poetry
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I’d been exercised by the second half of this all day, and then I see that not only has Rob Mackenzie blogged about it already, but Roddy Lumsden has replied in the comments section. Briefly, Roddy is baffled by the sparse number of established Scottish poets in my generation: those born in the 1970s and…
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What can I say about Wednesday night’s launch of The Ambulance Box and The Opposite of Cabbage at the Scottish Poetry Library that isn’t already in the reports by Peggy at the SPL (who does the name dropping for us), Colin Will and Rob himself? Rob is right to say it couldn’t have gone any…
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Last night’s launch at the SPL was a huge success. We ran out of seating and wine glasses though not wine, I’m glad to say. Or books, I’m equally glad to say, despite the goodly number sold. Really, though, I’m far too tired to give you a proper account tonight. I had an unavoidably a…
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Several weeks back, Rob A Mackenzie and I struggled through snow to the HQ of Anon magazine, now edited by Colin Fraser and Peggy Hughes, to record for the Anon podcast. You can now hear us discuss our magazine publishing history, the whys and joys of blogging, and the parlous poetry infrastructure of the best…
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Thursday’s reading at St Mungo’s Mirrorball with Rob A Mackenzie and performance poet Robin Cairns was a good night. As usual, Mr Mackenzie has got in ahead of me and blogged about it already. As he says, it was a varied evening but the audience was happy to switch mood and style along with each…
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As a further celebration of the Appointed Day for Rob A Mackenzie and me, here’s a poem from Rob’s collection, The Opposite of Cabbage, originally published in Seam: Nuclear Submarines One day they will surely betray me.For now, they seem content to drowse resolutely without wit or purposelike autistic sharks ballooning through seaweed, rock and…
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The day has come! Today, 1 March 2009, is the official publication date for The Ambulance Box and Rob A Mackenzie‘s marvellous book, The Opposite of Cabbage. To celebrate, here’s the title poem from my collection: The Ambulance Box No one can swear how it fellinto our hands. No one can fathom its substance or…
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“Wandelvakanties Dicht bij Huis“, one of the poems from The Ambulance Box, has just appeared today as part of the short season of other poets Jane Holland is running at the moment on her Raw Light blog. I’ve updated the sidebar with links to it and several other poems, including one in the wonderful this…
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It’s fairly pointless to say this, as it’s blindingly obvious, but I’ve added the cover image for The Ambulance Box to the sidebar. Apparently, the collection is also one of several Salt books to feature in a back-page ad in the latest issue of the LRB!* I haven’t seen it yet as Linlithgow shops don’t…
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I was jealous that Rob Mackenzie had got his books yesterday, so I just had to get up early this morning and zip down to the postal depot to pick up my author copies of The Ambulance Box, which the postman had failed to leave in our designated “safe place” yesterday. I wasn’t quite banging…
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If you’ve dropped by the Poetry at the Great Grog blog recently, you’ll have seen that Julia Rampen and I have swapped slots, which means I’ll now be reading on 14 June instead of in May. I’m thoroughly looking forward to reading with fellow Salt poet and literary blogger extraordinaire, Katy Evans-Bush, author of that…
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The West Lothian Writes event at Bathgate’s Regal Theatre a week past Friday was a really good evening, very ably compered by Ellie Stewart. There was a mix of poetry, prose and even film script (!), with several really good pieces of writing and several strong performances, as well as one or two that weren’t…
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A quick update on the progress of The Ambulance Box: the book went to press on Friday! I can tell you, that was an exciting moment. It was made even better by the fact that I shared it with Rob A Mackenzie, whose collection The Opposite of Cabbage was sent to press at the same…
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Technically, I’ve let the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns‘s birth pass without comment, but I could hardly let it pass without mention, even if a touch belated. I’m not going to regail you with an online immortal memory; I’ll simply point you in the direction of one of my favourite pieces of Burns. I love…
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The Today programme’s interview with Jen Hadfield is here, along with all the recordings they’ve done of the other shortlisted writers. Worth a listen. She sounds a touch tired. Good on her! Seeing the shortlist again just emphasises how stunning a success this is for her. Not just for her, but for the younger poetry…
Amy Jo Philip 