Blog closing

Having been using a new WordPress blog for some weeks now, I've decided to close this one. I'll be moving all my old posts over at some point, but for now please point your meeces here, to Sunny Dunny's (new) blog.

Le blogue nouveau

I'm playing with a new WordPress blog now. It's here, but it's very much at the experimental stage, and I want to develop it in the next few weeks. I like the look of it though - lean and clean - and I'm using one of my Dunbar shots as a banner.

Two Iains

I used to read a lot of science fiction in my youth, and I still have a few favourites - Roger Zelazny (Lord of Light), Brian Aldiss (Non-Stop and others), J G Ballard (The Drowned World, The Crystal World, Drought). These are older works; I haven't read much recent sci-fi. However, during my summer break I picked up my son's copy of Iain M Banks' Consider Phlebas, and I have to confess I'm hooked again. Since coming home I've read two of his 'Culture' novels, and I find them immensely satisfying. He seems to to me to combine big ideas, novel technologies etc, with an in-depth knowledge of human behaviour and motivation, and he has the writing skills to make the books very readable. I'll read more.

I noted with regret the passing of Iain Cuthertson, Scottish actor. I had the pleasure of meeting him in the 1960s, when he did a workshop on directing Shakespeare while I was a student in Glasgow. I've not directed the Bard, but I did make use of some of Iain's incisive comments on directing when I directed amdram productions subsequently. And he struck me as a warm and generous man.

Callander 2009

Callander's Poetry Weekend went off very successfully, despite the poor weather, and the horrendous journeys some folk had getting there. Daytime sessions on the Saturday were held in the Kirk Hall, and by the beginning of the afternoon set the hall was full. The shop was full on the Sunday too.  Sally provided haggis for lunch on the Saturday, to follow the Burns mini-conference, and after the last Sunday session everyone trooped off for a boat trip on Loch Katrine. I was impressed by the quality of the readers, by Sally and Ian's hospitality, and by the warm and friendly atmosphere - a lovely weekend.

Callander Poetry Weekend 2009

I'm heading off for Callander this afternoon, and I'll be taking part in the events on Saturday and Sunday. It's one of the highlights of my poetry year, and I'm looking forward to meeting up with old friends and hopefully making new ones. The full programme is on the Newsboard page of the Poetry Scotland website. I'm very happy to hear that the Itinerant Poetry Librarian will be there for the weekend. Those of us who follow her blog already know what an interesting life she leads, and it'll be great to meet her at last. You can catch her website here, and her blog here.

My local informant says that it has stopped raining in that area, so the road should be OK for the journey up. I drove through the torrential rain to Carstairs yesterday for a poetry workshop with the State Hospital patients. That's been a regular visit for me for several years now. I first made contact with the Librarian there when I was President of the Scottish Library Association. She mentioned they had/have a book group with an interest in poetry, and I've visited them ever since. Group membership has changed over the years, obviously, but there's still a core of patients keenly interested in poetry - they recently had a return visit from my friend Maureen Sangster. Yesterday I read some poems, and then we got round to discussing a subject that we all have in common - our attitudes to food. It's not a simple subject, since some of them have specific issues with food. They covered a wide range of food-related topics in their own poems and, as always, the experience was mutually enlightening.

The Sotto Voce Slam

The Sotto Voce Slam was held in the Scottish Poetry Library this evening. Claire Askew was the very worthy winner, with Anne Connolly second and Colin Donati third. I really enjoyed the evening, which was full of contrasts - thematic, stylistic and in reading techniques. I thought Claire's programme was terrific, and the poem about her grandmother was very good indeed.

I placed fourth, which really pleased me for several reasons. First, it's only the third slam I've taken part in; second, I had never read either of the first and second round poems in public before, and third, I was making a deliberate attempt to change my style of writing in these poems. I've become a bit dissatisfied with some of my older work, finding it too linear and too predictable. These poems were attempts to break away, to include non sequiturs and, to me anyway, unusual images and word juxtapositions. I surprised myself when writing them, and although they're still in my 'voice', they feel fresher to me. So although 'The Love Song of the Sensory Homunculus' didn't win the Edwin Morgan competition, I'm glad it went down well tonight. (If you Google 'sensory homunculus' you'll see who the poem was about.)  I'll try sending it to mags now.

I also handed over the MS of my new collection tonight. I've been wrestling with the sequence of poems in it, and I've finally arrived at an order which makes sense to me.

Busy week

VoxBox and the Scottish Poetry Library are holding a Sotto Voce Slam on Wednesday evening at the SPL, in association with the Ivor Cutler exhibition and the Noise Abatement Society. I'm looking forward to taking part, and I've chosen poems for the first and second rounds. The judges will be looking for 'exquisite' poems, and I'm not totally sure if that's the right word to describe my poetry.

Thursday I'm doing a poetry workshop at the State Hospital, Carstairs. I always enjoy my visits there - I never know how the patients will respond to poems, but it's great to try out a variety of themes and styles, before I focus in on something they're interested in.

In the evening I'm doing a renga in Dunbar as part of the 'Curiouser and Curiouser' event at the Arts Hub.

At the weekend I'm off to Callander for the Poetry Weekend - details on the Poetry Scotland website.