Rab's 'Life Sentence' in poetry at DG One

Our new poetry season brings you none other than Rab Wilson, winner of the McCash prize for Scots poetry this year. Part of Poetry Prizewinners and their Craft, Rab will be at DG One in Dumfries on Friday 17 July. Rab's a rightly popular and entertaining performer of his own work – this will be a treat, and a chance to catch the living legacy in modern Scotland of the poetry of Robert Burns.

‘Poetry Prizewinners and their Craft’ aims to bring high quality poets to the region, and encourages audiences to enter into discussion with them, creating a rare opportunity to ask questions about sources of inspiration, drafting, form and meaning. It’s a way in for readers new to poetry, as well as regular readers and writers.

Rab Wilson’s event, which takes place at DG One at 7.30pm, will also be a launch for his new collection, ‘Life Sentence’. Tickets are available from DG One on 01387 243550.

Rab is writing some of the finest and most innovative contemporary Scottish poetry, above all because it is inspired by life, as Rab Wilson highlights in the title poem, ‘Fir life is whit we are sentenced to’.

In this new collection Rab investigates Scottish ancient legends, conflicts throughout history, and contemporary political issues; is inspired by a cultural exchange visit to Ireland; and, presents a powerful sequence containing nine sonnets entitled "Quake", based on the themes and ideas suggested to him by earthquakes. Like Burns before him, Rab writes in traditional south-west Scots, and also in standard English.

So you know where to find us

DGAA is shuffling through archive boxes and well, boxes this week, in preparation for moving to the Midsteeple in central Dumfries.

We're very excited about the opportunity to create a physical arts and culture hub for Dumfries, and look forward to welcoming you into the Midsteeple to find out what's on.

The first floor of the Midsteeple will become an exhibition space, sometimes a small performance space (could be well suited to readings!), and opens on Sat 11 July with a special Homecoming exhibition: Around the World with Robert Burns.

The Midsteeple has been made fully accessible, and will also be housing the Dumfries and Galloway Coalition of Disabled People, staffed by John Dowson and Claire Charkow.

Jen Hadfield opens Poetry Prizewinners mini season

Special poetry events in July! DGAA will be hosting a mini season 'Poetry Prizewinners and their Craft' this July, the first event being none other than Jen Hadfield, winner of this year's T S Eliot prize. Jen will be reading from 'Nigh-No-Place', her winning collection, at the Robert Burns Centre Film Theatre on Wednesday 1 July at 7.30pm. Tickets are available from the RBCFT, £5.50/£4.10 concession, tel 01387 264808.
Next up on Friday 17 July at 7.30pm will be Rab Wilson, winner of the McCash prize. Rab, a very popular reader of his own work, will be launching his new collection 'Life Sentence' in Bar DG at DG One in Dumfries.
And on Monday 27 July we welcome Douglas Dunn, one of Scotland's foremost living poets, who will be reading his work in RBCFT. A further treat for writers is that Douglas has agreed to run a Masterclass on Tuesday 28 July - do book early for what will be a lively and stimulating masterclass on the craft of poetry. If you're looking for advice on developing your own skills, here’s a chance to get some helpful feedback from one of the foremost practioners of the craft.

Please submit any poems you wish to have considered by Friday 17 July to davie@dgaa,net. Douglas will then make a selection from the submitted poems to provide feedback in the masterclass.

Book Launch at Thomas Tosh for JoAnne McKay

Penpont poet JoAnne McKay is about to launch her first poetry pamphlet, 'The Fat Plant', whose quality, if you ever doubted it (which you shouldn't have) is vouched for in an introduction by Hugh McMillan. Hugh's verdict: 'The Fat Plant is a skilful collection. The poems are taut, laced with black humour and pack a real punch'.

I have to add, I took a copy home for the weekend, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The title poem is a real barnstormer. It took me back to days living in a town clouded with the reek of a glue factory, and earlier still, to the insidious pressure of priests and nuns on childhood. These are sharp, distinctive poems. Don't miss out!

JoAnne will be reading from 'The Fat Plant' at 3pm, Thomas Tosh in Thornhill on Sunday 12 July, and there will be drinks and canapes! You are more than welcome.

You can also get hold of a copy by e-mailing JoAnne at Titusmckay@aol.com and then sending, as she puts it, a crisp fiver! Or a cheque for £5. Don't miss further entertainment at JoAnne's blog - http://titusthedog.blogspot.com/

Jen Hadfield TS Eliot Prizewinner reads in Dumfries

Something very special on Wednesday 1 July at 7.30pm!
Jen Hadfield, 'surprise' winner (but not to us!) of the T S Eliot Prize this spring, is making a special stop-off on her tour to read in Dumfries as part of DGAA's short season of Poetry Prizewinners in July. Poetry Prizewinners will also include winner of the McCash Prize this year, Rab Wilson.

Tickets available from DGAA on 01387 253383.
‘Nigh-No-Place’, her winning collection, was described by the former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion as “a revelation; jaunty, energetic, iconoclastic - even devilmay- care”. Jen's poems evoke the natural landscape through her witty and playful use of sound.

Read this short poem, and then book your ticket!

A835

In sun the moor turns harlequin and whisky sours.
The road runs down to single-track.
In rain, headlamps bloom chrysanthemum
but she sleeps on, sways
with lax complexity of bladderwrack.

Congratulations Hughs Bryden and McMillan!

The 2009 winner of the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award was indeed Postcards from the Hedge by Hugh McMillan, published in Dumfries by Roncadora Press. The winners received the Callum Macdonald Quaich at a ceremony held on Friday 29th May at the National Library of Scotland.

Well done, and very, very well deserved. I love this book.

And it's good to know you did your bit for Scotland's economy in terms of umbrella sales... (though this summer will be different).

Shugs on the Shortlist

'Postcards From The Hedge', poems by Hugh McMillan and illustrations by Hugh Bryden, published by Roncadora Press in Dumfries, has made it to the shortlist of the Callum McDonald Poetry Pamphlet Competition.

Well done the Hughs, and best of luck for Friday!

Poetry in Spring Fling

Our byre has been open this weekend for Spring Fling's first collaboration between an artist (my friend Catriona Taylor) and a poet (me).

The idea for the installation was sparked by poems I wrote after I found a love letter tucked into the stones of the byre. Catriona and I researched the lives of the bothymen, who travelled from farm to farm as itinerant, seasonal workers. These were people who left very little trace - there is little documentary evidence of who they were - often their lives were not even recorded by the census. Catriona has made an amazing installation inside our haybarn, a flickering, candlelit space, where great translucent canvases swing in space, and the lives of the bothymen are captured in a series of simple wooden boxes, lined in shreds and layers of wallpaper, etched with their graffiti. Words from my poems and from the love letter are worked into prints and even painted faintly on the battered limewashed walls of the barn.

It's been great fun (even trying to put up a gazebo in tipping rain while clearing up the preview party and bottle feeding the abandoned lamb just as the first visitors arrived - early). And it's made us clear up the garden, which probably wouldn't have happened, so thanks Spring Fling!

We've been inundated with lovely people visiting, talking and sharing ideas - thank you all!

Open Stage This Wednesday - yes this one, the 20th!

Open Stage, Dumfries' favourite open mic opportunity for poets and singer songwriters, is happening this Wednesday, 20 May, rather than the last Wednesday of the month. (This is because so much is happening at the end of May, Davie's run out of evenings!)

Don't miss a chance to hear Ron McKechnie perform his poetry, and Harry Thomson make music - doors open at 7pm as usual to book your slot, and performances start at 7.30pm. £3 on the door at the Birkhill Hotel, Dumfries.

'The Spider's Spin On It' - new book from Hugh McMillan

Prize-winning poet Hugh McMillan read from his new poetry collection ‘The Spider’s Spin On It’ at Thomas Tosh in Thornhill last Saturday. The book, his second collaboration with Dumfries artist Hugh Bryden, is published by Bryden’s own Roncadora Press and is, typically, hand stitched and beautifully illustrated.

All the poems are inspired by McMillan’s enthusiasm for Scottish History – he is a history teacher at Dumfries Academy- and are his own unique slant on some of the famous events, people and places in Scotland’s past. He tells of Robert the Bruce’s famous encounter with the spider, for instance, but from the spider’s point of view. Copies of 'The Spider's Spin On It' are available for sale in Thomas Tosh www.thomastosh.com.