My short reflective essay on last year's visit to Culloden is in the new Northwords Now and can be read here. It's my first tentative step into non-poetry writing and was a pleasure to write - a descriptive piece closely related to writing poems but communicating something that I couldn't get across in a poem.
I think I'll be writing more pieces like this alongside my poems - in fact I've already begun another
about my visit to the Mary Stuart's chambers in Holyrood Palace last week - an immensely moving place to visit (the chambers specifically, not the palace!). I wish I could have shut out all the other tourists and had the rooms to myself for a while.

So Madame Ecosse is forthcoming February '17 - last week I reordered the entire collection. Originally it was going to be in three sections but the selecting of poems for the first two sections seemed arbitrary with a number of poems, so then I put the collection into two sections - Garden Songs and The Birth Files - but even these sections niggled away at me.
I noticed with Tree Language (which was in three sections) that reviewers would quite happily ignore an entire section in reviewing the book. I guess I wouldn't like The Birth Files poems to be ignored - they are on a tricky subject after all - and I'm suspicious that relegating them to a section at the end of the book would cause them to be easily ignored.
I'm not entirely sure the new order is the finalised deal - I'll need a couple of weeks before I can objectively look at it again.

Like everything else - no readings for ages then they all come at once!
I'll be reading alongside J.O. Morgan, Vicki Husband and Em Strang at -

St Mungo's Mirrorball Showcase 5
Thursday 27th October
CCA Clubroom, Glasgow, 7pm

I'll also be reading at the third Dunoon Book Festival alongside Tariq Latif -

30th October 12.30 pm
Dunoon's Victorian Pier Building

I recently ordered The Literary Impact of The Golden Bough by John B. Vickery - a second-hand ex-uni library book that has clearly never been opened. It looks specifically at the influence of The Golden Bough on Yeats, T.S. Eliot and Lawrence. I can't wait until January when I can really get into my study of The Golden Bough and work out what kind of poem(s) I'm going to feed it all into.

Eyewear Publishing National Poetry Day Event!

Thursday 6th October is National Poetry Day

I'll be reading at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh from my forthcoming collection, Madame Ecosse, alongside Eyewear poets Paul Deaton, Terese Svoboda, and believe it or not, George Elliott Clarke - the Poet Laureate of Canada!!






Here are more details about the reading from the Scottish Poetry Library website -

National Poetry Day event: Eyewear Publishing

Since 2012, Eyewear Publishing has been discovering and publishing interesting new poets from across the UK and overseas. Join us in welcoming four of their freshest voices, including Scotland’s own Marion McCready, one of the country’s fiercest and most original voices; George Elliott Clarke, Canada’s Poet Laureate; Paul Deaton, whose poems have appeared in The Spectator and PN Review; and Terese Svoboda, American poet, novelist, librettist and translator.

Date

6 October 2016 - 6:00pm - 7:30pm

Location

Scottish Poetry Library

Price

£7 (£5)

How to book

Buy a ticket in person at the SPL or via Eventbrite.

Contact for further details

Email or call the SPL on 0131-557-2876.

Working full-time with two kids doesn't leave much room for writing poetry which is why I've not been updating much. However I hope to be cutting down to part-time work in January which will be much better.

I've been glad to have the break away from writing - I wrote so much last year that it drained my inner resources so it's been good to let them build up again.

Today has been a rare day off without kids around and I have notes towards a four or five poem sequence based on Child Ballad 216 - an old Scottish ballad about a pair of lovers who drown in the Clyde. 

Here is folk singer, Kate Rusby, singing a version of the ballad -

A prose piece I wrote about visiting Culloden last year will be published in the next issue of Northwords Now - it's my first non-poetry publication!!

Instead of this October, Madame Ecosse will now be published Spring 2017 - this suits me much better, feels like less of a rush to get it out and will give me plenty of time for editing and proofreading.

I have a few readings lined up - As part of a National Poetry Day event I will be reading at the Scottish Poetry Library October 6th alongside fellow Eyewear Publishing poets Paul Deaton, Terese Svoboda, and Canadian Poet Laureate - George Elliott Clarke!! See here for more details.
I will also be reading at a Mirrorball event in Glasgow CCA on October 27th.

Reading opportunity at The Fringe!

Anyone living near Edinburgh and looking for an opportunity to read their poems: - The Captain's Bar, snuggled between Old College and Bristo Square, is running a daily spoken word event from now until 21st August, check out the webpage here.

I'm pleased to be reading at the Callander Poetry Weekend which runs from Friday 3rd to Sunday 5th of September. It's a yearly festival hosted and organised by Sally Evans, editor of Poetry Scotland. Packed with poetry readings, book launch parties and interesting events such as book collating, sewing and bookbinding demonstrations, a talk on Byron in Albania by Morelle Smith and a presentation of Red Squirrel Press poets. Sounds like it's going to be a great weekend! Checkout the link to Sally's website from Poetry Scotland for more info.

So the night has come and gone and it feels good to have conquered my first proper poetry reading!
I was sick all day Saturday and really thought I might not make it through to Edinburgh after all my preparation and planning  but thankfully I stopped throwing up by Sunday morning.

I was first up to read which meant I could relax and enjoy all of the other readings. All that practice of reading my poems to the kitchen walls paid off. Once I started the nerves disappeared, I looked out over everybody's heads and read my poems as if I was in my own wee house. I actually really enjoyed it!!

Phillis Levin is a lovely, dainty woman, she and her husband had been staying at St. Andrew's and they kindly said that they enjoyed my St. Andrew's poems. Jon Stone and Kirsten Irving were up from London and they both read very well, plus there was David Kinloch, a very tall and prominant Scottish poet. It was a great variety of readings and lovely just to be there and get a chance to meet and chat to folk. Everyone was very friendly, especially the other poets which was nice because I was slightly afraid of them at first!! I came away with signed copies of Levin's latest collection May Day, Kinloch's Un-Tour-dEcosse and Stone's recently published Happenstance pamphlet Scarecrows. I also won a book of selected poems of Blake Morrison in the raffle! So plenty of reading to enjoy.

That's my poem and a short bio up at the Poetry At The... blog for the poetry reading next week, can't quite believe we're into June already!
I'm really looking forward to hearing Phillis Levin, I very much like what I've read of her work on-line and she's a wonderful reader of her poems (you can hear her read some of her poems here). Also reading will be David Kinloch who lectures in Creative Writing at Strathclyde uni, and Jon Stone and Kirsten Irving who are both editors of Fuselit magazine. So feeling a little nervous about reading in such good company!
I've read quite a few tips on-line on preparing for readings but I'd like to know your number one tip that you always keep in mind when doing a reading or what especially bugs you about poetry readings.

It'll also be nice just getting to Edinburgh for a change. Might get a chance to pop into the Scottish Poetry Library or a wander around the National Galleries. There's no chance of getting home because of the ferries which means a whole night in Edinburgh, child-free!!