Poetry

Anonymous sculptor leaves literary artworks around Edinburgh

11 sculptures made from the pages of books have been discovered

10 Feb 2012

On a quiet day last March, the Scottish Poetry Library received an unexpected gift; a tree, fashioned from words and paper, blossoming from the yellowing book it rested upon. Throughout 2011, ten intricate sculptures appeared at creative organisations…

Scotland The Great - Nine Inch Will Please a Lady

22 Jan 2009

The Burnsian band I am in, with Malcolm Ross and my brother Russel, The Bum-Clocks, has a version of ‘Nine Inch’, a witty ditty in celebration of quantity. We usually locate it in our mash-up of the poetry of Burns and Iggy Pop which kicks off with ‘A…

Glasgow Subway Festival

10 Apr 2008

The weather might, finally, be on the upswing, but underground at the Clockwork Orange they’re praying for rain. The first ever Glasgow Subway festival is set to launch on Thursday 10 April, with a packed out programme of events, underground in the…

With Burns Night looming, we ask what makes Rabbie relevant today

Author Allan Wilson and academic Gerard Carruthers on Bard's legacy

6 Jan 2012

The Academic: Gerard Caruthers Notoriously, Jeremy Paxman claimed that Robert Burns was a writer of doggerel. The Scottish poet may have written the odd bad line or even bad poem, but, at his best, he was a producer of great poetry and arguably his…

Robin Robertson

Poet with an impressive range talks about his newest batch

17 Aug 2010

Though widely known as one of British publishing’s finest editors, Robin Robertson is also a highly acclaimed poet. Since his 1997 debut collection A Painted Field, he has been the recipient of numerous prizes, both for books and individual poems. Most…

Owen Sheers

Covering the poetic landscape of Britain

12 Aug 2010

One of those infuriating people whose expansive CV (poet, novelist, playwright, actor, television presenter) is matched only by their down to earth charm, Wales’ Owen Sheers will be presenting two very different projects at the Book Festival. The first…

StAnza 2010 - An evening with Seamus Heaney

22 Mar 2010

Tickets for the highlight event of this years St Andrews poetry festival - StAnza - had been sold out for weeks, for Heaney has struck a populist chord with that minority group – poetry lovers. Ever since his first major collection in 1966 The Death of…

Murray Lachlan Young

23 Aug 2007

When only one person in his audience (a polite reviewer) applauds a less than blazing entrance, Murray Lachlan Young positions himself somewhere between crestfallen and carefree. It’s a decade since he was propelled into mini-celebrity status for just…

John Burnside wins 2011 TS Eliot Prize poetry prize

Scottish poet wins second high-profile literary prize in four months

17 Jan 2012

Scottish poet John Burnside has been named the winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize poetry prize just four months after being awarded the Forward prize for poetry. His 12th collection, Black Cat Bone, was announced as the winner of the £15,000 prize on…

Michael Jackson project based on poems of Robert Burns

Recordings of co-written songs may emerge, says producer David Gest

16 Jan 2012

The Robert Burns' Birthplace Museum is in talks about receiving a copy of songs co-written with Michael Jackson that are based on Burns' poems. Music producer David Gest visited the museum in Ayrshire in December as part of a programme being filmed…

Luke Wright's Cynical Ballads

Wonderful slices of fractured Britain

8 Aug 2011

As part of ‘poetry boyband’ Aisle 16, Luke Wright helped to bring spoken verse to a new generation. In his previous solo shows, he has had a dig at Andrew Motion for having the temerity to be Poet Laureate when clearly Luke was the right man for the job…

Wendy Cope: Family Values

Pleasant but unchallenging poetry collection

24 Mar 2011

(Faber) For anyone new to Wendy Cope’s work, the opening gambit of ‘A Christmas Song’ may have you reeling. Its verse rattles along merrily with an almost painful naivety, leading you to wonder if this is a chronology featuring everything she’s ever…

Liz Lochhead announced as Scots Makar, succeeding Edwin Morgan

Poet, author, playwright appointed to role of Scotland's national poet

21 Jan 2011

Poet and playwright Liz Lochhead has been announced as Scotland's national poet on Wednesday. She succeeds Edwin Morgan, who died in August 2010 aged 90 and who held the title of Makar since it's creation in 2004. Lochhead, First Minister Alex Salmond…

John Cooper Clarke back with new material for Festival

Deadpan northerner sharper than ever for Edinburgh Fringe run

16 Jul 2010

Just a few years shy of pensionable age, deadpan northerner John Cooper Clarke shows very little sign of slowing up. Neil Cooper talks to the Salford legend about keeping poetry alive

Home truths

From fish factory worker to TS Eliot Prize-winning poet, Jen Hadfield talks to Kirstin Innes

6 Aug 2009

It’s been a strange old year for poetry. Although the highs of Carol Ann Duffy’s appointment as the first female Poet Laureate and the unpleasantness of Ruth Padel and Derek Walcott’s fight for the Oxford Professor of Poetry position have almost…

Robert Burns: Rampant Robbie

1 Dec 2008

Seducer, sex machine, womaniser, charmer, bragger and a bit of a bastard. Scotland’s national poet, Rabbie Burns, was a loose-limbed man with one hell of a sex drive. His love life reads like something from a daytime TV show. There are illegitimate…

Collection of writer George Mackay Brown donated to Orkney library

Papers, drafts and notebooks from poet and author to be catalogued

17 Jan 2012

A private collection work from Scottish author George Mackay Brown, has been permanently loaned to the Orkney Library and Archive. Coming from the home of the writer's former literary executive, Archie Bevan, in Stromness, the first instalment of around…

Simon Armitage - The Death of King Arthur

The Yorkshire poet follows his Gawain translation with another medieval epic

12 Dec 2011

(Faber) In 2006 Simon Armitage embarked upon the commissioned task of translating Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for a modern audience. Encountering some resistance from the ‘lady on the desk’ at the British Library when he requested a peek at the…

Don Paterson, OBE and bard of Dundee - profile

The Scottish poet is the subject of three different events this month

15 Nov 2011

In a 2009 interview, Don Paterson insisted that the overriding characteristics of his work were ‘stupidity, incompetence and meanness of spirit’. A large handful of sodium chloride can be taken with that statement, as the bard of Dundee is clearly being…

Edinburgh International Book Fest 2011: 5 poetry picks

Featuring Michael Longley, Robin Robertson, Czeslaw Milosz, Wendy Cope and John Burnside

17 Aug 2011

Michael Longley One of the most decorated verse-conjurors at this year’s festival, the Belfast-born writer has the TS Eliot Poetry Prize, a Whitbread and the Hawthornden Prize under his belt as well as being the proud recipient of the 2001 Queen’s…

Norman McBeath & Robert Crawford: Body Bags / Simonides

Mournful collaboration between photographer and poet

11 Aug 2011

Scots translations of epitaphs by the ancient Greek poet Simonides, coupled with black and white photographs, adorn the high-rising walls of two lofty Edinburgh College of Art studios. Joined by tall vases of white lilies, classical casts from the…

Robert Burns: Not In My Name reclaims Scottish bard from tourism

Kevin Williamson on Burns' radical poetry to Edinburgh Festival 2011

27 Jul 2011

So, you think you know Robert Burns, eh? Tartan-edged poetry for shortbread tins and corporate haggis suppers? Well, Kevin Williamson, founder of 90s publishing punks Rebel Inc (Children of Albion Rovers) has decided to change your mind. His new…

Poetry

A deeply moving portrayal of an elderly woman's struggles in rural South Korea

21 Jul 2011

(12A) 139min The quest to write a single poem becomes a heroic act in Poetry, a poignant, intricately plotted melodrama from Secret Sunshine director Lee Chang-dong. Poetry won the Best Screenplay at Cannes but it is the central performance from…

The Poetry Takeaway in residence at 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Made-to-order poems and rotating cast of the UK’s best performance poets

20 Jul 2011

The Poetry Takeaway is the world’s first purpose-built mobile poetry emporium. Housed in a real fast food trailer (bought off eBay), it’s staffed by a rotating cast of the UK’s best performance poets and specialises in the production of free…

StAnza 2011 - Kevin Young and Gawain Douglas

International poetry guests and a reading of a 20th century classic

7 Apr 2011

One of the international visitors to the 14th edition of the Stanza Poetry festival in St Andrews was Kevin Young, hailing from Georgia, US. His five published collections often take history and blues music as themes, but for this appearance he read…