2016-03-19 18:53
I really love this poem, 'When Someone Goes Away, Everything That's Been Done Comes Back' by Macedonian poet, Nikola Madzirov (translated by Peggy & Graham Reid, Magdalena Horvat and Ada… Read More
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2016-03-19 18:53
I have read four books, all completely different from one another and all brilliant in their own way. I will try to write more soon about Jen Hadfield’s Byssus (Picador), Tishani Doshi… Read More
2016-03-19 18:53
What came through my letterbox yesterday? A selection of leaflets advertising carry-out pizzas and other foods, two envelopes containing junk mail, a package with a book inside sent by a pub… Read More
2016-03-19 18:53
The last year hasn’t exactly been the most productive for me in terms of writing new poems. I have tried and mostly failed, with a few exceptions, but since the StAnza International Po… Read More
2014-12-09 12:00
As ever with this annual blog feature, these are collections I read or finished in 2014, but were not necessarily published this year.Gottfried Benn – Impromptus (Faber, 2014): transl… Read More
2014-09-19 09:49
So that’s a No vote in the referendum and I hear people from both sides of the debate already looking to the future, a future in which the Scottish Parliament is to be given greater po… Read More
2014-09-15 11:46
1. We are asked whether we want to be an independent country. Someone from the Conservative Party says we’d be better with the UK’s “safety net”. He likes being safe… Read More
2014-08-14 13:21
Friday 15 August, The Fruitmarket Gallery, 45 Market St, Edinburgh: you can hear six poets for the price of only £5, and it's a great line-up:Simon BarracloughIsobel DixonA.B. Jackson… Read More
2014-04-10 08:09
Fleeting tails in a corner of emptinessjust leaving the frame,the photographer filming swallowshas to learn to love failure, how the almost having of the thingis true in itself.Gabeba Badero… Read More
2014-04-08 17:33
The Hidden Door Festival took place over nine days in Edinburgh from 28 March–5 April 2014. HD had hired 23 of the city’s disused vaults and transformed them into art showrooms… Read More
2014-03-15 18:07
I went to the StAnza International Poetry Festival for the first time in 2006, commuting for a day or two and knowing hardly anyone there, but I enjoyed it and have been back every year sinc… Read More
2013-12-19 16:14
There are, of course, many books I have not yet had a chance to read this year, some of which might have sneaked into this Top 10 list e.g. recent collections from Alexander Hutchison and Au… Read More
2013-11-27 11:27
There have been moments when I’ve stopped doing readings, more or less, and even stopped attending them (with occasional exceptions made), mainly so there’s no danger of me writi… Read More
2013-11-20 15:51
While many poets seem to have got their knickers in an unsavoury twist over royal shindig invitations, I (good republican that I am) have been thinking about Robert Lowell. More specifically… Read More
2013-10-24 13:07
Seeing as I am in a mood for list-making, and seeing that I have been reading (and have now almost finished) Morrissey’s Autobiography, which I’ve found both brilliant and awful… Read More
2013-10-15 12:19
I recently read an article on Edinburgh’s live poetry scene – not the best informed of articles, as it managed to omit two of the best regular events entirely. I’m going to… Read More
2013-08-14 12:25
Jonathan Mills, director of the Edinburgh International Festival, has said that the festival next year will not feature events concerned with the Scottish referendum on independence, so as t… Read More
2013-07-08 21:01
There are moments in a poet’s life - few and usually far between - that begin to take on a surreal quality, when a poem you wrote seems to grow legs independently of you and gallops of… Read More
2013-07-05 12:09
I now can't find the link to this, but the judges of this year's Forward Poetry prizes have said that there will be 'surprises'. This is good news - if it comes to pass. There are always a f… Read More
2013-06-20 09:51
I wasn’t looking forward to listening to Never Let Me Down. Bowie himself said it was the worst album he’d ever made and that opinion seems to be shared by many fans and critics… Read More
2013-06-15 12:17
‘...a biblical saying never set down: “Come unto me, for I am as full of contradictions as you.”’ (Tomas Transtromer, ‘Below Freezing’)‘Many worksho… Read More
2013-06-14 10:00
I was listening to David Bowie’s classic seventies material, which contains arguably the best songwriting and most influential body of work in rock music history, and I realised I hadn… Read More
2013-01-22 13:58
What a grim day yesterday was! Blue Monday, apparently, and it lived up to its name here with a dark sky and periodic blizzards, which ‘got’ me more or less every time I was caug… Read More
2013-01-16 22:31
I’ve been tagged by poet and Magma secretary Jennifer Wongto give this interview for an expanding blog project called The Next Big Thing. You can read her interview here. The idea is t… Read More
2013-01-15 23:56
Plagiarism is wrong, I’m in no doubt about that. It is intellectual and (sometimes) emotional theft. It is wrong, but it is not anything like as wrong as, say, murder, rape, or even th… Read More
2013-01-15 13:41
Poetry prizes? Plagiarism? Verses off-by-heart in schools? I have missed out
on all the contemporary hot literary topics, but I do have something to say about this
rather shocking article… Read More
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