Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association
& Wigtown Festival Company present
1st prize £2500 2nd Prize £1000 3rd Prize £500
Ten supplementary prizes of £50.00 each
Gaelic Prize in association with Gaelic Books Council £1000
Judge Robert Crawford
Gaelic Judge Anne Frater
Closing date 5.00pm Friday 25th January 2008
www.wigtownbookfestival.com/poetrycomp
Open Stage is back at the Station Hotel,
As well as an Open Mic there will be some fantastic guest spots to spur things on – November’s Open Stage will feature Moniaive singer/songwriter Darcy Carson and
Darcy Carson is a promising young pianist who at the age of 15 is already writing and recording her own songs. She went down a storm at this year's Moniaive Folk Festival and performances such as these led to her appearing at the legendary Spiegel Garden during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. So come and see for yourself one of Dumfries & Galloway's brightest prospects.
Hugh Bryden’s work as an artist has long been recognised, but he is becoming an increasingly published poet, creating beautiful hand-printed limited editions of his work which are proving very popular. Hugh’s work in Scots is both humorous and poignant, and not to be missed.
All would-be performers - make sure you get there early – registration for all those who wish to perform will take place between 7pm and 7.30pm on the night! Poets can read three short poems and songwriters two songs.
Even if performing’s not your thing, don’t miss the chance to see and hear some great original material! Whatever your tastes in music or poetry come along, showcase your skills and meet like-minded people in a chilled out atmosphere. Hosting the event will be local singer/songwriter Nicola Black. Entry is £3 on the door.
For more information contact Jill Smith at Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association on 01387 253383 or e-mail: jillsmith@dgaa.net.
Penultimate in this year’s Poetry Doubles series is the promising combination of Gerry Stewart and Andrew Forster. This pairing forms a special Flambard Press event, as it is also the launch of two first collections from these poets based in
Gerry Stewart declared she wanted to be an expatriate before she even knew what the word meant. She grew up in the
Her collection “Post-Holiday Blues” is a traveller’s notebook made up of snapshots and souvenirs, sketching the poet’s journeys to
Andrew Forster is best known to Dumfries & Galloway as its Literature Development Officer at Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association (DGAA), and among his many activities is also the architect of the Poetry Doubles series. Jenny Wilson, Director of DGAA said, “DGAA is extraordinarily lucky in having a Literature Development officer who is himself a poet, and Andrew has a foot in each camp. That his first collection of poetry is published as a book now is a double celebration for us – he’s obviously succeeded in juggling the job and the creative life, and there’s a new collection from a very distinctive voice to read and enjoy. I feel it’s an achievement to celebrate, and I’m delighted we can do so with the Poetry Doubles reading.
Andrew’s first collection, “Fear of Thunder” asks us to consider our common experiences, from the father unable to shake a childhood fear to the woman dreaming of
This Poetry Doubles event will take place on Monday 8 October at the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre at 7pm. Tickets cost £7/£5 and are available from Andrew Forster at DGAA on 01387 253383 or andrew@dgaa.net.
Ranging from the sinister to the blackly comic, the combination of much published Irish poet Matthew Sweeney and prize-winning local poet Mike Smith provided the Poetry Doubles audience with a memorable evening.
Matthew Sweeney, laconic but completely arresting as a reader, drew largely on his new collection “Black Moon”, written in the aftermath of two years spent living in
Sweeney has been aptly described as “one of our finest poets of the unconscious”, and many of his poems strike a disturbing note, a sense of unnamed individuals coping after unexplained catastrophe, war and devastation. The poem “Underground”, about a man living “in a hole in the ground,/down a ladder, in the bottom room” perturbs because much of it is about the life the man has made for himself, small civilisations – he makes wine from chestnut and elm-root, gathers mushrooms at first light – belied by an abiding fear – the other rooms are usually empty “though sometimes strangers stayed - /then he’d know to remain underground”.
Mike, an increasingly well-known poet in his home county of Cumbria, opened by reading “Mechanics”, a rant on the obsession of writing – “He’s got that bloody poem stripped/down again”, and then entertained the audience by the first use of a prop in this Poetry Doubles series – the donning of a flat cap for a digression into Cumbrian dialect, undercut by the information he himself is actually from the Midlands. Later he read his prizewinning poem “Ullswater Requiem”, inspired by the death by drowning of three boys in Ullswater, a moving and serious piece of work .
The next Poetry Doubles features Gerry Stewart and Andrew Forster on Monday 8 October at the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre,
Please note changes to previously published times and locations for the following two "Windfall" Anthology launches:
Sunday 30 September at Scottish Book Town Festival, The Old Bank Bookshop at 3pm
Saturday 6 October in the Dalkeith Room, Buccleuch Centre, Langholm at 2pm
The "Windfall" anthology has taken the art of gardening, and gardens, as its theme. The published poems are rich and varied, gardens of all kinds are explored with imagination, verve and humour. Crichton Writers provide a warm welcome and light refreshment at their anthology launches - and the events are free as well!
This week’s Poetry Doubles welcomed prize-winning poet Jen Hadfield and the increasingly well-known Vivien Jones.
Vivien, who lives in Powfoot, has just become a winner in the Sedburgh Short Stories competition, and is a performer in Making Waves with Jackie Galley. She also has the distinction of having performed in Dumfries & Galloway’s very first Poetry Doubles series four years ago. Her humorous, almost misleadingly gentle performance was obviously appreciated by the audience, who were then provoked to laughter by unexpected mischievousness –
“gorse is a feast, a binge/ a prick of a shrub”.
She read from the performance Making Waves, and also as yet unpublished work from a trip to Italy, where she visited the house of Isabella d’Este, the first buyer of viols in the renaissance period –
“I touched the walls as if the purr/ of Isabella’s viols might be there”.
Jen Hadfield, described by Tom Leonard as “a whole and committed poet”, proved to be an engaging performer. Juggling sheaves of paper, chuckling with the audience, she read from her forthcoming book, “Nigh No Place”, work based around 15 months spent in
“Haar climbs the Voe/ and fills the valley’s pitcher./ Fence posts barble it./ The red and umber mosses/ drink it in.”
Poetry Doubles 2007
, 7pmMore on Poetry Doubles 2007 here:
Tickets £7.00 per reading (£5.00 concession – students and those in receipt of benefit). Special offer all eight readings for £49.00. Masterclass and workshops £3.00 each. Free if booked with ticket for appropriate reading. Full details and tickets from Andrew Forster 01387 253383 or andrew@dgaa.net.
Saturday September 22nd,
The Galloway Consort presents...
Bellis for Danseris...
...a programme of 16th century music and song on viols, recorders, renaissance guitar, lute and soprano voice from four great Renaissance nations (
Tickets £8 (£5 con), which includes a welcoming glass of wine. Info: 01461 700396 vivien@freeola.com.
Wednesday 3rd October, 7.30pm
Bladnoch Distillery
(part of the Wigtown Book Festival)
'Making Waves' - new writing and music on a watery theme with up and coming local poets, Jackie Galley and Vivien Jones and musicians, Richard Jones, Michael Hendry and Becky Hendry. An eclectic mix of folk, blues, jazz, contemporary and classical music motifs weave through the spoken word. A printed chapbook of the texts will be available at the performances.
Tickets (Kirkcudbright) £8 (£5 concessions), including a welcoming glass of wine. Info: 01461 700396 vivien@freeola.com.
Much modern poetry is portentous and self-consciously clever. McMillan’s is, as Robert Nye once pointed out, “ a breath of fresh air.”
“McMillan is unique in the angle and tone of his attack on the familiar.” Ian Duhig
Strange Bamboo ISBN-13 978 1 904886 51 8 £8.95 from Shoestring Press
Visit Hugh's podcast and poetry blog.
Out of the Way
Lydia has pink sandals
and butterfly clips:
it’s sunny in the gardens,
the grass tiger stripes,
the news only a distant wheeze
from a kitchen radio,
drowned by bees,
a breeze, the birdsong.
This is why we’re here:
nothing to worry over
but tumbles on soft lawns,
that and the vicious roar
of fighter bombers, spinning
like needles over garden sheds,
practicing pitching bombs
on babies’ heads.
The second in our new series of audio interviews with working writers, giving a unique insight into their art, craft and inspiration.
The first in our new series of audio interviews with working writers, giving a unique insight into their art, craft and inspiration.
Dumfries Ewart Library was the venue for an evening of inspiration and perspiration by nearly 20 writers from across Dumfries & Galloway who gathered to meet novelist, screenwriter and all-round tour de force David Bishop on Thursday. It was a chance to hear about story, structure and other tools of the novelist's trade, as well as insights into the realities of life as a working writer. For those who missed out on this sell-out workshop, an online version is now here - and visit his website here.
