poetry

  • Kapka Kassabova goes travelling in her own life for the next poem from the 16 August Fruitmarket readers: I want to be a tourist I imagine my life as a city somewhere in the third world, or the second. And I want to be a tourist in the city of my life. I want to

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  • Gutter 07 arrived in the post this afternoon. As I mentioned previously, I have one poem in this issue, the first of my abnominals to be published anywhere. I’m particularly pleased it’s the abnominal I wrote for my wife. It’s a month or two since I last looked at it, and I’m happy to see

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  • For the second of our poems from the 16 August Fruitmarket readers, Tony Williams is and isn’t in a listening mood: Listening I didn’t mean to overhear the scrape of chair legs on the floor and sour breath of the bored, enshadowed janitor nor how he conflabbed on the stairs (it echoed in the squarish

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  • A boring bit of admin for you: there is now a Facebook event for the reading at the Fruitmarket Gallery on 16 August. If you’re on FB and coming — or even just thinking of coming — you can sign up here. Looking forward to seeing some of you there!

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  • We kick off the poems from the 16 August Fruitmarket readers with Chris McCabe celebrating in the Honest Toun: 30th Birthday, Musselburgh And sat under the papier-mache mermaid, the table an afterlife of seafood – like your first memory: starfish along the railway tracks. Purple flints in the emptied wineglass – for so long pregnant,

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  • Following the success of last year’s August reading at the Fruitmarket Gallery, we’ve decided to repeat the format with a slightly different line-up of poets. Funnily enough, we’ve ended up going for the same date, which allows me to revive the 06 | 16 tag. Here are the details: When: 16 August 2012, 7:30 for

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  • Circumstances have kept me from doing anything with this blog lately, but things seem to be settling down a bit, so I’m back to some degree of blogging at least — though don’t expect too much from me for a whilie! Anyway, the purpose of this post is to say that one of my abnominals,

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  • Well, you make your little noises in your own wee virtual glen and then, before you know it, there’s a rumble of snow elsewhere. I’m delighted to see that not only has Mark Burnhope’s blog been picked out as the featured blog for today on the NaPoWriMo site, but his growing number of abnominals is

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  • Well, when I dreamt up the abnominal, I had no idea it would have taken on a life of its own already by now. I’ve been pleased with how productive a form it is — seven poems in three weeks is a pretty good rate! — but it has pleased me tremendously that others have

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  • It’s National Poetry Month in the UK and, to celebrate the fact, I’m doing a reading tomorrow (Tuesday 17 April) with fellow Linlithgow poet Jane McKie — winner of last year’s Edwin Morgan poetry competition — and Bathgate poet Alistair Findlay. The reading will be held at Far from the Madding Crowd, 20 High Street, Linlithgow.

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  • Today is the anniversary of Dietrich Bonhoeffer‘s execution in 1945 and the day that he is commemorated in the Northumbria Community‘s calendar of saints, so I’ve decided to break with my normal practice of not posting new poems on this blog and put up a piece in memory of him: X Cheer Friend of Both

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  • I wish you all the blessings of the Easter season — and none of the abdominal complaints that may accompany it! As has become all too customary on this blog, I also apologise for my absence. After celebrating being back in the saddle, I was knocked out of commission by a bout of tonsillitis, which

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  • Ah, it’s good to be back! Sorry I’ve neglected the blog over the past while, but my Poetry School online course swallowed up all blogging time over the past couple of months. It was also good to be back to reading at 10Red in Edinburgh on Wednesday last week. (I apologise to all, especially Kevin

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  • For a long time, the Reasoning Rhyme section of this site has simply directed readers back to my old blog, but I’ve now consolidated all those previous posts into a proper section of this site. I’ve not added anything new, but I do have good intentions — and we all know where they lead —

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  • Merry Christmas! I hope you’ve had a Christmas full of light, blessings and peace. I trust you haven’t eaten too much turkey (or whatever you dined on for Christmas day — some rather delicious pork in our case*). Equally well, I hope you’re not staring at a fridge full of leftovers for the next three

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