Dunragit Poet Sam Gilliland wins MacDiarmid Tassie

Writer in the Storm is delighted to congratulate Sam Gilliland on his success in winning the much-coveted MacDiarmid Tassie for his poem Withoutin Weir, which won the Scots Language Society's highly prestigious Sangshaw Literary event.

Dr George Philp, the originator of the award, hailed Sam as a highly practiced exponent of the MacDiarmid school and an outstanding example of the Scottish literary movement.

Sam Gilliland lives in Dunragit, Stranraer, and has a collection of Scots poetry 'A Rickle O Banes', published by Penny Wheep Press due to appear in December. Look out for it!

Irresistible Poetry Doubles next Monday

Monday 23 November Poetry Doubles (the last one this year)
with Tom Pow and Liz Niven

A taster to help you step outside in the murk of November and make your way to the Duncan Room, Easterbrook Hall at 7pm.

Here's Liz Niven - from Picasso's Timeshare (Burning Whins)

Picasso said,
of his own poetry,
Painted in words, with lines taut as harpstrings.

Mair lik a bugle, it seems, ma shout
no findin the harpstring's voice.

Mair, a jiggin fiddle cries
Aye an hoochaye ower

islands, bens, lochs, or



the soun o silence,
oan an empty raised beach.


And this is Tom Pow - from Ex-Laundry Girl, 1943 (Dear Alice)

If ever I'd the chance to choose my place
I worked the drying green. I eased off

my boots, let my feet grow sweetly cold
on the grass. We laid out the sheets

till they sat on the air like ruffled snow.
I smelled the sharp spoor of joy


a child leaves across a vacant field -
and wept a little for my loss.


There. We're in for a treat! Hope to see you next Monday. Tickets £7/£5 from DGAA 01387 253383, from the Midsteeple, or on the door.

Very special end of season Poetry Doubles!

Poetry Doubles, Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association’s popular poetry season, will conclude on Monday 23 November at the Duncan Room, Easterbrook Hall, Crichton Campus, when it welcomes two of our most highly regarded Scottish poets for an unmissable literary event, Tom Pow and Liz Niven.

Tom Pow has had a fantastic year, winning the Poetry category in the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards 2009, in partnership with the Scottish Arts Council, for Dear Alice, and recieving a Creative Scotland Award for his Dying Villages project. His new collection of selected poems, In The Becoming, was launched in June.

Liz Niven is also an award-winning poet with an impressive track record. She'll be reading from Stravaigin and Burning Whins, and, like Tom, she is a gifted teacher who has long been respected for her contribution to the region's healthy writing culture.

This really will be a not-to-be-missed event - and do please take note, it's being held at The Duncan Room, Easterbrook Hall, Crichton Campus, on Monday 23 November at 7pm. Tickets from DGAA on 01387 253383 or from The Midsteeple.

Look out for the next blog which will contain tantalisingly wonderful lines from Liz and Tom's poetry, aimed at helping you to decide to turn out on a dark night!

Vivien Jones reads in Newcastle

Local writer Vivien Jones took part last week in a reading at the UK launch of world poetry anthology Not A Muse.
The launch took place at Gallery North in Newcastle–upon-Tyne, and involved three contributors to the anthology: Vivien Jones, Adele Geraghty from USA and Joan Hewitt from Northumbria.

"Creator, lover, freedom fighter, explorer, home maker, myth maker... As this stimulating selection of poems proves, there is no such thing as an average woman - a notion upon which we might all care to muse."
Stephen McCarty, Literary Editor, South China Morning Post

Well done Vivien!