So the pre-order page for Madame Ecosse is now up on the Eyewear Publishing website here with very kind and generous blurbs for it from Vicki Feaver, Harry Giles and Jane Clarke, which I'm delighted by and very grateful for!

I've finished full-time work for now which means time in my life for some much needed Poetry - reading and writing. I feel like my subconscious is bursting with poems - just need to find the right expression for it all. I want to do something all encompassing, challenging, bigger, something I can really throw myself into, beyond what I've done before. I've carved out a study corner in the house and finally have my own laptop to be able to work on poems without interruption which is wonderful!! 

However the first priority is going through the proofs for Madame Ecosse - it goes to the printers on January 15th which is very exciting! Thankfully I'm sure I made the right choice in changing the order of poems and by scrapping the sections - it feels much more like a cohesive whole.  

After a dearth of poetry this year I'm very much looking forward to being fully immersed in poetry in 2017!

Life is so full of commitments and busyness at the moment that I'm not finding much in the way of writing time.

A couple of weeks ago I was invited into my son and daughter's primary school to introduce poetry to the children. It turned out to be a rather mad, busy but rewarding experience. I took classes from P1 right through to P7 getting them to write odes and riddles on topics such as the seashore to fruit and vegetables. The school are putting together a book including a poem from every child in the school in order to raise much needed funds for the school. Edwin Morgan's 'The Apple's Song' went down a treat as did Pam Ayers' 'Oh I Wished I Looked After Me Teeth'! I used lots of tips from this great article in Poetry from Rachel Zucker and started every class with writing a class poem.

I've just finished reading Jonathan Bates' biography of Ted Hughes and have moved onto Coleridge: Early Visions by Richard Holmes. According to Bates it's the last book Hughes read / was in the middle of reading when he died. It's beautifully written - really makes Coleridge come to life, cleverly weaving Coleridge's own words throughout it. I'm so enjoying going back to the Romantics. I'm also reading through the Child Ballads, I have an idea of writing my own version of some of them as a bit of a long term project - just need time and peace to get on with it!

I'm pleased that the fabulous Irish poet, Jane Clarke, whose beautifully written first collection, River, did extraordinarily well when it came out last year has written me a very generous blurb for Madame Ecosse. Vicki Feaver has also generously agreed to write one for me. It's such a kindness when poets you respect so highly agree to write a blurb for you!!

I'm excited that I'll be launching Madame Ecosse in October in Glasgow as part of Jim Carruth's Mirrorball reading series and also in Edinburgh at the Scottish Poetry Library at an Eyewear event along with other Eyewear poets.