My poem, Naming the Autumn, is now featured on the Stirling Makar’s Poem of the Month page for November on the website of Stirling Council. You can see it here.
Events
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News
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Call for Submissions Stravaig Issue #3
Geopoetics is a concept first developed by the poet Kenneth White, and is a way of looking at art, philosophy and culture based on contact with the earth and encourages cross-disciplinary and collaborative work in any medium. To find out more about Geopoetics, you can click on my essay or on the website of The Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, where you will also find issues 1 and 2 of the on-line journal, Stravaig.
Issue 3 of Stravaig will be published in April 2014 and we are looking for submissions of poetry, prose, essays or artwork on the theme of Geopoetics in Practice. Pieces for inclusion should be sent as word.doc or jpg. attachments in an email.
to burnedthumb@gmail.com,
cc to Norman Bissell normanbissell@btinternet.com
by 1st December 2013
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In and About Stirling
I’m going to be doing a couple of readings in September. The first will be at the Friends of Neil Jam on Thursday 5th, in Nicky Tam’s Bar 29 Baker Street, Stirling FK8 1BJ.
From Friday 6th – Sunday 8th September I’ll be at the fabulous Callander Poetry Weekend, hosted by Sally Evans and her husband Ian King at The Callander Bookshop in Main Street. There will be great poetry and music, and generous hospitality, and I’ll be reading on Saturday afternoon in the Kirk Hall – Main Street, opposite the shop.
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The William Soutar Writing Prize
On Saturday 31st August I will be attending the Perth Writers Day at the AK Bell Library. There will be events throughout the day, but my particular interest will be the presentation of prizes for the William Soutar Writing Competition, as I am delightedbthat my poem Christopher has been shot-listed for it. There is a very impressive short-list, which you can find at:
https://www.pkc.gov.uk/article/5922/William-Soutar-Writing-Prize-2013
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Poetry News
This year has been fairly quiet on the publishing front, but some very good things have happened.
I’ve had a poem in the new Dark Mountain anthology, a truly beautiful book, which features poets artists and writers in whose company I’m honoured to appear (Susan Richardson, Em Strang, Roselle Angwin, and many many others). There’s a link to the poem, Explaining a Few Things to Neruda on the page.
There’s an essay on my home patch in this year’s Stravaig,
and a poem, Lost Village, in the spring edition of Northwords Now.
And fnally, after reviewing some pamphlets published by the wonderful Stewed Rhubarb Press,
I had the enormous pleasure of watching them win the Callum McDonald Memorial Award. Congratulations to the team of Rachel McCrum and James T Harding!
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Blog Moving
Because of the increasing difficulty of dealing with spam, this blog will be moving to https://burnedthumb.com/blog/. It’s integrated with my lovely new-look web-site courtesy of web-builder Naomi, which will be fully activated on 7th August. Go see!
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New website
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The Thistle Rose and Shamrock Night
Around this time of year my life gets silted up with cooking, cleaning, wrapping, carols, nativity plays and some or other getting ill. I mean to post, and don’t. I mean to email people and don’t. I mean to get things wrapped up and cleared away, and who am I kidding?
So this year, before I get utterly Christmassed, I just want to say a few words about out poetry evening. We don’t get many in Stirling – apart from the lovely mix of music and performance work that is Junk Jam anyway, so it was quite a scary thing to organise one. However, with the backing of some very fine poets (Stirling definitely punches above its weight on the actual writing front) and the excellent Burgh Coffeehouse who were so kind and so helpful, we took a deep breath and dived in.
I won’t say we were packed to the rafters, because we weren’t. But we did have a genuine audience, and some really great poetry. We had great tea, and rather wonderful cake (most of us will be back again for that). And the Burgh said they’d have us back. What more could you ask?
Besides myself, our poets were:
- Hazel Buchan Cameron(published by Red Squirrel)
- Anne Connolly (published by Red Squirrel)
- Richie McCaffery (published by Happenstance)
- Chris Powici (published by Die-Hard)
- Sheila Wakefield (published by Talking Pen)
And will we do it again? Watch this space!
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Thistle Rose and Shamrock
Thistle Rose and Shamrock was the name of a ceilidh band who played at barn dances in Liverpool in the seventies. They mixed English Scottish and Irish dances – even included a Welsh one or two now and then, and a good time was had by all. There were even a few weddings among the folk who were dancing (ahem!).
This time however, we are having a poetry reading to celebrate the reprints of my Wherever We Live Now, Anne Connolly’s Love in a Mist and Sheila Wakefield’s new chapbook Limerance. And we also have Richie McCaffery, Hazel Buchan Cameron and Chris Powici, so it should be a great night. It will happen in the very lovely Burgh coffe-house in Stirling, 13th December from 7 to 9pm, and everyone is most welcome.
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Shreds and Patches
My head is full of the random wispy ends of things I’ve been doing lately, places I’ve been, people I’ve met, books I’ve dipped into. Thus:
- By Leaves We Live – the Scottish Poetry Library’s Bookfair, which features some of the most beautiful independent publications you are likely to see anywhere. I met several friends, caught up with the gossip and bought Colin Will’s latest book The Propriety of Weeding (which looks so far to be a serious advance on previous work) and picked up ten copies of the new imprint of Wherever We Live Now.
- Started reading Beyond the Lyric by Fiona Sampson on the grounds that I could do with a birdseye view of all the things happening in British poetry, and already I can see why it has caused so much irritation. Judgement is suspended however until I see how well she has met her own brief.
- A gig by Aly bain, Ale Moller and Bruce Molsky which introduced me to the concept of ‘troll tuning’ – open tunings for the fiddle which lead to some tunes which are not only difficult to play, but darker and stranger and a bit renegade. I’m thinking I should play with some troll verses.
- Discovering a creature called the huldra who lives in Nordic forests, has a fox tail and a tree-bark back, but is otherwise beautiful and seductive. The Norse word ‘huldra’ means hidden or secret – so the ‘huldra-folk’ are the elves or trows of folk-tale. The story is that Eve had a lot of children and when God came calling she was ashamed that some of them weren’t washed, so she hid them. God decided that what was hidden should stay hidden. Huldra herself has affinities with the English Seelie or Hookey or Ainsel or the Celtic Gruagach who features on Tairis this week. Fascinating.
- The new issue of Earthlines, which seems to be getting the feel of where it’s going, and gets better all the time. Also Where the Air is Rarefied by Susan Richardson and p\at Gregory – a beautiful book.
Where this will take me I’m not entirely sure, but the notebooks are filling up with fragments and ends and breadcrumb trails. It feels right for the week of Hallowe’en and the start of indoor time. As Kenneth White says – ‘Poet, use well the winter’!.
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