Award Winning American Poet Visits Dumfries

Poetry audiences in Dumfries have a rare opportunity next month to see award-winning American poet August Kleinzahler. One of the freshest and most exciting poets of his generation August is coming to Scotland for Stanza, Scotland’s poetry festival, which takes place in St Andrews. His poems have a deceptive simplicity - they can sound like someone recounting an anecdote in a café but the listener is suddenly aware of listening to great wisdom.

August will read both his own poems and his favourite poems by other people, as part of the Scottish Poetry Library ‘Selected Works’ series. He will be presenting the poems in conversation with the SPL Reader Development Officer. The Scottish Poetry Library have been running this series successfully in Edinburgh, and are bringing the event to Dumfries as part of the ongoing partnership with Dumfries and Galloway Library Service and DGAA, which has seen the opening of an SPL collection at the Ewart Library. Lilias says: “The Scottish Poetry Library collection in Dumfries is one of our most popular outreach collections, and it’s great to have this opportunity to hold events here.”

Literature Development Officer Andrew Forster says: “The audience for poetry events in Dumfries and Galloway has grown considerably over the last few years. It’s wonderful for us to be able to work with Stanza and the SPL to bring poets of the stature of August Kleinzahler to Dumfries. This is an evening not to be missed!

August Kleinzahler’s Selected Works takes place at the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre on Monday 17th March at 7.00pm. Tickets cost £7.00 (£5.00 concession) and available from Andrew Forster on 1387 253383 or andrew@dgaa.net.

Rab's Poem of the Day in the Herald last week

Snawdraps

The twenty-seeventh o Janwar, wha'd believe,
daunderin throu Drumlanrig's policies,
ablow gnarled oak an beech, whaes canopies
wir juist the slumbrin dwams o giant trees,
that we wid fuin these harbingers o Spring.
Green slender stalks ootcomin frae the grund,
prood heids held heich, that boldly socht the sun,
bi brucken stobs, an barbwire gently rusting.
Hou did these trustfu flooers instil sic joy?
Did they bring us in mind o oor green years?
Autumnal men aye haud their memories dear;
lik fillin jeelie-jaurs at schuil, as boys.
Whit'er it wis, some deep thing steered in me,
that stoapt ma oot-raxed haund, an lat thaim be.

Words On The Move

An exciting chance to work with Scottish animators and create kinetic poems for the web is being given to the region's writers.
Up to 10 poems will be animated and published on the DGAA website and other poetry outlets, inspired by a specially commissioned kinetic work from one of Scotland's foremost poets, Tom Leonard.
Kinetic Poetry is a lively new animated artform made entirely of words. For examples see www.dgaaweb.net
Words On The Move has been set up by DGAA virtual writing fellow Jules Horne to inspire writers to think and work in new ways.
Jules is running four sessions to introduce the project, with help from animation company Motion Blur, and their Dumfriesshire based artist and lecturer Sonia Di Genaro.

Kinetic Poetry sessions will take place across the region on the following dates:

Monday 18 February 7-9pm Gracefield Arts Centre (with Motion Blur Ltd)
Wednesday 20 February 10.30am -12.30pm Newton Stewart Library
Monday 3 March 7-9pm Lockerbie Library
Tuesday 4 March 10am to 12 noon GU Crichton Campus (in association with Crichton Writers)

Poems must be submitted by Friday 28 March. For further information please contact Andrew Forster at DGAA on 01387 253383 or email andrew@dgaa.net

Something In The Blood - Vivien Jones

Local poet, Vivien Jones, has a new chapbook out. "Something In The Blood" is published by Selkirk Lapwing Press, and is one of a series of chapbooks entitled Women Poets of the Borders. The series will be launched at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh at 2pm on Saturday 16 February. The launch is a free event at which the four writers for the series, Katrina Porteous, Laurna Robertson, Pam Russell and Vivien Jones (who lives at Powfoot), will all read from their work.