Introducing the May 2009 Readers - 2. JL Williams

JL Williams 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.

Bounty

His wet skin, his five dark horses, his antelope horns, his long thighs, his lips.

There is a bruise above his breast beneath which beats the bronze drum of Tantalus.

Married to the daughter of a river-god how
could he ever hold her, body rushing through fingers...
himself neither one thing nor... always just out of...

In Argos they stroke his bones, he whose soul is that of a man's, whose body
is that of a god's, resides where his mother made him deep
in the bowels of the earth where rubies and diamonds propagate.

Shaman, he fed his son to the earth and the earth
in her sorrow ate him and thus he must be buried and must
we all be buried, become like jewels, become bounty.

- (originally published in The Wolf, Issue 19, December 2008)

Introducing the May 2009 Readers - 1. Gerry McGrath

Below is Gerry McGrath’s bio and a poem:

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.

Promise

There’s this poem that begins
with a vase, four stems standing
in water translucent as the flesh
of grapes. It speaks of mothers
lifting stones, forking over wrack,
searching the pelts of bees for signs
of their departed sons, and ends abruptly,
with a surprise dividend, a crash
of old glass, some coins, goodbyes,
a promise.

(from A to B © Carcanet Press 2008, used with author's permission)

Introducing the April 2009 Readers - 4. Kevin Cadwallender

Kevin Cadwallender lives in Edinburgh. He was shortlisted for a Sony Award for his BBC Radio 4 programme 'Voyages'. His selected poems Dances with Vowels (Smokestack Books) was published Feb 2009. He runs 'Voxbox' a poetry venue in Edinburgh (with Anita Govan), is Scottish Editor for Red Squirrel Press 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).


Brideshead 61 Revisited

God said to Evelyn write me a book
Something set in an England
With some upper class fucks
Eve said ‘When?’
God said, ‘Now!’
You can do what you like but the next time
You see me coming you better run.
Eve says where do you want this plot undone
God says out at Brideshead 61.

Well Kingsley Amis had some muddy prose
Loathed Dylan Thomas in his Anglo-welsh pose
They both drank hard, they both slept around
They both ended up under the ground.
Kingsley said write it quickly Eve, cos I gotta run
Dylan just pointed with a syllabic gun, said Kingsley
You’ll be out written by your own dear son.
Evelyn just smiled cos he had Auberon
Sniping the aristocracy out at Brideshead 61.

Well Jerome K Jerome put three men in a boat
Said I think P.G. Wodehouse is gonna be king
Don’t answer the phone Jeeves and quickly bring
Me a cool white spritzer at the sixty first ring.
And Jeeves said Sir, I think this can be easily done
I’ll phone the supplier at Brideshead 61.

Now E.M. Forster on the second night
Wrote to vex George Orwell with untenable delight
As Evelyn pulled at Dali’s facial fluff
Attempting to confirm surrealism was more than a bluff
Pablo said, ‘No’
Sal never spoke
Evelyn just satirised
And married the Pope.
God said we can get your marriage to run
Just write me that book , Brideshead 61.

Now the Royal Horse Guards needed another cap
Randolph Churchill said I know just the chap
So he wrote the book at the end of the war
And said I never wrote this kind of thing before
But yes I believe it can be very easily done
Just squeeze the rural trigger on Thomas Hardy’s gun
And drop the whole shebang down at Brideshead 61.

Introducing the April 2009 Readers - 3. Nigel McLoughlin

Nigel McLoughlin is an award winning Ulster poet. He is the author of four collections of poetry, the latest of which is Dissonances (Bluechrome 2007). His New and Selected Poems will be published by Templar Poetry in August 2009. He is Reader in Creative Writing at the University of Gloucestershire.

Snapshot

The light changes. It
flashes the road to sepia
in the mirror. A backward glance

at the kids shows they’re sleeping
and an old man pushes a bike.
The light changes it

to a skeleton of black lines,
changes him to a black line
in the mirror. The backward glance

of sunlight off the road glares
the whole picture into a monochrome
the light changes. It

changes the old man, bends him
into his grandfather, a picture-postcard
in the mirror; a backward glance

a hundred years ago. Nothing changes.
Time fragments like a flash and gleam
in the mirror. A backward glance.
The light changes it.

Introducing the April 2009 Readers - 2. Ryan Van Winkle

Ryan Van Winkle is currently the Reader in Residence at the Scottish Poetry Library 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.

Gasoline

A week ago I spilled
a can of gasoline onto the dirt
floor of the barn.

A gallon or so soaked into the earth.
Since then, I’ve had headaches,
can’t catch my balance.

And I can still smell the gas
from more than 20 yards away.
It reminds me of hitching west

and this ride I hooked
in the back of a truck
the color of rust.

When I shook the driver’s hand he smiled.
His teeth looked like a caterpillar,
and I knew I was beat.

The guy kept all these rags back there,
soaked in gasoline. It was warm
and I fell asleep in a cocoon of reek.

When I came to, it was almost time
to get out. I could feel caterpillars on me,
thought I was going to suffocate.

......He said the free ride was over, it was only a matter of time,
............and I didn’t wish to be out west,
......didn’t care to sit in any more cars with strangers
............and talk about the pace or weather back east.

I tried to lose the smell in a stream,
thought I sent it upriver, away
like father, the attic, his ties.

Introducing the April 2009 Readers - 1. Claire Crowther

Claire Crowther worked till recently as a director of communications. She has just completed a PhD in contemporary poetry. Her first collection, Stretch of Closures, was shortlisted for the Jerwood/Aldeburgh Prize for Best First Collection and her second collection, The Clockwork Gift, has just appeared from Shearsman.

Lost Child

Scrape the ditch that fits Hob's Moat
to Hatchford Brook. Look through oak roots,

the horse field, uphill to Elmdon.
Is she hiding behind that sky-blue Lexus?

Shout towards the airport. Planes rise
and fall as if ground were a shaking blanket.

Up there, the air hostesses smile.
Inflate your own life jacket first.

The small original airport building stands
apart, a mother at a school gate.

Pearl was playing quietly alone.
My ear is like a shell the wind swept.

Introducing the March 2009 Readers - 4. Alexander Hutchison

Alexander Hutchison published Scales Dog (Salt: Cambridge) in 2007. This followed Carbon Atom (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.

Wine-Gum Green Cardigan, Tweedy Skirt

Just one of three women asleep
across from/adjacent to me on
a train that’s headed north.

This nearest a terrier with chin
tucked in above the checked
and neatly laundered shirt.

Awake, she snaps: the trolley
man already found that out before
she got her little boost of pinot noir
(with half-a-dozen softened dates).

Now, asleep, her pinched nose
her pearl-decked lobes, her silver
pepper and salted hair swept up
in a top-knot bun declare, if not
wealth, privilege, and temper
temporarily under wraps.

She’s been to Kew; she reads
the weekend Times. She knows
her mind. Can nip (I said before).

Watch out she doesn’t lock
her little teeth around your
finger tips or rip the flesh in
strips off anywhere else.


[Printed first in A Festschift for Duncan Glen at Seventy Five,
eds. Tom Hubbard and Philip Pacey, Craigarter Press, 2008]

Introducing the March 2009 Readers - 3. Colin Donati

Colin Donati is a poet and musician living in Edinburgh. His main collection to date is Rock is Water, or a History of the Theories of Rain (Kettillonia, 2003). As a poet he has also collaborated with artist Pauline Burbidge for the book Tweed Rivers (Luath/Platform 2005) and with composer Robin Mason on the Benchtours musical theatre production Yellow House (debut performance, Brunton Theatre, 2007). In 2007 he received major SAC support to complete a translation of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment into Scots, and in December 2008 a poster of his Scots translation of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights was presented to the First Minister by Amnesty International to mark the 60th anniversary. He is currently preparing a collection of poetry for Sand/Red Squirrel Press.

Predictable Experience

I am like that sad animal the gibbon in the zoo
dipping its fingers in its own sex and sniffing them
lain over a bale on its back, flat amongst tyres in its box,
lit by white bulbs on a drizzly day and gazed at
from behind thick plate glass in the crowded walk-way
by the smooth-faced murmurous-tongued cousins there
who pass in file hour upon hour and who I do my utmost
to pretend are harmless -

with my straw, two ramps, some rope and a hatch to the outdoors,
I am like it, yes - and why? Is it because I'm not sure
that I care for my numen and I'm lonely and I make
shadow-shows that show my own kind terrorised
by sixty-foot gorillas or voracious escaped dinosaurs
and my highest dream is to lie with a partner
in the stink or our own bed? Can this be true?
Can this really be true? Can the mind heed
no higher goal?

The mind protests its shabby hopes against better visions
through establishment of sure connections such as
we are not animals when we engage in sex -
our experience altogether more elevated and unique
than anything the gibbon undergoes with mates -
I have a salary, can drive a car, understand
the layout of a supermarket, answer phones

- from ROCK IS WATER or A History of the Theories of Rain, and http://www.kettillonia.co.uk/rockiswater.html

Introducing the March 2009 Readers - 2. Paula Jennings

Paula Jennings’s poems have been published in literary magazines, national newspapers, and anthologies. They have been carved in stone by Gillian Forbes (Ingleby Gallery, Edinburgh, 2004), translated into Polish as part of a poetry exchange with Krakow libraries, and broadcast on Radio Scotland.

Paula received Scottish Arts Council Writers' Bursaries in 1999 and 2002, a Hawthornden Writing Fellowship in 2003, and was a featured poet at StAnza Poetry Festival in 2005.

She promotes poetry writing in groups and as an individual mentor. She also works creatively with people who have dementia, sometimes making collaborative poems.

Poetry collections:
Singing Lucifer, Onlywomen Press (2002/2007)
From the Body of the Green Girl, HappenStance Press (2008)


Easter in Acharn

A winter hare wrong-footed
on the piebald hill, white fur shrill
in the shadow of the buzzard’s cross.
the bird tenses on air,
gathers grace for the steep fall.

Darkness is still tight inside
the paired black buds of ash
but all along this path
flickers of quartz signal resurrection.
Down beside the waterfall, a cave
screams open and Christ knows
this is harder than Gethsemane,

this programmed stumble
into light, these rainbows
hung like bunting on the tired hills.

Introducing the March 2009 Readers - 1. Nalini Paul

Nalini Paul’s poetry and fiction have been published widely in the UK, and in the US. She was born in India, grew up in Vancouver and has been living in Scotland since 1994. She is currently working on a collection of poetry inspired by nature and migration, and is writing a novel based on her family history, for which she received a Scottish Arts Council grant. Nalini has worked collaboratively with artists in Glasgow and Biggar, where she was writer-in-residence at the Ruby Orange Gallery (2005-6). Her collaborative book, Leaf Fall, Seeing by Touch, was published by Grimalkin Press in 2006.

Bird Dreaming

The poor cormorant, limping, can’t sing.
Anyway, its wings weren’t made for water.

Who would have thought
that a black bird without grace
could stir the river’s pity?

When it dreams it lets the breeze in,
wings opened loosely like a limp toy
on a draw string.

Then it skirts the surface:
flap
slap
clap
of legs, claws and wings.

Darkness echoes in near-flight
as it hides its guttural croaking call.

When it lands, silence replies,
returning nothing.

But a bird dream is a word dream
when a cormorant fails to sing.

Introducing the February 2009 Readers - 4. Tim Turnbull

Tim Turnbull is equally well known as a poet on the page and in performance.
Here’s his biography.

And here’s a poem, Stranded in Sub-Atomica, from his collection of the same name, which was nominated for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2006.

URGENT - Change of Venue for 8th February

I've had to move the readings on Sunday 8th February from the Great Grog Bar to a café-style hall in St Cuthbert's Church. It's at 5 Lothian Road, just behind the big St John's Episcopal Church on the corner of Princes Street and Lothian Road.

It's a 'Bring Your Own Bottle' venue (I've been told that alcoholic drinks are fine). I'll bring along plastic glasses, a corkscrew and a bottle-opener.

The reason is because Scotland are playing Wales at rugby on Sunday and every bar in Rose Street will be packed with drunk, noisy rugby fans. I don't follow rugby and only found out when the manager of the Great grog phoned me to let me know. Trying to hold a poetry reading in a bar with competition from hundreds of rugby fans through a thin wall would be a fruitless exercise. The hall in St Cuthbert's looks good and I'm sure it's the best solution.

To say the last few hours have been stressful is an understatement. I am normally calm under pressure, but I now feel exhausted from the stress! However, at least things now seem to have been resolved and I'm looking forward to some great readings on Sunday evening.

Date Swap

Those of you with sharp eyes will have noted that Andrew Philip and Julia Rampen have swapped reading dates. Julia is now on in May and Andy will read in June. Incidentally, the order the names come in these lists doesn't necessarily bear any relationship to the order people will read on the night. Sometimes, that decision is easy. There's a obvious order that makes sense. However, on other occasions, it can be difficult and I have to think quite hard about it.

Introducing the February 2009 Readers - 3. Alan Gay

Alan Gay studied Political Science and was formerly an Educational Advisor. He now lectures in Navigation and Meteorology and spends his summers with his wife Jancis sailing their yacht. His poetry is well placed in competitions, magazines and anthologies. His most recent poetry pamphlet is The Boy Who Came Ashore (Dreadful Night Press, 2006). He has twice been runner-up in the National Galleries of Scotland poetry competition. He lives with his family in East Lothian.

Gale Warning

Each oar-thrust spread arrowheads
that kept Gunsgreen House in line
with a crowd of gulls over the town cowp.

Behind the grunt of timbers,
bump of oars, we used the dying drum-roll
of combers on sand to judge distance off

then paused to drop our lines
poised on a copper dome made molten
by ripples thrown by the boat’s yaw.

All round the fleet swung metronome masts
in a calm that floated bird down.
Gulls swirled above our heads

leaking amber through corona-edged wings
feathers fine as lashes.
Again and again they dived across the sun,

shadows criss-crossing the deck
urgent, as if to warn us
to heed the signs:

the heel of a hand on the horizon
fingers reaching out
to crush the sun.

from The Boy Who Came Ashore, Dreadful Night Press, 2006