Scottish writers
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island magazine, published by Julie Johnstone’s Essence Press is a beautifully produced, hand-bound biannual publication concentrating on poetry concerned with nature. I don’t like to use the term “nature poetry” lest it conveys something twee, which island is not. Julie describes it as “new writing inspired by nature and exploring our place within the natural
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My next reading will be at the Poetry and Jazz event on the Celebrate Linlithgow! arts festival. The reading is at 8pm on Friday 27 October in Bryerton House. Tickets are free and can be reserved by calling 01506 517031. The other main reader is Douglas Briton, who writes in a kind of Wendy Cope-ish
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The inaugural Linlithgow Book Festival took place today. I managed to get along to three of the events: the opening talk, the poetry workshop and the closing reading. In the first event, Lithgae resident John Fowler talked on the subject of his book Mr Hill’s Big Picture, namely, David Octavius Hill and his huge painting
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The British Council Scotland website has some pages with new Scottish poetry. It’s a good selection of poets, if a short one: John Burnside, Matthew Fitt, Ann Frater, Rody Gorman, Alan Jamieson and Jackie Kay. There are poems in Scots, English and Gaelic. Matthew Fitt’s “Scottish National Diction” is a smashing poem with more than
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In case you hadn’t noticed, the Booker longlist is out and the media have begun their febrile speculation as to who will win the prize. (They never do that with the Forward shortlist, now, do they?) The BBC upholds journalistic standards by reporting on the bookies’ odds rather more than the books, but The Guardian
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Several weeks ago, I finally managed to visit Little Sparta, the late Ian Hamilton Finlay‘s garden. Finlay was a man of unique vision and creativity. With his collaborators, he transformed the bare land of Stoneypath farm into a poet-artist’s garden, in which everything–the land, the buildings, the plants, the installations–is shaped according to a coherent
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I have just this afternoon discovered that Alasdair Gray has a website. As anyone who knows Gray’s books would expect, it is illustrated in his distinctive style. It also contains poetry, plays, interviews, biliographies and a fragment of a storyboard for an “intended screenplay” of Gray’s most famous novel, Lanark. Gray also has a blogspot.
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Several weeks ago, my wife picked up the booklet that accompanied this list and poll. I pretty much ignored it when it was current last year, as lists like that tend to annoy me. (The idea strikes me as unimaginative and not a particularly useful way to assess whatever is being ranked. And I don’t
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On Thursday evening, I was at the launch of The Testament of Gideon Mack, the new novel by James Roberston–novelist, poet, non-fiction author, founder of Kettilonia press and, with Matthew Fitt, driving force behind the marvellous Itchy Coo project. The venue, Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery, was jam packed with figures from the Scottish literatary world–I caught
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Tuesday night saw the launch of There are words, the collected poems of Gael Turnbull, who died in 2004. Gael was a doctor, morris dancer, Liberal Democrat activist and endlessly inventive poet, though I knew of only the first and last of those aspects to his life while he was with us. Gael’s publishing life
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The City of Edinburgh Council’s 2006 Festival of Scottish Writing begins this weekend. Don’t think I’ll manage to get to much, if any, of it. It’s a varied line-up. There are a few Gaelic events on the programme, but I didn’t notice any specifically Scots-language events. There ought to be one or two at least.
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For an overview of StAnza 2006, I can’t better Susan Mansfield’s piece mentioned below, not least because I got there only on the Saturday afternoon and left again on the Sunday before Andrew Motion’s reading. But I always enjoy StAnza, whatever number of events I manage to attend. And I enjoy it as much for
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I stumbled upon Surroundings, the blog of Rob A Mackenzie, whose fine pamphlet The Clown of Natural Sorrow is also published by HappenStance. I bumped into him a couple of times at StAnza and his write-up of the festival is here.
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I’ll write something more about StAnza when I’ve time and energy, but suffice to say for the moment that Susan Mansfield’s write-up of the festival in today’s Scotsman mentions my fellow Shore Poet Angela McSeveney and me: StAnza 2006 was another success, full of poetic richness. Some spellbinding performances, notably from [Andrew] Motion, Tony Curtis
Amy Jo Philip 