Blog

In the second-last week of August I’ll be at the Doune the Rabbit Hole festival, which this year is at sunny Cardross Estate , near Port of Menteith in Stirlingshire. The festival runs from Thursday 22 – Sunday 25, and I’m thoroughly pleased to be collaborating with long-time pals Hiva Oa on Friday night and performing solo on in the Poetry tent sometime on Saturday afternoon. Or something. It is a festival and all up in the air and / or mud.

Tickets for the full stretch are £88, and day tickets can be picked up for £30. The festival provides bus services from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth, Falkirk and Stirling, and gives loads of good, ethical travel advice.

Many thanks to Ed Stack and the Ten Tracks / Decagram crew.

As part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival’s First Book Award Nominee series, I’ll be standing in for Abdulaziz Al-Mohmoud alongside novelist Jack Wolf as we go on an adventure with pirates, mad scientists and historical fiction. Fair warning: this might not be suitable for people from the past.

Horrible Histories with Jack Wolf

Wednesday 21, 3.30-4.30pm (£7/£5)

A notorious 19th century corsair practising piracy in the Gulf; and a talented 18th century science student, madman and deviant. What is the link between Abdulaziz Al-Mahmoud’s The Corsair and Jack Wolf’s The Tale of Raw Head & Bloody Bones? Both are stunning historical novels that powerfully evoke the treachery – and the enlightenment – of their respective ages. A treat for fans of historical fiction. 

What: Horrible Histories with Jack Wolf

Where: Writers’ Retreat, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh

When: Wednesday 21 August, 3.30-4.30pm

How Much: £7 / £5 conc.

On Monday 19 August the Reel Iraq team of Scottish and Iraqi poets and artists are part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival’s Unbound series. We’re showing off some of the best work from both countries, plus some of our collaborations and translations. It’s going to be a really special night, hope to see you there.

Reel Iraq: The Golden Hour

Monday 19 August, 9-11pm (FREE)

Revel in a special evening of contemporary Iraqi culture, to mark ten years since the invasion of Iraq, with poetry, theatre and music. Featuring acclaimed Iraqi poets Sabreen Kadhim (coming direct from Baghdad) and Ghareeb Iskander, accompanied by new translations from renowned Scotland-based poets Krystelle Bamford, John Glenday, Jen Hadfield and William Letford; compelling theatre from Dina Moussawi and Iraqi Choobi dance music. This event is supported in part by Creative Scotland and LIFT Festival.

What: Reel Iraq: The Golden Hour

Where: The Guardian Spiegeltent, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh

When: Monday 19 August, 9-11pm

How Much: FREE.

In this edition of the Culture Laser we discuss the Icelandic economic crisis, international politics, multilingual poems and why lol is such a great word for sonnets with poet, novelist and translator Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl, who we caught up with at the StAnza International Poetry Festival in St Andrews. We also feature a couple of tracks from the charming The Watch Thieves.

On Friday night 16 August I’ll have the pleasure of hosting two much talked-about talented poets at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Join us for poems about love, booze and social commentary.

Hosting Luke Wright & Michael Pedersen: Poems Like Pointing Fingers

Friday 16 August, 8.30 – 9.30pm (£7/£5)

A new breed of poets is storming the spoken word scene and entertaining a generation for which Big Brother is a reality TV show as well as an Orwellian literary invention. Michael Pedersen, co-organiser of Edinburgh live poetry night Neu! Reekie! reads from Play with Me, while Essex-born Luke Wright, whose 5-star performances have wowed Fringe-goers, performs from his joyful new tome, Mondeo Man.

What: Luke Wright and Michael Pedersen at the EIBF.

Where: Baillie Gifford Corner Theatre, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh.

When: Friday 16 August, 8.30-9.30pm

How Much: £7 / £5 conc.

In January this year Reel Festivals organised a series of events and translation workshops in Erbil, Iraq with Scottish and Iraqi poets. The whole team then came back to Scotland in March, going on an huge journey in a tiny vehicle, presenting our work to the nation. In this edition of the Scottish Poetry Library Podcast all of the participants talk about their experiences and read their work. Featuring John Glenday, Jen Hadfield, Ghareeb Iskander, William Letford, Krystelle Bamford, Awezan Nouri, Sabreen Kadhim and Zaher Mousa, with support from Dina Mousawi and Lauren Pyott.

In this edition of the Culture Laser I have a chat with Ed Stack of Ten Tracks and Decagram about his project to bring collaboration to the music community in Edinburgh, Rachel Anderson of Small Feet Little Toes & Dave Wheatley are also here to tell us about their collaboration, and we get the chance to hear tracks from both of them and also the track Supersonic Speed Freak from Numbers Are Futile.

And it’s all at the click of a little sideways triangle.

In this edition of the Laser I discuss short film with three programmers from the Edinburgh International Film Festival – experimental programmer Kim Knowles, shorts programmer Lydia Beilby and animation shorts programmer Iain Gardner. We also talk with Farah Kassem, director of the short ‘My Father Looks Like Adbel Nasser’ and have the great honour of including the title track Despite The Dark from Hailey Beavis’s new EP.

It’s all behind mystery door number one:

Sarah Broom’s first collection was completed after learning she had stage-four lung cancer in 2008. At twenty-eight weeks pregnant, she was given only months to live. When I met her in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2011 she had given birth to her daughter and was bravely writing her second collection,Gleam, while submitting herself to an exhausting regime of drug trials and treatments in Auckland, Melbourne, and Boston. She was effervescent, optimistic, charming, and generous with her time. The talent on display in her first collection, Tigers at Awhitu, was dark and haunting and I was attracted to her work before understanding how much of it was made through adversity. Sadly, Sarah Broom died on April 18, 2013, five years after her initial diagnosis. Gleam will be published by Auckland University Press in August 2013. Selina Guinness says, “It is a collection written in extremis, and contains some of the most beautiful and startling poems about dying I have ever read.” Broom is survived by her husband, Michael Gleissner, and their three children, Daniel, Christopher, and Amelia, whom she lived to see go off to school.

Our conversation is published in the most recent edition of the Prairie Schooner.