As Shore Poets moves towards celebrating its 30^th anniversary in October 2021 – with a post-Covid relaunch – our joy is tinged with sadness as we come to terms with the death of Brian Johnstone who, with Roz Brackenbury, founded Shore Poets in October 1991. The inaugural event was held on the 6^th October in the Shore Gallery at Leith, and the name has stuck despite the fact that we have occupied many different venues over the intervening years. 

Brian remained a driving force behind the group for many years, active in recruiting like-minded poets willing to help.  Some of us who joined in 1992-3 are still involved!   He was instrumental in shaping events, suggesting headline poets to invite, finding sources of funding and coming up with novel ideas. He was also keen on having a café-bar atmosphere with music and conviviality. 

Under his chairmanship we also ventured furth of Edinburgh: to the Pittenweem Arts Festival, to Tulloch castle in Dingwall, the Clutha Vaults in Glasgow and the New Bazaar in Dumfries.   In those days we also managed to host readings at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Edinburgh International Book Festival. We produced anthologies and commissioned Iain Crichton Smith to write a special poem to mark the 250^th anniversary of the Jacobite Rebellion. Brian didn’t stand still.

Several years later he was instrumental in the launch of Stanza Poetry Festival and, as its Director from 2000, shepherded it as it developed into the successful international festival it is today. Although at this time he stepped back from Shore Poets, knowing that he was leaving behind a sound organisation, he remained a committed Honorary member. 

We owe Brian a huge debt of gratitude for his imagination, flair and skills of organisation. We will all miss his warmth and enthusiasm. Jean tirelessly supported all Brian’s endeavours, and out thoughts and love are with her.

There have been several fine obituaries, including this one from the Scottish Poetry Library:

In light of the coronavirus outbreak, we have decided to cancel this month’s Shore Poets. We hope to meet again in the near future and will keep you posted about our plans.

This month we’re delighted to welcome A C Clarke to Short Poets, along with Rex Sweeny and Joanne Bell. Please join us for our enlivening mix of poetry and music, which this month will be provided by Edinburgh-based trio Kleyne Klezmer.

Wednesday 26^th February 2020

7pm (doors open 6.30pm)
Canons’ Gait cellar bar, 232 Canongate, Edinburgh, EH8 8DQ

Admission: £5 (concessions £3)

MAIN POET: A C CLARKE

A C Clarke lives in Glasgow. Her fifth collection, A Troubling Woman (Oversteps Books), came out in 2017. She was a winner in the Cinnamon Press 2017 pamphlet competition with War Baby (published 2018). Drochaid, a series of poems in Gaelic, Scots and English with Maggie Rabatski and Sheila Templeton was published by Tapsalteerie in December last year. Poems from her third collection, Fr Meslier’s Confession (Oversteps Books), have been set to music by poet and musician Catherine Eunson and will be performed in Glasgow in May of this year. She is currently working on a series of poems about Gala Éluard/Dalí and her circle. The first set of these is due to be published as a pamphlet by Tapsalteerie in 2021.

SHORE POET: ANGELA MCSEVENEY

Angela McSeveney is Shore Poets’ treasurer. She lives in Edinburgh and works very part-time as a Care Assistant. Most recently she had two pamphlets published by Mariscat Press: Slaughtering Beetroot and Still Bristling.

RETURNER POET: REX SWEENY

Rex Sweeny arrived in Scotland in 1989 via Sussex and Oxford. He has been a civil servant, barman, theatrical script-reader, kitchen porter and resident secretary to a theology professor, among other attempts to deny his basic unemployability. More recently he tried to impose order on an estimated twenty thousand second-hand books in a cavernous charity shop in Musselburgh. His work has appeared in Poets’ Republic, The One O’Clock Gun, Torn Pages and the 2013 anthology New T@les from the Old Town. For the past five years, he has organised and hosted Leith Festival’s annual CultFusion poetry event.

NEW POET: JOANNE BELL

Joanne Bell is writer, spoken word artist and teacher who has performed poetry at Bowery Poetry Club in New York, That’s What She Said at the Edinburgh Fringe and had her work filmed for the BBC. Her prose was selected for the Edinburgh International Book Festival’s emerging writer programme ‘Story Shop’ and has been included in literary magazines including Northwords Now, Salomé and Luminous, Defiant, an anthology by Listen Softly Press. She lives in Edinburgh with her dog Hope.

MUSICIANS: KLEYNE KLEZMER

Kleyne Klezmer is an Edinburgh-based trio: Andrew Gardiner (clarinet), Jan Waterfield (accordion) and Simon Carlyle (tuba).  They have been playing together for several years, appearing as far south as Lancaster and as far north as it is possible to go on the Scottish mainland – Brough in Caithness.

Klezmer music has its oldest roots in the ancient modes of the synagogues. These motifs were expanded and blended with surrounding musical cultures by the Jews living in Eastern Europe; the result is an intriguing synthesis of eastern and western harmonies, traditions, instruments and moods. The music can be reflective or invigorating, happy or sad – often all at the same time.

After several decades of neglect, there has been a revival of interest, initially among the American diaspora and focused on its musical heritage.  We base our improvisatory approach to the music rather more on recordings and transcriptions from the pre-first World War Eastern European tradition.

WILDCARD SPOT AND THE LEMON CAKE RAFFLE

We will have a wildcard spot this month. Please mention to the person selling tickets that you’d like to put your name in the hat (ideally we will ask you, but sometimes we forget to ask and then we feel sad once we remember our omission). Bring a poem to read in case you’re chosen! You’ll have three minutes (this includes any preamble or introduction – it’s a good idea to time yourself in advance to make sure you’re within the time limits).

The lemon cake raffle provides us with much-needed funds, so we very much appreciate your support. And it is a most excellent lemon cake. (Occasionally, we also have poetry books in the raffle, and are very grateful to the donors thereof.)

Useful information:

If you would like to be notified of our monthly events, please follow this blog, by clicking the follow button in the corner.

You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Happy new year! Welcome in the new decade with us at a just-past-Burns-night celebration of Scottish poetry and music at the Canon’s Gait.

Wednesday 29^th January 2020
7pm (doors open 6.30pm)
Canons’ Gait cellar bar, 232 Canongate, Edinburgh, EH8 8DQ

Admission: £5 (concessions £3)

MAIN POET: J O Morgan

J O Morgan lives in Scotland and writes poetry in the epic tradition, each poem being a single book-length work. His most recent, Assurances, about the early years of the cold war, won the Costa Poetry Award. His forthcoming work, The Martian’s Regress, is underpinned ‎by aspects of ecology and migration, as well as the long-term future of the human race.

SHORE POET: HAMISH WHYTE

Hamish Whyte was born near Glasgow where he lived before moving to Edinburgh in 2004. He has edited many anthologies of Scottish literature, including Noise and Smoky Breath: an illustrated anthology of Glasgow poems 1900-1983, An Arran Anthology, and Kin: Scottish Poems about Family, and co-edited several issues of New Writing Scotland. Scottish Cats: an anthology of poems was published by Birlinn in 2013.

Hamish runs Mariscat Press, publishing the poetry of Edwin Morgan, Gael Turnbull, Janice Galloway, Stewart Conn, Douglas Dunn, Angela McSeveney, Anna Crowe, James McGonigal, Ian McDonough, Christine De Luca, Jim Carruth and A.L. Kennedy, among others.

He’s also an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow and plays percussion in the band The Whole Shebang. In 2007 he was a joint Robert Louis Stevenson Fellow with Diana Hendry. His third collection of poems with Shoestring Press, Things We Never Knew, was published in 2016. A pamphlet, Now the Robin, was published by HappenStance in 2018. Current projects include a memoir of Edwin Morgan, Morgan and Me (forthcoming from Happenstance later this year) and a new selection of Morgan’s poems for Polygon (out in August).

RETURNER POET: RUTH AYLETT

Ruth Aylett teaches and researches computing in Edinburgh. She is widely published, including a jointly authored pamphlet, Handfast with Mothers’ Milk in 2016. Her work has appeared in a range of magazines – for example, Prole, The North, Agenda, Envoi – and anthologies, most recently Scotia Extremis (Luath), Umbrellas of Edinburgh, and Silent Fire – Poetry about the Moon (Frogmore). She occasionally performs poetry with a robot and you can read more about her work at http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~ruth/writing.html.

NEW POET: LOUISE PETERKIN

Louise Peterkin is a poet living and working in Edinburgh. In 2016 she was a recipient of a New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust in the poetry category. She is the co-editor along with Rob A. Mackenzie of Spark: Poetry and Art Inspired by the Novels of Muriel Spark (Blue Diode Press, 2018) Her first collection of poetry, The Night Jar, will be published by Salt early-mid 2020.

MUSICIANS: GRAHAM WALKER (Saxophone) & EWAN HASTIE (bass)

Graham Walker studied Jazz at the Guildhall of Music in London and subsequently played with numerous musicians on the London scene, including a week at Ronnie Scotts in the Guildhall Big Band plus Randy Brecker. Graham lived in Belgium and played with many established musicians including Joe Higham, Ron van Rossum, Eric Fusillier, Michael Blass, Garif Telzhanov. For his last appearance at Shore Poets, Graham presented a solo concert on tenor saxophone.

Tonight he will be joined by left-handed bassist, Ewan Hastie. Ewan hails from Kirkcaldy where he played with the Fife Youth Jazz Orchestra under Richard Michael. He attended the Junior Conservatoire in Glasgow for two years and is currently a full-time student at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. He has played with The National Youth Jazz Orchestra where he has accompanied Yazz Ahmed, Gordon McNeil, Malcolm MacFarlane, Tom Gordon, Mario Caribe and Richard Ingham. Ewan also plays in the Inverkeithing Community Big Band, where he met Graham.

WILDCARD SPOT AND THE LEMON CAKE RAFFLE

We will have a wildcard spot this month. Please mention to the person selling tickets that you’d like to put your name in the hat (ideally we will ask you, but sometimes we forget to ask and then we feel sad once we remember our omission). Bring a poem to read in case you’re chosen! You’ll have three minutes (this includes any preamble or introduction – it’s a good idea to time yourself in advance to make sure you’re within the time limits).

The lemon cake raffle provides us with much-needed funds, so we very much appreciate your support. And it is a most excellent lemon cake. (Occasionally, we also have poetry books in the raffle, and are very grateful to the donors thereof.)

Useful information:

If you would like to be notified of our monthly events, please follow this blog, by clicking the follow button in the corner.

You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Against the backdrop of the backstop, Brexit and Boris, celebrate or commiserate the eve of our departure from the European Union with an eclectic union of diverse talents so good we’re sure you’ll choose to remain with us for the evening.

Wednesday 30th October 2019
7pm (doors open 6.30pm)
Canons’ Gait cellar bar 232 Canongate, Edinburgh, EH8 8DQ

Admission: £5 (concessions £3)

MAIN POET: PATRICIA ACE

Patricia Ace is the author of the poetry collections First Blood and Fabulous Beast. Since 1993 her poems have been published widely in a great number of magazines and anthologies and have found success in many international poetry competitions, including being long-listed in the National Poetry Competition three times. This year she published In Defiance of Short Days, and a new collection, The Lido at Night, will be published by Red Squirrel Press in 2020. She has been teaching yoga for 18 years and is currently training to be a yoga therapist. She lives in rural Perthshire with her husband.

SHORE POET: IAN MCDONOUGH

Ian McDonough was brought up on the East Coast of Sutherland in the North of Scotland. He has published four poetry collections, most recently A Witch Among The Gooseberries (Mariscat 2014). His work has appeared widely, including Poetry Review, Acumen, Times Educational Supplement, Physics Review, New Writing Scotland and The Scotsman. When not writing he works in Edinburgh as a mediator and conflict trainer.

NEW POETS:

KATIE AILES

Katie Ailes is a researcher, artist, and producer focusing on performance-based poetry. She is currently completing her PhD at the University of Strathclyde on authenticity in contemporary UK spoken word. She organises events, performs, and tours with Scottish company I Am Loud Productions (Loud Poets). Her poem “Outwith” was chosen as one of the Scottish Poetry Library’s Best Scottish Poems of 2016.

RACHEL RANKIN

Rachel Rankin is a poet from Coatbridge, currently based in Edinburgh. Her writing has appeared in Gutter, The Scotsman, The Scottish Review of Books and Multiverse: An International Anthology of Science Fiction Poetry, among others. In 2019, Rachel was the recipient of a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award. She completed and MSc in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh, from which she graduated with Distinction in 2018, and in 2017 she received a Dewar Arts Award and was shortlisted for the Jane Martin Poetry Prize. As well as being a poet, she also works as a Norwegian to English literary translator and has taught Norwegian language and literature at the University of Edinburgh.

MUSICIANS: THEPUREGALLUS

Pop star for the surrealists, denizen of the absurd, thepuregallus brings seedy slices of oddness to life on his debut album Did Ye Aye? – from stolen babies on a sunbed to the Second Coming at Ayr beach, as well as that bloke who hangs around the edge of the pool but never swims. Once described as David Byrne, played by Harry Dean Stanton, directed by David Lynch, thepuregallus marries synth pop, Vegas lounge and reggae bass to weirdly charming and darkly humorous wordery.

WILDCARD SPOT AND THE LEMON CAKE RAFFLE

We should have a wildcard spot this month. Please mention to the person selling tickets that you’d like to put your name in the hat (ideally we will ask you, but sometimes we forget to ask and then we feel sad once we remember our omission). Bring a poem to read in case you’re chosen! You’ll have three minutes (this includes any preamble or introduction – it’s a good idea to time yourself in advance to make sure you’re within the time limits).

The lemon cake raffle provides us with much-needed funds, so we very much appreciate your support. And it is a most excellent lemon cake. (Occasionally, we also have poetry books in the raffle, and are very grateful to the donors thereof.)

Shore Poets is back for a new season, at our new, central location – the Canons’ Gait cellar bar on the Canongate.  We have even more poetry for you this season – each event will feature four poets, instead of three. We’re delighted to begin our 2019-20 season with a reading from Shore Poet’s Honorary President, Stewart Conn, alongside Shore Poet Jane McKie and two new poets, Max Scratchmann and Jane Bonnyman.

Join us at –

Wednesday 25th September 2019
7pm (doors open 6.30pm)
Canons’ Gait cellar bar 232 Canongate, Edinburgh, EH8 8DQ

Admission: £5 (concessions £3)

MAIN POET: STEWART CONN

Stewart Conn has for many years lived in Edinburgh whose inaugural makar he was from 2002 to 2005.  The city has played an increasingly dominant albeit ambivalent role in his poetry and his affections – one enriching aspect of which has been his warm association with individual members of Shore Poets, whose Honorary President he is.

Publications include The Luncheon of the Boating Party, The Breakfast Room and a new and selected volume The Touch of Time, all Bloodaxe Books, and from Mariscat The Loving-Cup, Estuary and Against the Light. Aspects of Edinburgh, a selection of his poems with drawings of the city by John Knight, was recently published by the Scotland Street Press.  He can be heard reading from his work on The Poetry Archive.

SHORE POET: JANE MCKIE

Jane McKie’s collections of poetry are Morocco Rococo (Cinnamon Press, 2007), When the Sun Turns Green (Polygon, 2009), and Kitsune (Cinnamon Press, 2015). In 2011 she won the Edwin Morgan poetry prize and published a pamphlet, Garden of Bedsteads, with Mariscat Press, a PBS Choice. Her most recent pamphlet is From the Wonder Book of Would You Believe It? (Mariscat Press, 2016). She has an academic background in Psychology, Anthropology, Philosophy and Literature, and is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh and an Advisor to the Edwin Morgan Trust.

NEW POETS:

JANE BONNYMAN

Jane Bonnyman is from Edinburgh and was a Clydebuilt 7 mentee. Her first pamphlet, entitled ‘An Ember from the Fire: Poems on the Life of Fanny Van de Grift Stevenson’, was published by Poetry Salzburg in 2016. Her poems have appeared in The Dark Horse, The Interpreter’s House and Magma.

MAX SCRATCHMANN

As well as being the crazed genius behind all of the Edinburgh-based spoken word theatre company – Poetry Circus’ – shows, Max Scratchmann is a writer, performer, life model and general theatrical dogsbody in his own right; not to mention clinging grimly to the now-fading title of award-winning illustrator. He can also be found at festivals and events in his doppelgänger persona of Professor Max – Takeaway Poet.

MUSICIANS: FIRE IN THE GRATE

(There may be snow on the roof but there is still a Fire in the Grate-proverb)

A four-piece acoustic American roots and country music band, Fire in the Grate do everything from from Bob Wills, to Hank Williams, Tim Carroll to Gillian Welch. They recently had a very successful Edinburgh Fringe show -“The Americana Songbook” and are touring in Fuertaventura this winter.

WILDCARD SPOT AND THE LEMON CAKE RAFFLE

The lemon cake raffle provides us with much-needed funds, so we very much appreciate your support. And it is a most excellent lemon cake. (Occasionally, we also have poetry books in the raffle, and are very grateful to the donors thereof.)

We will have a wildcard spot this month. Please mention to the person selling tickets that you’d like to put your name in the hat (ideally we will ask you, but sometimes we forget to ask and then we feel sad once we remember our omission). Bring a poem to read in case you’re chosen! You’ll have three minutes (this includes any preamble or introduction – it’s a good idea to time yourself in advance to make sure you’re within the time limits).

Our final readings of the season take place next week – and we’ve four poets to amuse, surprise and stir. Don’t forget we’ll be at out new venue – we now meet on the final WEDNESDAY of the month, at the Canons’ Gait cellar bar on the Canongate.  Times are the same (7.00-9.30) and our mix of excellent poetry and music is guaranteed.

Wednesday 26th June 2019
7pm (doors open 6.30pm)
Canons’ Gait cellar bar 232 Canongate, Edinburgh, EH8 8DQ

Admission: £5 (concessions £3)

MAIN POET: EM STRANG

Em is a poet and Open Book lead reader. She also facilitates workshops in Embodied Poetry, looking at the relationship between psychology, somatic experience and creative practice. Her writing preoccupations are with ‘nature’, spirituality and the relationship between the human and nonhuman. Em’s work has been published widely in anthologies and journals. Bird-Woman, her first full collection, was published by Shearsman in October 2016, was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Best First Collection Prize and won the 2017 Saltire Poetry Book of the Year Award. Her second collection, Horse-Man, will be published in September 2019.

SHORE POET: ANGELA MCSEVENEY

Angela McSeveney is Shore Poets’ treasurer. She lives in Edinburgh and works very part time as a Care Assistant. Most recently she had two pamphlets published by Mariscat Press: Slaughtering Beetroot and Still Bristling.

NEW POETS: LAUREN POPE + CALUM ROGER

Lauren Pope’s poetry has appeared in various journals and online publications including Gutter, Magma, The North, The Rialto and Eyewear Publishing’s Best New British and Irish Poets. Her poetry pamphlet, Announce This, was published by Templar Poetry, and shortlisted for the 2018 Callum Macdonald Memorial Awards. Her poetry was Highly Commended in last year’s Wigtown Poetry Competition and Soutar Writing Prize.

Tuesday Rose McDonough has been playing clarsach and singing since she was eight years old. Her repertoire extends from traditional Gaelic songs to Nirvana and Bob Dylan. She is a fluent gaelic speaker and won the medal for self-accompanied singing at the National Mod in Stornoway while still at primary school. She’s sung and played the clarsach live on radio and in a number of venues including The Queen`s Hall, The Usher Hall, The Royal Scots Club, and The Edinburgh Society of Musicians. She’s received awards from the EMI Foundation and The Verdi Trust.  In her spare time she’s a guide for Ghost Tours in the Royal Mile.

WILDCARD SPOT AND THE LEMON CAKE RAFFLE

The lemon cake raffle provides us with much-needed funds, so we very much appreciate your support. And it is a most excellent lemon cake. We may also have some excellent poetry books to raffle. If you’re lucky, you may get to choose – cake, or poetry?

We will have a wildcard spot this month. Please mention to the person selling tickets that you’d like to put your name in the hat. Bring a poem to read in case you’re chosen! You’ll have three minutes (this includes any preamble or introduction – it’s a good idea to time yourself in advance to make sure you’re within the time limits).