Rob A Mackenzie
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Hidden Door is back! This time, it’s a nine-day arts extravaganza featuring 40 bands, 70 artists, poetry, cinema, theatre and bars — yes bars plural — in the 24 disused vaults in Edinburgh’s Market St. It starts on Friday this week and runs until Saturday 5 April. I’m excited to be appearing on Day 5,
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During the holidays, I like to get stuck into a thick volume, a Collected or Selected, usually to fill a gap in my knowledge: a poet I’ve read poems by now and again but haven’t ever read in a sustained way. This year, I’m going for Marianne Moore’s Complete Poems. Moore, although generally admired, isn’t
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Six Poets at the Fruitmarket Gallery is back! This year, we’re on at 7:30 pm for 8:00 pm on 15 August 2013, with Isobel Dixon, Hannah Lowe, Rob A. Mackenzie, Richard Price, Jasmine Donahaye and me. Tickets are £5 from the gallery or on the door. As in previous years, I’ll be posting a poem from
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A quick heads-up about two readings coming very soon. First, on Wednesday evening this week (3 July), I’m reading alongside Janette Ayachi, Vahni Capildeo and Rob A Mackenzie at the Yellow Bench Cafe in Leith, Edinburgh at 7:30 pm. In addition, the marvellous Ira Lightman will perform two mini-sets. Five entirely distinctive voices in what
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Thanks to Robert Peake, I’m in the Huff again. That is, his interview with me and Rob A Mackenzie is now available in the culture section of the Huffington Post’s UK edition. I am hugely grateful to Robert for taking the time to ask us some penetrating and stimulating questions. In other news, I’ll be
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I have three readings coming up in the next several weeks. The first, on Saturday 15 June at 7:30 pm in the CCA in Glasgow is an event from Irish Pages and Conradh na Gaeilge Glaschú as part of Glasgow’s Irish Language Festival, Féile na Gaeilge Glaschú 2013. I will be chairing and reading at this event,
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It’s exactly a week until the launch of The North End of the Possible and Rob A Mackenzie’s The Good News at the Scottish Poetry Library! If you’re within striking distance of Edinburgh on Saturday 4 May, come on down for 1:00 pm to savour some readings from me and Rob, enjoy a glass of
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A quick post to remind anyone withing striking distance of Newcastle that I’m reading from The North End of the Possible at the Lit & Phil on Monday evening. The event is free — which leaves you free to spend your pennies on a sparkling, hot-of-the-press copy of the book — and starts at 7:00pm.
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I’m delighted to see that Rob A Mackenzie’s new book The Good News has also been given four stars — well, they use dots, actually — on The List website. Click over and read the review, then be sure to order a copy of the book. It’s a cracker. Of course, you’ll be able to
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This week, I’m busy preparing for a poetry retreat I’m leading at Nether Springs, the mother house of the Northumbria Community, this weekend coming (12 to 14 April). I’m excited about this because it’s the first extended opportunity I’ve had to put together poetry and spirituality. My previous visits to Nether Springs — always as
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Next week is Book Week Scotland, our first ever official national celebration of books and reading. I’m very pleased to be joining Edinburgh-based poets Rob A Mackenzie and Elspeth Murray and visiting Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama for a reading on the Thursday that week (29 November). I first met Pádraig when he led a retreat in
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… lend us your ears tonight! If you’ve been visiting this blog of late, you will know the drill: six poets for £5 — a bargain, if I do say so myself — in the wonderful surroundings of the Fruitmarket Gallery. Doors open at 7:30 pm and we kick off at 8 pm. There will
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Having been caught up with the publicity for the 06 | 16 — The Fruitmachine reading at the Fruitmarket Gallery, I’ve almost neglected to tell you anything about another reading I’m involved this festival season. It’s at the Banshee Labyrinth a week today — Tuesday 21st of August — and also involves six poets, namely:
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Money makes the world go wrong in this poem from Rob A Mackenzie, the last from the other 06 | 16 readers: The Packs Something is wrong: the wolves drag their spectral bodies through spritely towns, which have never known the burial of bones in back gardens. The sound of snapping plastic echoes between fenceposts:
Amy Jo Philip 