Rob A Mackenzie
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Busy busy busy at the moment here. It’s good busy, though. I’ve proofed my proofs, sent ’em back and had author photos taken for the book (of which more in due course); I’m gearing up for Linlithgow Book Festival and this month’s various readings; and I’m working on a Scots language writing project in the…
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Fantastic news: my friend, fellow HappenStancer and fine poetry blogger Rob A Mackenzie has had his manuscript accepted by Salt to be published some time next year. The book (provisionally entitled The Opposite of Cabbage after a line in one of the poems–can’t accuse him of having a dull title!), is really strong and will…
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The first issue of the new Salt webzine Horizon Review, edited by Jane Holland, is now online. It includes one poem of mine, “On Your Arrival“, as well as two poems by Rob Mackenzie, and work by Katy Evans-Bush, George Szirtes and Alison Brackenbury to name only a few. There are also fiction, reviews and…
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Here is the full information for my reading tomorrow at the Four Hour Festival: Venue: Evolution Cafe, Evolution House. This is the entrance to eca on the West Port. It’s a big glass building right on the corner of the crossroads, apparently. Time: I’m on at 3pm. The event starts at 1pm with Shore Poet…
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My time for the “Four Hour Festival” event has been confirmed: I’m on at 15:00 and it’s a 10-minute set. Plenty time to get myself organised for that. The event is open to prose as well as poetry and I’ve no idea what the balance between the two will be, but it should be fun.…
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Not having been out in Glasgow for absolutely ages–possibly not since I read at Tchai Ovna west end in 2006, unless you count the Mitchell event Helena Nelson and I did with the Scottish Poetry Library–I really enjoyed heading west to join the audience for the reading at Tchai Ovna southside on Friday night. I…
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Rob A Mackenzie is well known in the literary blogosphere as the man behind the popular poetry blog Surroundings. His pamphlet, The Clown of Natural Sorrow, was published by HappenStance in 2005. Light Storms from a Dark Country You bend sleetward down grey alleyways,xxin search of finesse to straighten outthe tangle of the last spat.…
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I jumped into the car first thing yesterday morning and zipped up the road to St Andrew’s for my fix of StAnza 2008, listening to The Guardian CD of great 20th century poets on the way to get me in the mood. My first event was the masterclass in translation with Helmut Haberkamm and Fitzgerald…
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News just in: there’ll be a HappenStance Press reading at Coffee House Poetry at the Troubadour in London on 26th May. Several HappenStance poets will read, including Rob A Mackenzie, Eleanor Livingstone, Michael Mackmin (editor of The Rialto), Gregory Leadbetter, me and Helena Nelson (Mme HappenStance herself). I’ve been thinking about trying to read in…
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Perhaps I was too harsh on Rob Mackenzie’s schedule for reading Paradise Lost: I made it to the same point as him yesterday. Rob is doing a good job of summarising the poem and there are already a few interesting comments on his first post, so I won’t repeat what’s already on Surroundings. I have…
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Rob Mackenzie has thrown down a gauntlet: to read Paradise Lost with him this month. “Paradise Lost in a month?” I hear you ask, as you fall off your chair in disbelief. It seems so. I will be joining him, although I guarantee I’ll fall behind his exacting and somewhat artificial schedule, which apparently works…
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Readers of Rob A Mackenzie’s blog Surroundings might recall a comments thread a while back about the idea of a Nov 4th reading with Roddy Lumsden, AB Jackson, Rob and myself. Well, the gig is confirmed. It should make for a good night, though I expect I’ll be frazzled by the end, what with it…
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If you’ve been following my and Rob A Mackenzie‘s posts about our manuscript swap, you’ll probably be waiting for the more detailed comments I promised on Rob’s poems*, so here they finally are. There’s a lot of very good stuff in Rob’s MS, with a few really fine poems. Think of Rob A Mackenzie, and…
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I have it: a draft collection-length manuscript with an order I think works! Now to garner a few second opinions before I start seriously thinking about what to do with it. Rob Mackenzie and I will be swapping back on Monday, so I’m looking forward to reading his comments on my work.
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As you’ll know if you’re a regular visitor to these virtual parts, Rob A Mackenzie and I swapped manuscripts nearly a fortnight ago. I’ve had a read-through of Rob’s MS and will comment properly on it in due course, but suffice to say for the moment that it’s very good and a lot of fun…
Amy Jo Philip 