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News

Updated February 2012

Deborah writes:

Several of my poems will be appearing soon in two Scottish publications--Gutter and Northwords Now. The new issue of Gutter will be launched on February 24 at an event in the Arches in Glasgow, as part of the Margins festival--details here. I hope to be there. The Northwords issue will appear in print and on-line in the spring.

On my recommendations page I have information about two new books which you might like-: "Cuid a' Chorra-Ghrithich" by Alasdair Caimbeul, and "No Way Back," a new translation of Unwiederbringlich by Theodor Fontane.

Previous news:

A few months ago my poem "Along the Coast" was published in "Poems of the Decade; an anthology of the Forward books of poetry 2002-2011" (Forward/Faber). This poem was originally published in the Galway poetry magazine Crannog, and subsequently in the Forward book of Poetry 2010. "Poems of the Decade," includes poems by all of the Forward Prizewinners from the decade, plus another 80 or so poems chosen by William Sieghart, founder of the Forward Poetry Prize.

There were two poems in the volume which I would say are as near to perfect as it gets. One of these is "The Snow Village" by Glyn Maxwell, which is deceptively simple and spare in language and in tone, very atmospheric, evocative--just beautiful! David Harsent's "Street Scenes" is a different sort of poem, elaborately constructed and packed with colorful imagery, technically impressive and intellectually stimulating.

I also enjoyed John Goodby's "The Uncles" and Vona Groarke's "Bodkin," two poems which delight in the richness of specific vocabularies--Goodby employing the vocabulary of engineering, Groake meditating on the meaning of a nearly obsolete word. Goodby's poem speaks to me in particular, as I live among the sort of men he describes. The pencil behind the ear, the scribbled designs on the back of envelopes, the sparkle of metal swarf on oily overalls; I'm delighted that someone has chosen to write about such things. These two poems appear on facing pages only by chance, thanks to the editor's choice of arranging the poems in the book alphabetically by authors' surnames--fortuitous, and fortunate.

Likewise, I'm not sure if it is another coincidence, or perhaps a reflection of the editor's taste, that both Allan Crosbie, in "Manifesto" and George Szirtes, in "Song," have used a similar technique of repeating phrases--with subtle variations of words or of word order--throughout their poems; the technique is used to good effect in both poems.

I also liked "Zuppa di Ceci," by Tiffany Atkinson, who manages to suggest an entire novel's worth of intrigue in a few lines of cleverly fractured imagery.

Obituaries:

In February 2011, Sandy Mollison, a friend from the Gaidhlig group in Perth, (Abair Thusa), died after a short illness. Sandy was a lovely singer, who chose to sing mostly in Gaidhlig. He competed in the Mod as an individual singer and also as a member of the Dundee choir, and I recall hearing it said of him, on Radio nan Gaidheal, that his singing was very "Gaidhealach." He was always willing and quick to provide me with words to songs from what must have been an extensive library of Gaelic texts. He was a kind and easy-going man, and I shall miss him.

In January 2006, I lost a good friend and mentor, Sandy Tulloch, or Dr. A. K. Tulloch. Sandy was a man of many talents and skills. He was a consultant eye specialist, a keen model engineer, a photographer, and a hill walker. His biggest love was traditional Scottish music, and he was probably best known for his vast knowledge of the music he loved and played so well.

Sandy was a lifelong friend of Sir Jimmy Shand, and was first described to me as the “archivist” of Shand’s work. Certainly, you could always count on Sandy to supply you with all the information you required about any tune ever recorded by Shand, and indeed Sandy had information about almost every tune ever heard in the Scottish and the Irish tradition! He had transcribed thousands of tunes and he gave out his transcriptions generously. He was equally generous with his praise and support for the many outstanding young accordion and fiddle players in Scotland. He collected and built instruments, mainly accordions, but also fiddles, and over the last few years Sandy would champion the single row melodeon--a rarity, nowadays--when playing at Letham Village Hall and elsewhere.

Sandy Tulloch will be greatly missed.