Elspeth wrote for the Scottish Poetry Library‘s Poetry Reader newsletter last year: On the road touring across the USA and Canada as production manager with Puppet State Theatre Company, my bedside book collection a) moves from one hotel nightstand to another on an almost weekly basis b) overlaps
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Here’s a quick round-up of several recommendations from comments on my Facebook note and Ingrid van der Voort’s repost of the same: Ruth Murphy: Alice Walker — Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful. Robert Peake: Marvin Bell’s Wednesday is both portable and rewards re-reading. I like to take multiple passes through slim volumes when
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I rarely approve of taking poetry on holiday. I’m far too shallow, skittish and lazy to deal with the potential after-effects: really fantastic poems have the unpredictable ability to sneak out of nowhere and stun, or give me a dizzyingly vertiginous glimpse of what’s missing from my soul (most of it), or at the other
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I haven’t been “on holiday” for years, but I’ve lived by the sea for almost two years now, so the poetry which springs to mind is the stuff which has accompanied me to the beach. My criteria for good holiday poetry: something which grabs and keeps hold (because it’s rip-roaringly funny, maybe, or emotionally gripping);
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Although it’s not directly a response to my call for memorable holiday poetry reads, Andrew J Shields has offered this brief post on reading the Aeneid, which fits the bill quite nicely. Andrew Shields’ poems have appeared in many journals, as well as in the chapbook Cabinet d’Amateur (Cologne: Darling Publications, 2005). His translations from
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It must have been the summer of 1995, the summer following my first year at university. The book was Edwin Morgan’s Themes on a Variation, borrowed from the Scottish Poetry Library, which was still crammed into Tweeddale Court at the time. The beach was Cocklawburn near Berwick-upon-Tweed — a favourite of my family’s for heaven
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Holidays? What are they? But if you want an excellent book of poems, one that’s so good you can actually read it in the airport because it makes the outside world disappear, be silenced, my punt is Letters to the Tremulous Hand by Elizabeth Campbell, published by John Leonard Press in Australia. Her second book,
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Not much poetry in the Guardian Review’s article where “writers recall their most memorable summer reads”, which is kind of disappointing for “news that stays news”, if typical of these lists. However, I suppose it’s not bad to have two poets recommended — Housman and Homer — given that there was a single poet among
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It’s World Book Night on Saturday 5 March, and St John’s Church, Linlithgow has a juicy wee event planned to celebrate. It’s the brainchild of David Todd, community outreach pastor, who is a registered World Book Night book giver-away, and I’ll be taking part. David will be giving away his WBN copies of Stuart: A
Amy Jo Philip 