tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4897982373954482782024-03-13T23:43:25.280-07:00Poetry at the...Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-28627894889650412922010-02-26T02:20:00.000-08:002010-02-26T02:24:14.907-08:00We've Moved<span style="font-style:italic;">'Poetry at the...'</span> has moved! The new url is <a href="http://poetryatthe.wordpress.com/">http://poetryatthe.wordpress.com/</a>. Please go there for future news, poems and reflections, and update your bookmarks, feeds etc accordingly. All the posts here are already up there and new posts will be made only at the new site.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-32837495913029995062010-01-15T03:48:00.000-08:002010-01-15T04:05:02.358-08:00Valentine's Day Poetry LoveFest<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_i0qJ8jqylA4/S1BZKxmsLOI/AAAAAAAAAYY/qTx2ts4F4ns/s1600-h/3612834179_89a30feaa1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_i0qJ8jqylA4/S1BZKxmsLOI/AAAAAAAAAYY/qTx2ts4F4ns/s320/3612834179_89a30feaa1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5426935592630627554" /></a>When I saw that the next scheduled ‘Poetry at the...’ fell on Valentine’s Day, Sunday 14th February, I thought I might switch dates. Wouldn’t poetry lovers have love and romance on the brain that weekend, rather than poetry? But then I realised that poetry and love go together pretty well and that there was an opportunity for a Poetry LoveFest on that day.<br /><br />So I emailed poets and asked them to write an original poem, each one based on a different verse from the <a href="http://www.allspirit.co.uk/solomon.html" target="_blank">Song of Songs</a>, that great ancient love poem, now compiled somewhat enigmatically within the pages of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament.<br /><br />So on 14th February from 7.45-9.45 at the GRV (Guthrie St, Edinburgh), come and hear 20-30 poets reading the poem they have written for the occasion. Bring your partner if you have one. The poems will all be on the theme of love, but that can include everything from romance, sticking together and first dates to endings, loss, and bitter memories. Excellent writers such as Kona Macphee, Alexander Hutchison, Kapka Kassabova, Andrew Philip, Kevin Cadwallender and many many more have got involved, so it should be an excellent evening. There will also be a few other surprises and...who knows? You may even find love. What else is poetry for?<br /><br />(photo by <a href=" http://www.flickr.com/photos/fchouse/3612834179/" target="_blank">Carla Nicora</a>, used under a Creative Commons License).Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-57209661867718219772009-11-05T01:15:00.000-08:002009-11-05T01:22:06.064-08:00Introducing The November 2009 Readers - 2. Morgan Downie<span style="font-weight:bold;">Morgan Downie</span> writes both short stories and poetry. He was shortlisted many times for the <span style="font-style:italic;">Scotland on Sunday</span> and orange short story prizes but was always the bridesmaid never the bride. His poetry appears in various small but perfectly formed guises on the net and he’s been anthologised more times than he admits. He’s a visual artist and likes writing poetry about paintings. As such he’s a big supporter of the national galleries <a href="http://www.nationalgalleries.org/education/competition/6:3740/5913/" target="_blank">Inspired Get Writing!</a> competition (and their words on canvas exhibit), which he’s actually managed to win this year. He’s got a pamphlet coming out next February and a Scottish-Romanian collaboration in the spring.<br /><br />The following is one of Perth and Kinross’s poems for national poetry day<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">stolen time</span><br /><br />to be in a<br />silent house<br />wrapped in <br />the spilled<br />midday warmth<br />of afternoon light<br />to open the <br />cover of a book<br />and let the <br />words fall gentle<br />on the eye<br />to lay back<br />in the comforting<br />drift of print<br />to be alone<br />and the mind <br />spreading out <br />to all horizonsRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-47111398110466483222009-11-02T01:25:00.000-08:002009-11-02T01:27:41.945-08:00Introducing The November 2009 Readers - 1. Tessa Ransford<a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.wisdomfield.com" target="_blank">Tessa Ransford</a> is past president and committee member of Scottish PEN. She is an established poet, translator, literary editor and cultural activist on many fronts over the last thirty years, having also worked as founder and director of the Scottish Poetry Library. Tessa initiated the annual Callum Macdonald Memorial Award for publishers of pamphlet poetry in Scotland, with the attendant fairs and the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.scottish-pamphlet-poetry.com" target="_blank">Scottish Pamphlet Poetry</a> online sales website. She has had Royal Literary Fund fellowships at the Centre for Human Ecology and Queen Margaret University. Tessa’s <a href="http://www.luath.co.uk/acatalog/Not_Just_Moonshine.html" target="_blank">New and Selected Poems, Not Just Moonshine</a>, has recently been published by <span style="font-style: italic;">Luath Press</span>, Edinburgh<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Last Armistice Day of the Century</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >for William Geoffrey Walford, killed 4th November 1918 aged 22, after four years in the war</span><br /><br />Who shall be your rememberer now my mother is dead,<br />she who adored you so briefly and yet for so long?<br />In ninety-six years she never forgot you and kept<br />your photograph beside her and within her head.<br /><br />You were someone we knew and yet we never knew,<br />the almost-haloed one, the hero who died,<br />whose beauty emerges here and there in us<br />and yet the one we sensed we lacked and missed somehow.<br /><br />I feel my mother’s pain as I did when as a child<br />I heard her describe the things you used to say and<br />how peace brought the worst news in the world:<br />too late the eleventh hour for her, when you were killed.<br /><br />Now I am left alone as guardian of your presence.<br />When I am gone there will be none to maintain<br />our loss. Yet as my mother’s love is absorbed<br />in me, her sorrow will form a lasting inheritance.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-27156758330579619712009-10-08T02:05:00.000-07:002009-10-08T02:06:40.286-07:00Introducing The October 2009 Readers - 3. Eddie Gibbons<a href="http://www.readthismagazine.co.uk/onenightstanzas/?tag=featured-poet-eddie-gibbons" target="_blank">Eddie Gibbons</a> is more Ryanair than Debonair. And he can prove it.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">How It Will Be</span><br /><br />You will think of her<br />less and less,<br />although you’ll think<br />no less of her.<br /><br />These thoughts, though few,<br />remain the strongest.<br />What you lose<br />stays with you longest.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-8619664976801757072009-10-05T04:22:00.000-07:002009-10-05T04:25:31.770-07:00Introducing The October 2009 Readers - 2. Dave Coates<span style="font-weight:bold;">Dave Coates </span>grew up in Belfast before moving to York for his English Lit undergrad, and has lived in Edinburgh for just over a year. He is part of the editing team for <a href="http://www.readthismagazine.com" target="_blank">Read This</a> Magazine, runs a poetry night at <a href="http://www.thebowery.org.uk" target="_blank">The Bowery</a> aimed at new/emerging writers, and earlier this year had a chapbook published by <a href="http://www.theforest.org.uk" target="_blank">The Forest</a> called <span style="font-style:italic;">Cover Story</span>. He blogs at <a href="http://notbrazil86.blogspot.com" target="_blank">The Not Brazilian Blog</a>.<br /> <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Afters</span><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />This is a cupcake, not a muffin,<br />muffins have no icing</span> – this has enough in<br /><br />to make a grown man saccharine, or at least<br />a more excitable beast. This palm-spanning feast<br /><br />of heavy cream, shortening, sugar and butter<br />and eggs and <span style="font-style:italic;">god-knows-what</span> has me shudder-<br /><br />ing across the line where words begin to falter,<br />where desire holds sway. The glisteny way the water-<br /><br />lily-white frosting is bursting with the lush<br />insistence, <span style="font-style:italic;">here I am</span>, its brush-<br /><br />stroked largess and malleable lines<br />looming beyond its papery confines<br /><br />and stippling, drippling from your skin-bare<br />wrists, enlarge your curlicue smile as you declare<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">here you are</span>.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-62690666287988471372009-10-01T01:45:00.000-07:002009-10-01T01:49:59.612-07:00Introducing The October 2009 Readers - 1. Brian Johnstone<a href="http://www.spl.org.uk/poets_a-z/johnstone.html" target="_blank">Brian Johnstone</a> has published two poetry collections and two pamphlets; his second full collection <a href="http://www.arcpublications.co.uk/catalogue/book.php?description_id=387" target="_blank">The Book of Belongings</a> was published by Arc in August 2009. His work has appeared throughout the UK, in America and in various European countries. His poems 'evoke...a sense of spiritual immanence in their slow still spaces' (<span style="font-style:italic;">Scottish Literary Journal</span>); several have been translated into Catalan, Swedish, Slovakian & Lithuanian, and published in the respective countries. In 2009 <span style="font-style:italic;">Terra Incognita</span>, a small collection of his poems in Italian translation, was published by L’Officina (Vicenza). Brian Johnstone is the poet member of Trio Verso, a collaboration with saxophonist Richard Ingham and bassist Louise Major, dedicated to presenting live poetry and improvised jazz-inflected soundscapes. He is co-founder and currently Festival Director of <a href="http://www.stanzapoetry.org/" target="_blank">StAnza</a>: Scotland’s International Poetry Festival. <br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Script</span><br /><br />He'd tie them by their necks<br />with binder twine<br />his father slipped him from the shed,<br /><br />watch mouse flesh stiffen, give up<br />what he knew of life<br />suspended from the fence: each skeleton<br /><br />a minuscule perfection. <br />And later, with the rats,<br />whose worm-grooved tails a half-inch tack<br /><br />fixed limp outside the byre,<br />he'd study transformation, till each<br />tined incisor grinned. <br /><br />In growing up with vermin - weasels, stoats<br />and more - he'd learned them all<br />the hard way, strung up on a wire:<br /><br />the thieves that flanked the killing ground<br />of Christ, the hoodie crow<br />they'd pinned spread-eagled on a rail<br /><br />and planted in the margins of the yard.<br />There worms diced<br />meat and muscle for his robes,<br /><br />the alpha and the omega,<br />each quill a black and feathered script,<br />his writing on the wall.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-15606975409237691972009-09-10T01:22:00.000-07:002009-09-10T01:23:39.596-07:00Introducing The September 2009 Readers - 3. Ivy Alvarez<a href="http://www.academi.org/list-of-writers/i/130155/" target="_blank">Ivy Alvarez</a> was born in the Philippines, grew up in Tasmania, Australia, and now lives in Cardiff, after spending time in Scotland and Ireland. She is currently writing her second collection with the help of grants from the Academi and Australia Council for the Arts. She blogs at <a href="http://ivyai.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Ivy Is Here</a> and at <a href="http://dumbfoundry.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">dumbfoundry</a>. Her first collection is <a href="http://www.ivyalvarez.com/" target="_blank">Mortal</a> (on <a href="http://redmorningpress.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Red Morning Press</a>, 2006).<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">of gods & insects </span><br /> <br /> a drift of wall dust. carcass husks, strung, juice <br /> sucked. small wings beat slow — slower than breath. one <br /> thing picks through the webs. another twitches <br /> nervelessly, invoking death, who comes, swift <br /> electricity to one's nakedness, <br /> gathers the threads, clicks on the loom, shears off <br /> what is not neededRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-67454618499815221852009-09-07T01:10:00.000-07:002009-09-07T01:12:51.627-07:00Introducing The September 2009 Readers - 2. Brian McCabe<a href="http://textualities.net/jessica-aliaga-lavrijsen/fetish-of-ciphers-brian-mccabes-zero/" target="_blank">Brian McCabe</a> grew up near Edinburgh and studied Philosophy and English Literature at Edinburgh University. He has been a full-time writer since 1980 and is currently editor of the <a href="http://www.englit.ed.ac.uk/edinburghreview/" target="_blank">Edinburgh Review</a>.<br /><br />He has held various writing fellowships, including the Novelist in Residence post at St. Andrew's University. He was the Scottish/Canadian Exchange Fellow from 1988-89, and more recently, has held Writer in Residence posts at Perth and Kinross Council and Edinburgh University. He won the Canongate Prize in 2000.<br /><br />He has published several poetry collections, including <span style="font-style:italic;">One Atom to Another</span> (1987), <span style="font-style:italic;">Body Parts</span> (1999), and <a href="http://polygon.birlinn.co.uk/book/details/Zero-9781846971174/" target="_blank">Zero</a> (2009), along with three short story collections: <span style="font-style:italic;">The Lipstick Circus</span> (1985); <span style="font-style:italic;">In a Dark Room with a Stranger</span> (1993); and <span style="font-style:italic;">A Date with my Wife</span> (2001), as well as a <span style="font-style:italic;">Selected Stories </span>(2003). His novel, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Other McCoy</span>, was published in 1990. <br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Romans</span><br /><br />Listen up. This is how<br />we're about to count from now on.<br /><br />We got a one: I. We got a five: V.<br />We got a ten: X. We got a fifty: L.<br />We got a hundred: C. We got a a five hundred: D. <br />Also plus and we got a thousand: M.<br /><br />That's it. That's all we need.<br />The fuck with dealing out letters<br />to two three four six seven eight nine,<br />eleven twelve thirteen etcetera.<br /><br />Those motherfuckers can go eat shit.<br />The rule is: you add the little fish<br />if it comes after the big fish<br />because the big fish eats it, right?<br /><br />When the little fish comes before <br />the big fish, you take it away -<br />on account of the big fish ain’t <br />ate it yet, okay? Any questions?<br /><br />Whaddya mean howdya write<br />one hundred and sixty-four?<br />Am I talking to myself here?<br />CLXIV. Dumbfuck.<br /><br />This means Tony the Scribe<br />only needs to know seven letters<br />to run any number we tell him.<br />Okay let's go eat Chinese.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-2277204232680873972009-09-01T12:51:00.000-07:002009-09-01T12:53:27.343-07:00Introducing The September 2009 Readers - 1. Joseph Harrison<a href="http://www.versedaily.org/2008/aboutjosephharrisonit.shtml" target="_blank">Joseph Harrison</a> was born in Richmond, Virginia, grew up in Virginia and Alabama, and studied at Yale and Johns Hopkins. His first book, <a href="http://waywiser-press.com/harrison.html" target="_blank">Someone Else’s Name</a> (Waywiser, 2003), was named as one of five poetry books of the year by The Washington Post and was a finalist for the Poets’ Prize. His second book, <a href="http://waywiser-press.com/josephharrison2.html" target="_blank">Identity Theft</a>, was published by Waywiser in 2008. His poems have appeared in such anthologies as <span style="font-style:italic;">The Best American Poetry</span> 1998, <span style="font-style:italic;">180 More Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, The Library of America’s American Religious Poems, the Penguin Pocket Anthology of Poetry</span>, and the <span style="font-style:italic;">Penguin Pocket Anthology of Literature</span>, and in many journals. In 2005 he received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2009 he received a Fellowship from the <a href=" http://www.gf.org/" target="_blank">John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation</a>. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland, where he serves as the Senior American Editor of the Waywiser Press.<br /><br /> <span style="font-weight:bold;"> The Last Book </span><br /><br /> Such things were treasured objects, long ago,<br /> Bound in calf's leather, framed by marbled boards,<br /> Arranged by code in capitals, prized hoards <br /> Of variorum, quire, and folio.<br /><br /> But now, downloaded, Xeroxed, put on tape<br /> To quicken the commute's redundant trip,<br /> Whole oeuvres shrink onto a microchip<br /> And, volume after volume, lose their shape. <br /><br /> Who'll be the very last human to hold<br /> One of these curious relics in his hands,<br /> And think of vanished rivers, vanished birds,<br /><br /> And wonder why, in distant times and lands,<br /> We made such settings for the tales we told<br /> And placed such binding value on our words?Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-30076013760855162182009-08-11T04:40:00.000-07:002009-08-11T04:47:01.453-07:00Autumn 2009 ProgrammeI've just posted the programme of events for the autumn 2009. Hope it looks as exciting to you as it does to me. You'll notice that there are only three poets listed rather than the usual four. That just seems more manageable for the organisers.<br /><br />I was wondering whether a short open-mic at the beginning of each event would be a good idea - about, say, up to four readers reading for three minutes each? We might discover new writers that way and could invite them back to do longer spots in future months. But I'd be interested to hear views on this.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-57266867029916930002009-06-10T23:41:00.000-07:002009-06-10T23:44:31.402-07:00Introducing the June 2009 Poets - 4. Allan Crosbie<a href="http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=1148" target="_blank">Allan Crosbie</a> lives in Edinburgh and teaches English in James Gillespie's High School. His first collection, <a href="http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk/outswimming_the_eruption_allan_crosbie_i018332.aspx" target="_blank">Outswimming the Eruption</a>, was published by The Rialto in 2006 and it was short-listed for the <a href="http://www.thepoetrytrust.org/site/aldeburgh-first-collection-prize/more-info/" target="_blank">Aldeburgh Jerwood Prize</a> for best first collection. He has been runner-up in the Arvon Competition and short-listed for the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem. He is going to be a dad for the first time in September.<br /><br />Below, from Allan, is a previously unpublished poem:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Anniversary</span><br /><br />I hear the splash, the ripples, the slush of the overspill.<br />I hear the night come in the trees’ voices, <br />toast it silently with a sip of my margarita.<br />The board shudders its last breath and I scan <br />to where you flail like a bath-toy, oblivious <br />to everything until you surface with a gasp <br />that wets the empty glass in my hand where my lips’ <br />red ghost has broken the brittle strip of salt.<br /><br />When I think of drowning you, it’s not the image <br />of your frail arms slapping out that scares me, <br />but the future: Sunday afternoons with your brothers <br />round the barbecue, their grandchildren shrieking <br />in the pool which I won’t go near, and me <br />watching the coals grow grey beneath the meat.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-10283021289966250462009-06-08T14:24:00.000-07:002009-06-08T14:30:55.782-07:00Introducing the June 2009 Poets - 3. Katy Evans-Bush<a href="http://www.poetcasting.co.uk/?p=66" target="_blank">Katy Evans-Bush</a> was born in New York and has been living in London since she was 19. She writes reviews and essays as well as the literary blog <a href="http://baroqueinhackney.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Baroque in Hackney</a>, and her first collection, <a href="http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/9781844714216.htm" target="_blank">Me and the Dead</a>, is published by <a href="http://www.saltpublishing.com/" target="_blank">Salt</a>. A pamphlet, <span style="font-style:italic;">Speculation and Conjecture</span>, will be published by <a href="http://www.nicholasmurray.co.uk/RackPress.html" target="_blank">Rack Press</a> in 2010.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Crack in the Feeling<br /></span><br />Broken in their box, quotidian eggs<br />— date-stamped, unusable. The omelette's off.<br /><br />An ostrich-egg-in-dome, and plastic grass.<br />A dino egg, the raptors not drawn right.<br />These keepsakes can be lifted out of what<br />was meant to be (that bursting universe).<br />The robin, just a colour-sample (say<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">robin's-egg blue</span>, a can of paint) : I never<br />see them lying cracked upon a path,<br />it seems too much to hope for now.<br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">..........................................</span>I like<br />your eggs arranged in circles on the ground<br />(the largest first, then smaller outer rings<br />like planets with unfledged inhabitants<br />whose language can't be spoken, round a sun<br />that spreads its light like yolk along the lawn),<br />duck-eggs, and seven empty pigeon shells<br />whose hatchlings hang arse-up along a wire.<br />The ceiling leans toward them like a sky<br />whose robin's-egg-blue arc has just one fault.<br />Before your outer galaxy I quail:<br />its compass points — ambition, comfort, luck,<br />a ghost, desire — are shifting on the chart.<br /><br />O egging (over) of my pudding (<span style="font-style: italic;">proof<br />whereof is where? I ask</span>). My open mouth.<br />O germ, O ovoid calm, O heavy world.<br />My love my love.<br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">....................</span>This rubber egg : the shtick<br />a child would use, to beat the laughter out.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(from <a href="http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/9781844714216.htm" target="_blank">Me and the Dead</a>)</span>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-59121208055172686472009-06-03T01:37:00.000-07:002009-06-03T01:40:37.316-07:00Introducing the June 2009 Poets - 2. ZorrasPoet Sandra Alland and musician Y. Josephine formed <span style="font-style:italic;">Zorras</span> in December 2007. They quickly became known for their unique bilingual mixture of storytelling, sound poetry, percussion, singing, guitar, megaphones and projected images. UK gigs include: Museum of London, Soho Theatre, Moor Music Festival, Aye Write! Festival, Muse-ic, Itsy Kabarett, Manifesto Politikal Kabaret, VoxBox, Club Welto, Cachín Cachán Cachunga and The Golden Hour. They’ll also play Spain’s Kuiperfest this June. <span style="font-style:italic;">Zorras</span> have published two volumes of a hand-made poetry chapbook, <span style="font-style:italic;">Maricón</span>, and have just finished recording their first CD, <span style="font-style:italic;">We Apologise For Any Inconvenience</span>, to be released in the near future. <br /><br />Here’s a video of <span style="font-style:italic;">Zorras</span> performing <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGx4f3o5s6w " target="_blank">'Nest'</a>.<br /><br />I'd just add that I saw <span style="font-style:italic;">Zorras</span> performing live a couple of months ago and really enjoyed it.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-35176798379216467292009-05-31T01:24:00.000-07:002009-05-31T01:25:18.501-07:00Introducing the June 2009 Poets - 1. Andrew PhilipAndrew Philip was born in 1975. He has published two poetry pamphlets with <a href="http://www.happenstancepress.com/" target="_blank">HappenStance Press</a> — <span style="font-style:italic;">Tonguefire</span> (2005) and <a href="http://www.happenstancepress.co.uk/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=72&products_id=224" target="_blank">Andrew Philip – a Sampler</a> (2008)—and was chosen as a Scottish Poetry Library “New Voice” in 2006. <a href="http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/9781844714919.htm" target="_blank">The Ambulance Box</a>, his first book of poems, was published in March by Salt. Andrew’s work has also been included in the anthologies <span style="font-style:italic;">The Smoky Smirr o Rain, The Wallace Muse</span> and, most recently, <a href="http://www.torinopoesia.org/5PX2.htm" target="_blank">5PX2: Five Italian Poets and Five Scottish Poets</a>. He blogs at <a href="http://tonguefire.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Tonguefire</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Lullaby</span><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">for Aidan Michael Philip</span><br /><br />this is the arm that held you<br />this is the hand that cradled your cold feet<br /><br />these are the ears that heard you<br />whimper and cough through your brush with light<br /><br />this is the chest that warmed you<br />these are the eyes that caught your glimpse of life<br /><br />this is the man you fathered —<br />his voided love, his writhen pride and griefRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-53602120741874172142009-05-09T00:57:00.000-07:002009-05-09T00:58:39.958-07:00Introducing the May 2009 Poets - 4. Robert CrawfordPoet and critic <a href="http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth02D3N463312627258" target="_blank">Robert Crawford</a> was born in Belshill, Lanarkshire, Scotland, in 1959. He works as Professor of Modern Scottish Literature at the University of St Andrews. He won an Eric Gregory award in 1988 and was one of 20 poets selected for the Poetry Society's 'New Generation Poets' promotion in 1994. He has twice won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award, and four of his collections have been Poetry Book Society Recommendations. His latest collection is <span style="font-style:italic;">Full Volume</span> (2008), which was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize<br /><br />I searched the Internet for Robert Crawford poems to link to from here and found only one (other than those published illegally, which I won’t draw attention to). But here’s <a href="http://poems.com/poem.php?date=14047" target="_blank">Local</a> from <span style="font-style:italic;">Poetry Daily</span>, also found in <span style="font-style:italic;">Full Volume</span>.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-22524261182468131492009-05-06T01:25:00.000-07:002009-05-06T01:26:19.004-07:00Introducing the May 2009 Readers - 3. Julia Rampen<a href="http://poetrysociety.org.uk/content/membership/youth/ypp/yma/ypmag1/guesteditorbiog/" target="_blank">Julia Rampen</a> comes from Edinburgh and is currently studying history at Cambridge University. However, she prefers writing poetry to writing essays. Julia was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year 2005 and 2006, a prizewinner in the Christopher Tower competition and currently is involved in the organization of a poetry event for Cambridge University's Festival of Ideas next autumn.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">My Grandmother’s House</span><br /><br />My grandmother’s house rises <br />with the dawn. The sun drips<br />cinnamon through elderly glass,<br />embracing flowers flung<br />up vases, like birds;<br />rouses a fire that burns junk<br />into jewels. <br /><br />The kitchen carries passengers,<br />my grandmother at its helm:<br />iced luncheons, rumours of suburbs <br />advancing in immaculate platoons,<br />plates like fragile moons<br />throwing tantrums in the sink.<br />Upstairs, ancestors nap<br />between pages of imperial <br />scrapbooks, or in the parlour,<br />quiet as a brittle pool, a second<br />preserved for fifty years.<br /><br />Its brick walls blush by sunset,<br />mask themselves in languid dusks<br />like a chrysalis. Through fly eyed<br />windows, I watch summer evenings<br />replay again and again, as heat <br />begins to thin. Knowing<br />I only have to creep downstairs<br />and open a door <br />to let the bulldozers in.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-16884197464339719782009-05-02T00:23:00.001-07:002009-05-04T02:48:11.030-07:00Introducing the May 2009 Readers - 2. JL Williams<a href="http://jlwpoetry.googlepages.com/" target="_blank">JL Williams</a> was born in New Jersey and studied at Wellesley College with the poet Frank Bidart and on the MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. Her poetry has been published in journals including Aesthetica, The Red Wheelbarrow, Cutting Teeth, Poetry Salzburg Review, Poetry Wales and coming up in Fulcrum and Stand. She is one of the founding members of SHIFT and is on the editorial boards of VAIR Poetry magazine and of Brown Williams Journal.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Bounty</span><br /><br />His wet skin, his five dark horses, his antelope horns, his long thighs, his lips.<br /><br />There is a bruise above his breast beneath which beats the bronze drum of Tantalus.<br /><br />Married to the daughter of a river-god how<br />could he ever hold her, body rushing through fingers...<br />himself neither one thing nor... always just out of...<br /><br />In Argos they stroke his bones, he whose soul is that of a man's, whose body<br />is that of a god's, resides where his mother made him deep<br />in the bowels of the earth where rubies and diamonds propagate.<br /><br />Shaman, he fed his son to the earth and the earth<br />in her sorrow ate him and thus he must be buried and must<br />we all be buried, become like jewels, become bounty.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">- (originally published in <a href="http://www.wolfmagazine.co.uk/" target="_blank">The Wolf</a>, Issue 19, December 2008)</span>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-12146562085532188352009-04-29T03:15:00.000-07:002009-04-29T03:17:50.038-07:00Introducing the May 2009 Readers - 1. Gerry McGrathBelow is <a href="http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?owner_id=876" target="_blank">Gerry McGrath</a>’s bio and a poem:<br /><br />Grew up in Helensburgh and went to Strathclyde Uni to study mod langs. Graduated there 1985. Thereafter much of consequence! Research student, Floor-sander, TEFL teacher, bar worker. Post-grad student of Russian language. Jordanhill, for my sins. Seven long years as dominie terminated by illness. Co-winner (with David Kinloch) of 2004 Robert Louis Stevenson memorial award. Spent two fabulous months at Grez where first book completed (2005). Awarded Scottish Writer's bursary (2007) to write book of poems on theme of silence. Live in West Kilbride with my lovely wife Kate and two sons Liam and Owen, walking on the beach between nappies.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Promise</span><br /><br />There’s this poem that begins<br />with a vase, four stems standing<br />in water translucent as the flesh<br />of grapes. It speaks of mothers<br />lifting stones, forking over wrack,<br />searching the pelts of bees for signs<br />of their departed sons, and ends abruptly,<br />with a surprise dividend, a crash<br />of old glass, some coins, goodbyes,<br />a promise.<br /><br />(from <a href="http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781857548778" target="_blank">A to B</a> © Carcanet Press 2008, used with author's permission)Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-38684592507157333632009-04-13T00:10:00.000-07:002009-04-13T00:11:41.121-07:00Introducing the April 2009 Readers - 4. Kevin Cadwallender<a href="http://cadwallenderk.blogspot.com" target="_blank">Kevin Cadwallender</a> lives in Edinburgh. He was shortlisted for a Sony Award for his BBC Radio 4 programme 'Voyages'. His selected poems <a href="http://www.smokestack-books.co.uk/books/cadwallender.html" target="_blank">Dances with Vowels</a> (Smokestack Books) was published Feb 2009. He runs 'Voxbox' a poetry venue in Edinburgh (with Anita Govan), is Scottish Editor for <a href="http://www.redsquirrelpress.com/index.php?scotland" target="_blank">Red Squirrel Press</a> and co-editor of 'Vair' magazine. Visit http://cadwallenderk.blogspot.com for unpublished poetry. Books include Baz Poems (Rebel Inc), Public (Iron), Baz Uber Alles (Dogeater ) and Colouring in Guernica (Red Squirrel).<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Brideshead 61 Revisited</span><br /> <br />God said to Evelyn write me a book<br />Something set in an England<br />With some upper class fucks<br />Eve said ‘When?’<br />God said, ‘Now!’<br />You can do what you like but the next time<br />You see me coming you better run.<br />Eve says where do you want this plot undone<br />God says out at Brideshead 61.<br /> <br />Well Kingsley Amis had some muddy prose<br />Loathed Dylan Thomas in his Anglo-welsh pose<br />They both drank hard, they both slept around<br />They both ended up under the ground.<br />Kingsley said write it quickly Eve, cos I gotta run<br />Dylan just pointed with a syllabic gun, said Kingsley<br />You’ll be out written by your own dear son.<br />Evelyn just smiled cos he had Auberon<br />Sniping the aristocracy out at Brideshead 61.<br /> <br />Well Jerome K Jerome put three men in a boat<br />Said I think P.G. Wodehouse is gonna be king<br />Don’t answer the phone Jeeves and quickly bring<br />Me a cool white spritzer at the sixty first ring.<br />And Jeeves said Sir, I think this can be easily done<br />I’ll phone the supplier at Brideshead 61.<br /> <br />Now E.M. Forster on the second night<br />Wrote to vex George Orwell with untenable delight<br />As Evelyn pulled at Dali’s facial fluff<br />Attempting to confirm surrealism was more than a bluff<br />Pablo said, ‘No’<br />Sal never spoke<br />Evelyn just satirised<br />And married the Pope.<br />God said we can get your marriage to run<br />Just write me that book , Brideshead 61.<br /> <br />Now the Royal Horse Guards needed another cap<br />Randolph Churchill said I know just the chap<br />So he wrote the book at the end of the war<br />And said I never wrote this kind of thing before<br />But yes I believe it can be very easily done<br />Just squeeze the rural trigger on Thomas Hardy’s gun<br />And drop the whole shebang down at Brideshead 61.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-15135366131654638952009-04-11T01:45:00.000-07:002009-04-11T01:46:21.774-07:00Introducing the April 2009 Readers - 3. Nigel McLoughlin<a href="http://www.nigelmcloughlin.co.uk" target="_blank">Nigel McLoughlin</a> is an award winning Ulster poet. He is the author of four collections of poetry, the latest of which is <a href="http://www.bluechrome.co.uk/store/shop/item.asp?itemid=166&catid=4" target="_blank">Dissonances</a> (Bluechrome 2007). His <span style="font-style:italic;">New and Selected Poems</span> will be published by Templar Poetry in August 2009. He is Reader in Creative Writing at the University of Gloucestershire.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Snapshot</span><br /><br />The light changes. It <br />flashes the road to sepia <br />in the mirror. A backward glance <br /><br />at the kids shows they’re sleeping <br />and an old man pushes a bike. <br />The light changes it <br /><br />to a skeleton of black lines, <br />changes him to a black line <br />in the mirror. The backward glance <br /><br />of sunlight off the road glares <br />the whole picture into a monochrome <br />the light changes. It <br /><br />changes the old man, bends him <br />into his grandfather, a picture-postcard <br />in the mirror; a backward glance <br /><br />a hundred years ago. Nothing changes. <br />Time fragments like a flash and gleam <br />in the mirror. A backward glance. <br />The light changes it.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-7835560883821497632009-04-09T00:03:00.001-07:002009-04-09T00:05:43.254-07:00Introducing the April 2009 Readers - 2. Ryan Van Winkle<a href="http://ryanvanwinkle.com/" target="_blank">Ryan Van Winkle</a> is currently the Reader in Residence at the <a href="http://www.spl.org.uk/about/" target="_blank">Scottish Poetry Library</a> and Edinburgh City Libraries. He runs a monthly “Literary Cabaret” called The Golden Hour and is an Editor at Forest Publications. He lives in Edinburgh but was born and spent most of his life in America. His work has appeared in New Writing Scotland, Northwords Now, and (soon) The American Poetry Review.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gasoline</span><br /><br />A week ago I spilled<br />a can of gasoline onto the dirt<br />floor of the barn.<br /><br />A gallon or so soaked into the earth.<br />Since then, I’ve had headaches,<br />can’t catch my balance.<br /><br />And I can still smell the gas<br />from more than 20 yards away.<br />It reminds me of hitching west<br /><br />and this ride I hooked<br />in the back of a truck<br />the color of rust.<br /><br />When I shook the driver’s hand he smiled.<br />His teeth looked like a caterpillar,<br />and I knew I was beat.<br /><br />The guy kept all these rags back there,<br />soaked in gasoline. It was warm<br />and I fell asleep in a cocoon of reek.<br /><br />When I came to, it was almost time<br />to get out. I could feel caterpillars on me,<br />thought I was going to suffocate.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">......</span>He said the free ride was over, it was only a matter of time,<br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">............</span>and I didn’t wish to be out west,<br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">......</span>didn’t care to sit in any more cars with strangers<br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">............</span>and talk about the pace or weather back east.<br /><br />I tried to lose the smell in a stream,<br />thought I sent it upriver, away<br />like father, the attic, his ties.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-11223817998844529602009-04-07T02:07:00.000-07:002009-04-07T02:08:28.620-07:00Introducing the April 2009 Readers - 1. Claire Crowther<a href="http://www.clairecrowther.co.uk/" target="_blank">Claire Crowther</a> worked till recently as a director of communications. She has just completed a PhD in contemporary poetry. Her first collection, <a href="http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2007/crowther.html" target="_blank">Stretch of Closures</a>, was shortlisted for the Jerwood/Aldeburgh Prize for Best First Collection and her second collection, <a href="http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2009/crowtherCWG.html" target="_blank">The Clockwork Gift</a>, has just appeared from Shearsman.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Lost Child</span><br /><br />Scrape the ditch that fits Hob's Moat<br />to Hatchford Brook. Look through oak roots,<br /><br />the horse field, uphill to Elmdon.<br />Is she hiding behind that sky-blue Lexus?<br /><br />Shout towards the airport. Planes rise<br />and fall as if ground were a shaking blanket.<br /><br />Up there, the air hostesses smile.<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Inflate your own life jacket first.</span><br /><br />The small original airport building stands<br />apart, a mother at a school gate.<br /><br />Pearl was playing quietly alone.<br />My ear is like a shell the wind swept.Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-76206596142577917572009-03-04T23:38:00.000-08:002009-03-04T23:40:26.720-08:00Introducing the March 2009 Readers - 4. Alexander HutchisonAlexander Hutchison published <a href="http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/9781844713301.htm" target="_blank">Scales Dog</a> (Salt: Cambridge) in 2007. This followed <span style="font-style:italic;">Carbon Atom</span> (Link-light: Glasgow, 2006). "Epistle from Pevkos," included there, and dedicated to Gael Turnbull, has just been re-issued as a pamphlet. Born in Buckie, Hutchison lives in Glasgow and still does a bit of kick-about on Sundays.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Wine-Gum Green Cardigan, Tweedy Skirt</span><br /><br />Just one of three women asleep<br />across from/adjacent to me on<br />a train that’s headed north.<br /><br />This nearest a terrier with chin<br />tucked in above the checked<br />and neatly laundered shirt.<br /><br />Awake, she snaps: the trolley <br />man already found that out before<br />she got her little boost of <span style="font-style:italic;">pinot noir</span><br />(with half-a-dozen softened dates).<br /><br />Now, asleep, her pinched nose<br />her pearl-decked lobes, her silver<br />pepper and salted hair swept up <br />in a top-knot bun declare, if not<br />wealth, privilege, and temper<br />temporarily under wraps.<br /><br />She’s been to Kew; she reads<br />the weekend Times. She knows<br />her mind. Can nip (I said before).<br /><br />Watch out she doesn’t lock<br />her little teeth around your <br />finger tips or rip the flesh in<br />strips off anywhere else.<br /><br /><br />[Printed first in <span style="font-style:italic;">A Festschift for Duncan Glen at Seventy Five</span>,<br />eds. Tom Hubbard and Philip Pacey, Craigarter Press, 2008]Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-489798237395448278.post-28547468279893969812009-03-02T12:34:00.000-08:002009-03-17T05:31:09.361-07:00Introducing the March 2009 Readers - 3. Colin DonatiColin Donati is a poet and musician living in Edinburgh. His main collection to date is <span style="font-style: italic;">Rock is Water, or a History of the Theories of Rain</span> (Kettillonia, 2003). As a poet he has also collaborated with artist Pauline Burbidge for the book <span style="font-style: italic;">Tweed Rivers </span>(Luath/Platform 2005) and with composer Robin Mason on the Benchtours musical theatre production <span style="font-style: italic;">Yellow House</span> (debut performance, Brunton Theatre, 2007). In 2007 he received major SAC support to complete a translation of Dostoevsky’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Crime and Punishment</span> into Scots, and in December 2008 a poster of his Scots translation of the <span style="font-style: italic;">United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights</span> was presented to the First Minister by Amnesty International to mark the 60th anniversary. He is currently preparing a collection of poetry for Sand/<a href="http://www.redsquirrelpress.com/index.php?scotland" target="_blank">Red Squirrel</a> Press.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Predictable Experience </span><br /><br />I am like that sad animal the gibbon in the zoo<br />dipping its fingers in its own sex and sniffing them<br />lain over a bale on its back, flat amongst tyres in its box,<br />lit by white bulbs on a drizzly day and gazed at<br />from behind thick plate glass in the crowded walk-way<br />by the smooth-faced murmurous-tongued cousins there<br />who pass in file hour upon hour and who I do my utmost<br />to pretend are harmless -<br /><br />with my straw, two ramps, some rope and a hatch to the outdoors,<br />I am like it, yes - and why? Is it because I'm not sure<br />that I care for my numen and I'm lonely and I make<br />shadow-shows that show my own kind terrorised<br />by sixty-foot gorillas or voracious escaped dinosaurs<br />and my highest dream is to lie with a partner<br />in the stink or our own bed? Can this be true?<br />Can this really be true? Can the mind heed<br />no higher goal?<br /><br />The mind protests its shabby hopes against better visions<br />through establishment of sure connections such as<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">we are not animals when we engage in sex -<br />our experience altogether more elevated and unique<br />than anything the gibbon undergoes with mates -<br />I have a salary, can drive a car, understand<br />the layout of a supermarket, answer phones</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">- from </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">ROCK IS WATER or A History of the Theories of Rain</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">, and </span><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">http://www.kettillonia.co.uk/rockiswater.html</span>Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17046788730174617923noreply@blogger.com1