Scotland
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It’s been a day of Impossible Journeys*. I’m sitting here basking in some of Paul Thomson‘s music to accompany Claire Askew‘s poem for the project, and I’ve also been absolutely loving Alastair Cook‘s film for my poem. All of which simply stokes my already considerable excitement about the fact it’s all going to come together
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The entire poetry world is saddened to hear of Edwin Morgan’s death. I almost typed “the entire Scottish poetry world”, but Eddie Morgan was a true Scottish internationalist and his reach was global. Even that doesn’t sum him up. Morgan himself comes closest in the title of his collection From Glasgow to Saturn: from the
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At last I’m able to unzip my lips and announce that The Ambulance Box has been shortlisted for the first book category in the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards 2010! I’ve had to sit on the news for about a fortnight until the Scottish Arts Council, which administers the prize, made it public. I
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Congratulations to Robert Crawford on winning the Saltire Society’s book of the year award and commiserations to my friend Alison Lang on not winning the first book award. News of the results is surprisingly hard to come by, with rather scant information in the BBC online report and naething ava on the Saltire Society’s own
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I didn’t want to sully my celebration of the wonderful news that Alison Lang has been shortlisted Saltire Society literary awards with this gripe, so I’ve held it over for today: where on earth are the poetry books on the shortlists? There’s Crawford’s biography of Burns, but that’s the closest we get. No Hunt in
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I’m particularly pleased that my next reading will be in the city of my birth and of my father’s family, Aberdeen. Come and join me and Rob A Mackenzie at Dead Good Poets in Books and Beans on Belmont Street on Thursday next week (29 October). Times and entry details are here. I lived in
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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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I’ve just discovered that Michael Russell, the Scottish minister with responsibility for culture, held a meeting with artists yesterday at the Traverse Theatre. This is important stuff for anyone involved or interested in Scotland’s cultural life. There’s a short video about the event here; it includes reactions to the meeting from Ron Butlin and Margaret
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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
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That’s got to have been the best wee festival in the world we had the weekend before last. What a cracker LBF 08 was! Fiona Hyslop, the Scottish Government education secretary and a Lithgae resident, launched the festival and christened our new participants autograph book. She stayed around for Christopher Brookmyre‘s sell-out event. There was
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Here’s all I have to say about this story: The Pax can belt a Mac at NightxxMiscaw wir Bard and aw thatBut critic’s care’s abuin his might;xxGuid faith, he mauna faw that!For aw that and aw that,xxHis sarky sneers and aw that,The pith o sense and pride o worthxxAre higher ranks than aw that. Meanwhile,
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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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The Sunday Herald reports that the SNP Scottish Government is abandoning its manifesto pledge to provide Irish-style tax breaks for artists, musicians and writers and, instead, conducting a substantial review of arts funding in Scotland. It’s hardly a surprise that it should ditch the tax plans: the Scottish Parliament doesn’t have the powers to implement
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One of the questions that one always faces with an anthology is what is its rationale, its purpose and aim? Like its team mates 100 Favourite Scottish Poems and 100 Favourite Scottish Poems to Read Aloud, 100 Favourite Scottish Football Poems, edited by Alistair Findlay, hints at a kind of democratising of the canon in
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I want to respond in more detail to a couple of the comments on my post about the first part of Yang-May Ooi‘s interview with Rob Mackenzie (the second part of which is now available). Ms Baroque (aka Katy Evans–Bush) commented: “the idea of nationalist poetry sounds disturbingly stalinist these days.” Three things bother me
Amy Jo Philip 