Poetry Doubles Preview – Gerry Stewart and Andrew Forster

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 Scotland.

Gerry Stewart declared she wanted to be an expatriate before she even knew what the word meant. She grew up in the United States and left Iowa when she was seventeen for Norway and Greece before settling in Scotland. She is a freelance creative writing tutor working with adults and children and editor of Grimalkin Press, producing books and pamphlets for the groups she works with. She received a Scottish Arts Council Award in 2005 to assist in the writing of her first novel Talking Italian in my Sleep. Her poetry has been widely published in magazines and anthologies in the UK and abroad.

Her collection “Post-Holiday Blues” is a traveller’s notebook made up of snapshots and souvenirs, sketching the poet’s journeys to Greece, Norway, Mexico and other destinations. Each of Gerry Stewart’s poems is an emotional landmark, anchoring places in memory. Her precise and poignant language distils and captures locations and experiences lost to time, giving them voices that bring the reader into the moment. There is a self-conscious quality to her poems, echoing an expatriate’s hesitance about their right to describe and participate in the culture of another country, but at the same time they revel in the beauty and thrill of the unfamiliar.

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 Australia. From the industrial South Yorkshire of the poet’s childhood to his adopted home of rural Scotland, via imaginative leaps to Spain, America, Germany and eighteenth-century rural England, these poems look at what makes us who we are. Andrew was singled out by the Scotsman as a “notable newcomer” at Stanza 2005.

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.

Poetry Doubles Review: Matthew Sweeney and Mike Smith

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 Romania. He described the almost unbearable heat of a Romanian summer, and his own dislocation in the poem “The Sweatmark” – where the poet discovers his t-shirt has a sweatmark that describes precisely the map of his native Ireland – “what did this mean,/ if anything? He got sweatmarks/ all these days, but never a map before./He wondered should he phone home.”

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, Dumfries at 7pm. Tickets cost £7/£5 and are available from Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association 01387 253383 or andrew@dgaa.net.

Crichton Writers "Windfall" launch - note changes!

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!

Poetry Doubles Review Jen Hadfield and Vivien Jones

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 Canada, and then her return to home in Shetland. She confided her struggles with writer’s block in Canada, explored in the poem “Still Life With The Very Devil”. She also elicited some audience participation in her poem “Paternoster”, about flying to Canada, knowing that in the hold stood six well-drugged thoroughbred racehorses. “Paternoster” is written as a kind of prayer, ending wisely “May the horse never wake that stands in mid-air”, duly repeated by a very entertained audience as a liturgical response.

Back in Shetland again, Jen’s poems described a land which hides itself behind fogs, plays hard to get – a persona encapsulated in the skerryman who figures in the poems collected in “Almanacs”. Her poems explore weather and the landscape –

“Haar climbs the Voe/ and fills the valley’s pitcher./ Fence posts barble it./ The red and umber mosses/ drink it in.”

Poetry Doubles
Matthew Sweeney & Mike Smith
Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre
Monday 24th September 7.00pm
Tickets £7.00 (£5.00 concession) from andrew@dgaa.net

Anyone who was at both the Poetry Doubles reading or the Masterclass last week knows what special events they were. Laura Helyer and George Szirtes took us to new and unexpected places, and the Masterclass was one of the sharpest and most helpful poetry sessions I've ever been present at. Those who brought their poems along went away with plenty of food for thought.
And there's more this week.
Surprise will be the order of the evening. Irish poet Matthew Sweeney comes to us to mark the publication of his new collection 'Black Moon'. Matthew's poems are surreal, strange and very beautiful. Cumbrian Mike Smith is a perfect accompaniment. One of the students on Dumfries very own MLitt course, at the GU Crichton Cvampus, Mike has a unique way of looking at the world.

Kiltimagh Exchange

In June this year DGAA, with support from Leader+, sent D&G poets Rab Wilson and John Hudson to Kiltimagh in Ireland for a series of readings and workshops. Now we play host to the return visit, and welcome Irish poets Terry McDonagh and Ger Reidy. Terry has published three collections of poetry for adults. His latest book, 'Boxes' is a collection of poetry for children. Ger published his 'Selected Poems' with the Irish press Gallery. Both have read their work all over Irleand and beyond.Terry and Ger will be involved in a range of events over the ten days of their visit, including a number of workshops in schools.You can catch up with them at the following places:

Tuesday 25th September 2.00pm - 4.00pm
Poetry Workshop

Newton Stewart Library (in association with Wigtown Scribblers)

Terry and Ger will discuss participants work and get people writing.Contact Andrew Forster andrew@dgaa.net

Tuesday 25th September 7.00pm - 9.00pm

Poetry Workshop

The Studio, Rutherford McCowan, Crichton Campus, Dumfries (in association with Dumfries Writers)

Terry and Ger will discuss participants work and get people writing.

Contact Mary@stewartry.co.uk

Wednesday 26th September

Poetry Workshop

The Studio, Rutherford McCowan, Crichton Campus, Dumfries

Terry and Ger will discuss participants work and get people writing.Contact Andrew@dgaa.net

...and afterwards

2.15 The Studio, Rutherford McCowan, Crichton Campus, Dumfries

Terry McDonagh and Ger Reidy will read their own work

Workshops and reading free

Thursday 27th September

Poems from Kiltimagh
Terry McDonagh, Ger Reidy, Rab Wilson and John Hudson

Sanquhar (for venue details contact andrew@dgaa.net) 7.00pm

Free event

Tuesday 2nd October

Poems from Kiltimagh

Terry McDonagh, Ger Reidy, Rab Wilson and John Hudson

Scottish Book Town Festival, County Buildings, Wigtown 7.00pmTickets £5.00 from Festival Booking Office 01988 403222

Poetry Doubles

George Szirtes & Laura Helyer

Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre, Dumfries

Monday 17th September 7.00pm

Tickets £7.00 (£5.00 concessions)

Poetry Doubles Masterclass with George Szirtes

Glasgow University Crichton Campus 10.ooam

Tickets £3.00 (Free when purchased with ticket for reading)

Tickets from Andrew Forster on 01387 253383 or andrew@dgaa.net

George Szirtes is one of the most acclaimed poets writing in Britain today. He has published 11 collections of poetry, and Bloodaxe will publish his ‘Collected Poems’ next year. He has won numerous awards, including the prestigious TS Eliot prize, the most acclaimed prize in poetry, for his 2005 collection ‘Reel’.

George was born in Hungary and moved to England as a refugee in 1956. His poetry explores both his Hungarian origins and his adopted English home.

George reads with Laura Helyer. Laura, who returned to Dumfries earlier this year after completing an MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of St Andrews, is one of the region’s brightest young voices. Laura was commended in last year’s Cardiff International Poetry Competition and was awarded a prestigious Donald Dewar Arts Award, granting her time for her writing. Whether her subject is the enviroment, art or her parents’ long marriage, Laura brings a quiet intelligence to bear on her poems.

Laura can also be heard on Saturday evening during the Dumfries Film Festival, reading poetry and prose to introduce the film ‘An Arctic Tale’ at the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre on Saturday 15th September at 8.15pm.

The day after the Poetry Doubles reading George will run a Masterclass, looking in detail at selected participants’ poems. The date for submission has passed but there are still places in the audience if would-be poets are interested in the process of developing a poem.

Dumfries & Galloway Poets read at Brownsbank Cottage Open Day

Five Dumfries & Galloway poets made the journey up to Brownsbank Cottage last weekend. Once the home of Hugh MacDiarmid, Brownsbank Cottage was taking part in Lanarkshire's Doors Open Days event, and welcoming visitors.

Hugh MacDiarmid lived there for a quarter of a century, and was much visited, so perhaps he would have appreciated the tiny cottage packed with poets on Sunday. Tom Bryan, current holder of the Brownsbank Writing Fellowship, was a warm and welcoming host. The Dumfries & Galloway contingent, all performers in this year's Poetry Doubles series, were Andrew Forster, Angus Macmillan, Laura Helyer, Hugh Bryden and Jean Atkin.

On these occasions poetry is traditionally read under the rowan tree in the garden, but the unseasonable temperatures confined most readings to the summer house...however Andy Forster can be seen braving the testing conditions.

What's On and Up


Poetry Doubles 2007

Jen Hadfield & Vivien Jones

Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre

Monday 3rd September 7.00pm

Tickets £7.00 (£5.00 concession) from andrew@dgaa.net




This week, Poetry Doubles welcomes one of Britain’s most exciting young poets. Jen Hadfield was born in Cheshire and spent time in Canada before moving to Shetland where she currently lives. She has won both an Eric Gregory award and a Donald Dewar Award for younger artists. Her first collection Almanacs was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2005 and she will follow this with a new collection, Nigh No Place, in February next year. She also won the Robert McLellan Poetry Competition last year, and came third in the second annual Wigtown Poetry Competition with her poem ‘Odysseus and the Sou’Wester’. Much of Jen’s first collection is inspired by Shetland, and her work has been described as a wild, imaginative road movie. She is also passionate about involving words with other art forms, and combines her poems with photography, lino cuts and woodwork in her artists’ books.


Jen shares the stage with Vivien Jones. Vivien is making a welcome return to Poetry Doubles, after taking part in the very first series back in 2004. Since that time her work has gone from strength to strength. She has published poems in numerous magazines and anthologies and, most recently, developed and performed in Making Waves, a sublime performance of poetry and music on a watery theme that took place at Broughton House in Kirkcudbright, and can also be seen during the Wigtown Festival. Vivien is also one of the driving forces behind the Crichton Writers, Dumfries and Galloway’s largest writers’ group. Her work is included in their new anthology, ‘Windfall’, featuring poems on the theme of gardens.