At last you can see me haver briefly about The Ambulance Box in the video that Jen Hamilton-Emery took before the Northern Salt reading at the Manchester Literature Festival. Here it is in all its autumnal Manucunian glory:
Over at the Salt blog, you can also see new videos of Tony Williams (whose book was very favourably reviewed in The Guardian Review last week, lucky man), John Siddique (whose collection is also available in audio format now) and Elizabeth Baines. Happy viewing!
I’m a bit slow on this one, others having blogged it already, but there’s free shipping on all UK orders until Christmas from Salt’s online shop! Not only will it make your present buying easier, but you’ll make Chris, Jen and the rest of the redoubtable Salt team — not to mention the authors — very happy.
I’m not slow on this one, however: if you’re after a change from the physical books or are particularly keen on hearing your poetry as well as reading it on the page, keep an eye on the brand new Salt Audio Books site. There are only a couple of titles on it so far, but it promises to be a fantastic resource as it grows.
Following on from yesterday’s complaint against the lack of poetry in the shortlists for the Saltire Society literary awards, it occured to me that, if a specific poetry award is the solution, perhaps StAnza might be the organisation to oblige. Of course, the funding and administration of such an award would need to be sorted out, which might take a whilie, but I can imagine that a StAnza prize for the best collection and/or best first collection could carry considerable caché in the Scottish poetry scene.
Still, deep down I’m sure there must be a better way than perpetuating and expanding the prize culture. I’m just not convinced that it is the best way to celebrate and promote new poetry — or new writing more generally — because it necessarily leads to a focus on a fairly narrow batch of writers. And I count myself as the beneficiary of some of that focus, because it usually extends to the nominees on shortlists, not winners alone. The question is, how do we move on from that culture and with what do we replace it? How do we find a model that allows a broader range of poets to be brought to wider attention and be rewarded in some way for their work? I don’t have any ideas yet. Do you?
I didn’t want to sully my celebration of the wonderful news that Alison Lang has been shortlisted Saltire Society literary awards with this gripe, so I’ve held it over for today: where on earth are the poetry books on the shortlists? There’s Crawford’s biography of Burns, but that’s the closest we get. No Hunt in the Forest, no Outside the Narrative, no Third Wish Wasted, no Farewell My Lovely, no When the Sun Turns Green to name a few that could well have been candidates for the best book list. And no Natural Mechanical or Opposite of Cabbage, to name two bleedin’ obvious candidates for the first book prize.
This is crazy, surely. So much for the year of homecoming, in which we were celebrating who, again? And remind me: just what is it he’s famous for?* I really don’t care about the special homecoming award, you know. Perhaps we need a poetry category in the Saltire Society awards. Or perhaps, as I hinted elsewhere a while back**, we need another less winner-takes-all approach to celebrating new writing.
Or maybe we should take up pottery instead.
*No, aside from the amorous exploits.
**See my answer to question 6.
Alison's book
Big congratulations to my friend and erstwhile colleague Alison Lang, whose short-story collection Caint na Caileige Caillte has been shortlisted for the first book award in the Saltire Society Literary Awards this year! Readers furth of Scotland may not be familiar with this prize, but it’s a significant achievement in Scottish terms. Fingers crossed for her on St Andrew’s day …
In the latest Scottish Poetry Library podcast, you can hear me discuss my writing, the poets I carry with me and read “Summa” from The Ambulance Box. There’s also piece about the Southbank Centre’s new project, the Global Poetry System plus an interview with my fellow Salt poet Julia Bird. Rather than discussing her writing, Julia’s slot focuses on her work as a promoter of literary events, particularly a very interesting tour she’s putting together right now.
The SPL podcast is now a weekly afair, so don’t forget to look at the back issues and check back (or subscribe) for future treats.
Surprise, surprise: St Andrews was damp and cold when I arrived there yesterday for Distant Voices. How many StAnza memories are wrapped in that grey mizzle? Still, the Byre Theatre was as inviting as ever. After the five or six festivals I’ve been to, it’s becoming something of a home from home. A small crowd was gathering when I walked in the doors, a mix of StAnzistas, readers and pure audience. Over the course of the three or so hours I was there, the faces and numbers fluctuated at the edges, but remained steady at a respectable number for a wet afternoon in a corner of Fife.
The poets from Tbilisi kicked off the readings entirely in Georgian. A bold move, and good on them, if a bit tough on the St Andrews audience! They came through loud and clear without a technical hitch to speak of but, unfortunately, the same wasn’t true of Geneva. The Skype call to Peter McCarey and co kept dropping, so we were cut off — twice — in the midst of a sound poem, replaced with the blip-bip-dip-a-dipp-a of the Skype dialing tone. That was a huge shame, but at least the next slot was St Andrews, so Lyn Moir, Anna Crowe and I could step into the breach and read a little more than planned.
I opened the extended Byre reading with “Summa” and “Tae a Lousy Piper”, a Burns pastiche and diatribe against the dire busking bagpipers of Edinburgh, who seem far greater in number than the capable busking pipers. Then came Lyn, reading from her new, freshly launched pamphlet, Easterly, Force 10 and Anna, reading one translation from Catalan and one of her own. After that, I was back for my full set. Here’s the list:
- In Praise of Dust
- The White Dot
- Cardiac
- Berlin/Berlin/Berlin
- The Invention of Zero
- Lullaby
- Dream Family Holiday
- Breathing is the Place to Start
Lyn and I did a partial swap of our publications. I haven’t had a chance to read her pamphlet yet, but I’m looking forward to it. It’s very nicely produced by Colin Will’s Calder Wood Press.
I thoroughly enjoyed the visit to the Byre. Sadly, I had to head home very shortly after my reading, but I picked up bits and bobs of the webcast through the evening. Apparently a number of people had problems accessing the stream before 3.30, but it was functioning beautifully when I logged on. I caught bits and pieces of the readings from Vicenza, Skye, New York, Ghent (wow!) and Sacramento.
It was a bold and ambitious project. Whatever the technical hitches, Eleanor Livingstone and her international team are to be congratulated for that and for creating such a wide-ranging feast of poetry and reaching such a broad audience. They’ve proved the concept, so here’s hoping we’ll see it repeated sooner rather than later.
Distant Voices -- a one-day virtual poetry festival.
I’m delighted to be reading at Distant Voices, the StAnza Virtual Poetry Festival on Saturday 14 November. It’s a free event linking up poets and poetry from 12 cities and towns across the world, from Mumbai to Sacramento, and streaming them live into The Byre Theatre, St Andrews — StAnza’s usual hub venue — and via webcasts worldwide. Details are at the link, where the webcast will also be (I don’t think it’s going to be archived, so you’d better tune in at the time if you want to see it). I’m on, with “surprise guests”, in the 2:30 to 3:00 pm slot.
Natural Mechanical
Yesterday, the winner of the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize was announced as JO Morgan for Natural Mechanical. It’s a fine book and a deserving winner. A book-length narrative poem that so deftly handles shifts in time, perspective and voice would be an impressive achievement at any point in a poet’s writing life, but to produce such a work as a first book is a double achievement. Huge congratulations to JO Morgan.
Commiserations to the rest of my fellow nominees: Sian Hughes, Dawn Wood and Philip Rush. Naturally, I’m disappointed not to have won, but Natural Mechanical is a stand-out book, and I am pleased that a Scottish poet in his early thirties took the crown.
The reason for the shortness of breathing space mentioned in the previous post was, of course, Linlithgow Book Festival. LBF is now in its fourth year and simply going from strength to strength. This year, I was nowhere near as involved in organising and running it as I was the previous two but, aside from retaining responsibility for the festival’s online presence, I ran a workshop and compered the open mic on the Saturday, and read with four other West Lothian-based poets on the Sunday.
With 10 participants, the workshop was full. It was lovely to have two returning participants, one of whom had brought a friend and another of whom has blogged about the event here. Even if the room was a bit on the chilly side, the atmosphere was lively and warm. I was very pleased with how well the exercises went, using a poem from David Troupes’s fine first collection and an unpublished sequence of mine as models, referring also to some pieces by Kavanagh and Bishop. Some of the participants’ writing was seriously impressive, given the very short time available. I plan to post on the LBF website the group poem we created and any individual poems from the session that participants give me.
Some of the work produced at the workshop was also read at the open mic, where I also read the sequence mentioned above. That was its first outing, and I was pleased with how well it worked. I was pleased, too, with how well the open mic went. We had just over 10 people there, only five of whom read, but we managed to fill the time nicely with repeat readers. Ellie Stewart and Grace Cleary had both brought prose and poetry. Everybody read very well. I was particularly impressed with one Stewart Gillan, well known to Lithgae residents for his day job, whose work I hadn’t heard before. (He was also at the workshop.)
Sunday’s reading was a blast. It was organised by Dennis O’Donnell, whose poetry I’d come across when I was doing a project as a visiting writer at Bo’ness Academy last year, but whom I’d never met or heard. He was a tremendous reader: assured, entertaining and clear. I was particularly impressed with his Scots peices.
Dennis might, by his own admission, be the shortest poet in West Lothian; he was followed by probably the tallest poet, financial historian and historical whodunnit writer in the county: Douglas Watt. A completely irrelevant point, except to show that size — or height, at least — matters not a jot. I’d heard Dougie read from his history and fiction, but never his poetry before and it was a pleasure. I particularly enjoyed his more imaginative, fantastical pieces.
Jane McKie was next up. She read a few from her second collection, When the Sun Turns Green — a beautiful book, published this summer — but mostly new work, including some sonnets. Jane’s reading style is quieter than the others’ but certainly no less assured or impressive. Indeed, the contrasting styles made for a richer event. I enjoyed hearing her new work and look forward to reading it at some point in the future.
I followed Janie, reading mostly from The Ambulance Box. I didn’t write down the set and can’t remember it, so I can’t post the list here, but it went down well.
Alistair Findlay came on last. He’s a great reader, as anyone who has seen him will know. His set was drawn from his first two collections and his forthcoming third collection, Dancing with Big Eunice, a book of poems on social work due out early next year. It was particularly good to hear him read the new work, which I’ve seen on the page. The book will certainly be worth checking out when it appears as it displays much of Alistair’s trademark blend of wit, insight, passion, politics and experience. I admire, too, the ease with which his poems can slip and slide between Scots and English.
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