*New readings coming up in Dunoon and Glasgow* - 

I'll be reading and discussing books with Vagabond Voices writers Chris Dolan, Gerry Loose and Allan Cameron at Bookpoint, Dunoon on Wednesday 20th May at 6 pm. I'll be reading from Our Real Red Selves and copies of Tree Language will be available also.

The actual launch of Our Real Red Selves will be in the CCA in Glasgow on June 4th at 7 pm which I'll be reading at alongside JL Williams and Harry Giles.

I've not been writing much lately - stuck in a bit of a rut after my Mary poems and endless family illnesses. However I have been reading lots - the mammoth Collected Ted Hughes which has been a wonderful and, well, huge read! A complete mythological  world to get lost and roam about in! Also been reading Jim Murdoch's new book of poems, Reader Please Supply Meaning, always a pleasure to read Jim's questioning and thought-provoking poems. Picked up a copy at Aye Write of Glasgow Makar Jim Carruth's verse novella, Killochries, which is beautifully written. And lastly couldn't resist getting Sujata Bhatt's latest collection, Poppies in Translation.

Very excited to be going through to Edinburgh next week to hear Pascale Petit read from Fauverie! What a privilege it was to hear Pascale read some of her Fauverie poems to a small group of us a few years ago now at Chateau Ventenac in the South of France. It seems quite a lifetime ago! I'm delighted that she's reading in Edinburgh with Scottish poet Niall Campbell and that I'll get a chance to hear her again. The event is run by The Scottish Poetry Library and will be on 21st May, 6.30pm at The Saltire Society, 9 Fountain Close, High Street, Edinburgh.

I've been on a roll of garden poems for a while now, in fact I think my garden has taken on a bizarre life and mythology of its own which I'm happy to tap into for as long as the poems last!

I've been knee-deep in reading some wonderful books recently. I had a buying splurge and bought a bunch of books I've been dying to read for ages:
Airmail: The letters of Robert Bly and Tomas Transtromer, Fauverie and Heart of a Deer by Pascale Petit, and the excitingly amazing African Folktales and Sculpture by Paul Radin.

Any Plath fan will recognise the Radin book which according to Ted Hughes had a huge influence on the poems Plath wrote at Yaddo. I've been wanting to pick up a copy of the book for ages and managed to get a second-hand ex-library copy. The book is huge and full of wonderful stories and large photos. It was exciting to come across The City Where Men Are Mended - a Hausa folktale, and see how Plath weaved the African mythology into her own personal mythology in her Poem for a Birthday.

I read Airmail very quickly, it wasn't quite as good as I was hoping it would be. Very much a friendship played out in letters and particularly good if you're interested in translation but otherwise I didn't find it to be particularly revelatory about either Bly or Transtromer's poetry.

It's so good to have Pascale Petit's new collection (with an absolutely gorgeous cover) and catch up with one of her older collections. I'm happily reading them slowly and continually and probably will be for the next while. Still also reading Roethke and Bhatt - which have become my staple reading and I don't see that changing for the foreseeable future.

So pleased to have a poem from Tree Language and a lovely wee write up in last Saturday's The Scotsman newspaper. Colin Waters from the Scottish Poetry Library contacted me last month to say that he wanted to pick a poem from the collection for the newspaper and that he wanted to arrange for me to do a podcast at the Scottish Poetry Library which I plan to go through to Edinburgh next month to do.

Colin has also taken three of my poems for an anthology of new Scottish writing he's putting together and which Liz Lochhead is writing the foreword for. I'm really pleased about it as an American professor at StAnza was bemoaning to me the lack of anthologies of new Scottish writing!

The lovely Australian poet Julie Maclean has featured a couple of poems from Tree Language on her blog here. I met Julie on Pascale Petit's wondeful poetry course in France last year and so enjoyed her poems. 

The very nice people at Transmission Magazine asked me to record a reading of one of my poems for their website which you can listen to here.

I have, I think, a solid seventeen poems towards a new collection so far. Quite different poems to the ones in Tree Language - much more expanded with the help of Vicki Feaver and Sujata Bhatt's Collected poems which have made these new poems possible. 

Currently overwhelmed in a good way by Sujata Bhatt and Jane Kenyon's poems. Both been around for some time but both new to me. I picked up Sujata Bhatt's Collected poems at StAnza and what an exciting range and life of work it is. So much sensous detail, it just explodes with life. And I absolutely love the cover painting for the book - I mean, isn't it just gorgeous?!

Vicki Feaver intoduced me to Jane Kenyon and I've been reading and re-reading what poems I can find of hers online and her quiet and exacting voice really resonates. I really loved coming across this gorgeous programme with readings and interviews with Jane Kenyon and her husband Donald Hall.