Hello, people!

Before we get on to the March event, a word about Sunday 30 April, which is our Open Night (with Jane McKie in the Shore Poets spot). If you’re interested in throwing your name in the hat to do a 5-minute reading, please email shorepoetsedinburgh @ gmail.com by the end of the day on Friday 7 April. [Please don’t use any other email address or leave a comment on a social media platform.] We’ll draw names from that hat and also create a reserve list in case of dropouts.

But first we have the March event! We have four, count ’em, FOUR (4) poets and one (1) fantastic musical group.

Sunday 26 March 2017
7pm (doors open at 630pm or a bit later, depending on prior events in the space)
Oh! Outhouse, 12a Broughton Street Lane, Edinburgh, EH1 3LY
Admission: £5 (concessions £3)
Please be there in plenty of time to get a seat. Unfortunately, fire regulations mean we have to turn people away if the room becomes overcrowded.

Main poet: ALAN SPENCE

Alan Spence is an award-winning poet and playwright, novelist, and short story writer. He is Professor Emeritus in Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen, where he founded the WORD Festival. With his wife, he runs the Sri Chinmoy meditation centre in Edinburgh. His most recent books are the novel Night Boat, the poetry collection Morning Glory (with Elizabeth Blackadder), and the playscript No Nothing.

Shore Poets: HAMISH WHYTE and FRANK GLYNN

The Shore Poet spot this month will be filled by twice the usual number of Shore Poets.

Hamish Whyte runs Mariscat Press, is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Scottish Literature at the University of Glasgow, and plays percussion in the band The Whole Shebang. Two collections of poems, A Bird in the Hand and The Unswung Axe, have been published by Shoestring Press. In 2007 he was a joint Robert Louis Stevenson Fellow with Diana Hendry. A pamphlet, Hannah, Are You Listening?, was published by HappenStance in 2013.

Frank Glynn has been writing poetry and prose for many years, with several novels in his drawer. He plays violin and viola in several ensembles around Edinburgh, in The Whole Shebang, in Holm, and in the St Andrew Orchestra. He is the music facilitator for Shore Poets.

New poet: KATE HENDRY

Kate Hendry’s first collection of poems, The Lost Original, was published by HappenStance Press last year. The Glasgow Review of Books described it as a collection of ‘deeply affecting poems that take the familiar and the everyday, and turn them into something new, something profound, and often something unsettling.’ She spent many years teaching in prisons, followed by stints at Edinburgh Napier and the National Library of Scotland. She now teaches English in a secondary school and runs the monthly Nothing But the Poem reading groups at the Scottish Poetry Library.

Music by IT & THEM

It & Them have been playing together since 2012, originally through Edinburgh College Traditional Ensemble. They play a variety of well-known folk music from Scotland and Ireland with a few obscure tunes thrown in the mix. The trio consists of Fiddle (Leona McNab), Clarsach (Sam Macadam), and Guitar (Nathaniel Haas). For more music from them, check out facebook.com/itandthem or soundcloud.com/it-them.

We hope to see you on 26th March!

Useful information:

1) we have a mailing list, and if you haven’t signed up yet, here’s your chance: just click right here and fill in the few bits of information. This is likely only going to be for event notifications and things like ‘looking for slam/open night participants’.

2) we have a new email address; the old one will not forward anything to the new one, though there should be an auto-reply. That new address (take out spaces on either side of the @) is: shorepoetsedinburgh @ gmail.com

3) Dates for your diary: the final Shore Poets events of the 2016-17 season will be 30 April, 28 May, and 25 June 2017.

In January, we crowned Tim Craven the Quiet Slam 2017 champion! Congratulations to Tim and thanks to all our slammers and our musicians for being so entertaining. Now we’re going back to our usual kind of event, but we still vow to be entertaining.

Sunday 26 February 2017
7pm (doors open 630pm)
Oh! Outhouse, 12a Broughton Street Lane, Edinburgh, EH1 3LY
Admission: £5 (concessions £3)
Please be there in plenty of time to get a seat. Unfortunately, fire regulations mean we have to turn people away if the room becomes overcrowded.

We have three great poets and one fantastic musician:

Main poet: KEVIN CADWALLENDER

Kevin is a widely published poet, as well as a well-known spoken word performer. He was Scottish National Slam Champion 2012, and was shortlisted for a Sony Award and a Clarion Award for the BBC Radio 4 programme Voyages. He organised 10RED (a night of spoken word), is Edinburgh producer for the podcast 10RED Out Loud, and has edited various magazines and many anthologies. He’s creative editor at House of 3 Press.

Shore Poet: IAN MCDONOUGH

Ian McDonough was brought up in Brora on the East Coast of Sutherland, and began to be interested in literature in school when he was made to clear out a book cupboard as a punishment for insubordination. His first full-length poetry collection was shortlisted for Saltire Scottish First Book of the Year, and his latest collection, A Witch Among The Gooseberries (Mariscat, 2014) was runner-up for the 2015 Callum Macdonald Memorial Award.

New poet: JAY WHITTAKER

Jay Whittaker has lived and worked in Edinburgh for over 20 years. Her pamphlet Pearl was published in 2005 (Selkirk Lapwing Press) and poems have been published in Envoi, Brittle Star, The Frogmore Papers, Orbis, and The Interpreter’s House. She was shortlisted for a Scottish New Writers 2016 Award and the 2016 Bridport Poetry Prize. She is a member of Edinburgh’s Other Writers. Her first full length collection, Wristwatch, comes out in autumn 2017 (Cinnamon Press).

Music by CERA IMPALA

Cera Impala is a wild banjo-wielding mama from the USA who has toured internationally. A magnetic songsmith she has a voice both timeless and unique and she performs with relaxed charm, wit, intelligence and passion. Her compositions and lyrics spin genuine and intimate yarns. A multi-instrumentalist, she plays ukelele, guitar, and her very own brand of hard-driving clawhammer banjo.

We hope to see you on 26th February!

Useful information:

1) we have a mailing list, and if you haven’t signed up yet, here’s your chance: just click right here and fill in the few bits of information. This is likely only going to be for event notifications and things like ‘looking for slam/open night participants’.

2) we have a new email address; the old one will not forward anything to the new one, though there should be an auto-reply. That new address (take out spaces on either side of the @) is: shorepoetsedinburgh @ gmail.com

3) Date for your diary: the March event will be Sunday 26 March 2017.

We’ll soon be looking for performers for our Open Mic night, which is coming up in April. Keep an eye on this website, or join our mailing list to get information!

Sunday 29th January 2017
7pm (doors open 630pm – but we may not be able to go upstairs immediately)
Oh! Outhouse, 12a Broughton Street Lane,
Edinburgh, EH1 3LY
Admission: £5 (concessions £3)

Happy new year! Once more, it’s time for our Quiet Slam! (Or our ‘Quite Slam’ if you type too quickly and forget to proofread.)

Ten poets will entertain you, but they will also be judged and there can only be one (winner).

What’s the format?
Each of our ten poets will perform twice. We’ll have a first round, in which each poet will read for 2 minutes. After a break there’ll be a second round, and each poet will read again – this time for 2.5 minutes. This gives each poet two chances to wow our judging panel and entertain you, our audience! The three highest-scoring poets will go into a final, where they’ll read for three whole minutes. The winner of the slam will read one final poem.

We’ll also have a feature set from last year’s winner Russell Jones, our usual lovely music, and our raffle, so you’ll still get the chance to win the infamous lemon cake and support Shore Poets. (Thank you for your support.)

What’s a quiet slam?
A quiet slam is a competitive poetry event where loudness is not necessarily a virtue. (Have you been to a not-quiet slam? It is usually very loud. We don’t mind loudness, and indeed one of our judges is publicly known for being a Loud Poet, but we like to offer something different.) Participants won’t be marked down for speaking softly, reading from paper, or being nervous. We also like to encourage new slammers to take part. Finally, judges will score participants on the quality of their poem and the quality of their performance, not for the loudness of the audience response. Some poems just don’t lend themselves to whooping, you know?

What if I want to perform in the slam?
I’m afraid we are no longer accepting entries. Please keep your eyes peeled for the Open Night callout.

MUSICIANS: The Fraser Sharp Trio

The Fraser Sharp Trio play early standards to contemporary jazz. They are three students who have emerged from the increasingly successful music programme at Heriot Watt University. This will be their debut performance.

We will not have a wildcard spot this month.

We hope to see you at our Quiet Slam! Those details again:

Sunday 29th January 2017
7pm (doors open 630pm)
Oh! Outhouse, 12a Broughton Street Lane,
Edinburgh, EH1 3LY

Useful information:

1) we have a new mailing list, and if you haven’t signed up yet, here’s your chance: just click right here and fill in the few bits of information. This is likely only going to be for event notifications and things like ‘looking for slam/open night participants’.

2) we have a new-ish email address; the old one will not forward anything to the new one, so if you emailed us there and never received a reply, unfortunately that’s probably why. That new address (take out spaces on either side of the @) is: shorepoetsedinburgh @ gmail.com

3) Date for your diary: the next event will be Sunday 26 February 2017.

You can also join us at our Facebook group.

Readings by mainly Scottish poets on the last Sunday of every month

(Photo credit)

We’ve had two Quiet Slams (our first one looked like this), and we’re doing a third one!

We’ll put up a proper event entry next month, but here are some details in case you want to actively participate.

We’re looking for ten performers. Entry is open to anyone, so long as you can be in Edinburgh on the evening of Sunday 29 January 2017. The location is the Outhouse on Broughton Street; start time is 7pm but we’ll ask slammers to be there no later than 645pm. Unfortunately, because we run on a shoestring budget, we cannot offer free entry for slammers, but you’re welcome to pay the concession fee of £3 and we will give all performers a free raffle ticket.

What’s a quiet slam?

A quiet slam is a poetry slam where loudness is not necessarily a virtue. (Have you been to a not-quiet slam? It is usually very loud. We don’t mind loudness, but we’d like to offer something different.) Participants won’t be marked down for speaking softly, reading from paper, or being nervous. We also like to encourage new slammers to take part – if you want to cut your teeth, now’s your chance! Finally, judges will score participants on the quality of their poem and the quality of their performance, not for the volume of the audience response. Some poems just don’t lend themselves to whooping, you know?

What’s the format?

Each of our ten poets will perform twice. We’ll have a first round, in which each poet will read for 2 minutes, and be scored by our judges. After a break there’ll be a second round, and each poet will read again – this time for 2.5 minutes. This means each poet gets two chances to wow our judging panel (as opposed to other slams where you might get knocked out immediately). The top three highest scoring poets from rounds one and two will go into a final, where they’ll get chance to read for three whole minutes. Our winner will have the chance to read one final poem! Interspersed among all this poetry we’ll have our usual lovely music, and our raffle, so you’ll get chance to win the infamous lemon cake.

I want to be a Quiet Slammer! How do I make my dream a reality?

To put your name in the hat, email us at shorepoetsedinburgh{at}gmail.com (turn the {at} into a proper @) and ask to be put on the list – include your full name and your phone number. (This is the only way to sign up. Please don’t leave a comment on this post or email us at any other address. This is also the address to use for asking any questions.) Deadline is noon on Sunday 15 January. If you miss the deadline, you can still ask to be put on the reserve list.

Later that day or very soon after, we’ll pull names out of the virtual hat and get in touch with people. If you don’t confirm within a few days, we’ll ask someone else. (If you’re going to be out of town or unavailable, let us know and we’ll cut you a bit of slack.) If your name is not pulled out of the hat, you will automatically be placed on the reserve list. We usually have a few dropouts before the slam, so being on the reserve list does provide a good chance of being rewarded.

Will there be prizes?

Yes, almost certainly National Book Tokens. Also, the winner of the slam will be eligible for the Scottish Slam Championships – because of timing, this might mean the 2018 championships, but we’ll definitely put your name in.

How do I prepare to be a slammer?

You’ll need to choose three poems that you can read/perform in the given time limits (2 minutes, 2.5 minutes, 3 minutes). If you go over time, you’ll have to stop, so it’s important to practice your work and make sure that you can stick to the limits. Any kind of introductory statement about your poem counts towards your allotted time. Rehearsing in front of friends, your cat, or your mirror is a good idea. You may also want to attend other slams to see how they work.

You should also bring a fourth poem, which you can read if you’re the winner of the slam.

Finally, if you’re interested in a much different type of slam, Graeme Hawley is putting together a research slam at the NLS. (He’s also doing a more traditional slam for Burns Night but I can’t find a blogpost about that – email him if you want more information.)

We hope to hear from you – remember, the email address for signing up is shorepoetsedinburgh{at}gmail.com, by noon on Sunday 15 January. If you don’t want to perform, stay tuned for full event information coming sometime in January!

Now that the anniversary celebrations have faded away, here’s our final Shore Poets event of 2016.

We’ll soon be looking for performers for our Quiet Slam, which is coming up in January. Keep an eye on this website, or join our mailing list to get information!

Sunday 27 November 2016
7pm (doors open 630pm)
Oh! Outhouse, 12a Broughton Street Lane, Edinburgh, EH1 3LY
Admission: £5 (concessions £3)
Please be there in plenty of time to get a seat. Unfortunately, fire regulations mean we have to turn people away if the room becomes overcrowded.

We have three great poets and one fantastic band:

Main poet: HUGH MCMILLAN

According to Hugh’s page on the Scottish Poetry Library website (where you can also find links to his poems) (and you should probably head over there anyway since the SPL is AWESOME): Hugh McMillan’s work has been anthologised and broadcast widely, and has won various prizes, most recently the Cardiff International Poetry Competition in 2010. Postcards from the Hedge won the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award in 2009, and he has also been shortlisted for the Michael Marks Poetry Award and the Basil Bunting Award. Not Actually Being in Dumfries: new and selected poems was published by Luath Press in 2015. Luath also published his book about his home region McMillan’s Galloway: an unreliable journey in 2016.

Shore Poet: MARTIN MACINTYRE / MARTAINN MAC AN T-SAOIR

An acclaimed author, bàrd and storyteller, Martin has been working across these genres for a number of years now. His early poetry was published in Let Me Dance With Your Shadow in 2006, and in 2007, at The Lochaber National Mòd, Martin was crowned Bard by An Comunn Gàidhealach. In April 2014, he was a panellist in the Commonwealth Writers Conversation “The Untold Story: By Our Own Tongues” as part of the Aye Write festival. His work appears in the new anthology Umbrellas of Edinburgh (Freight Books).

New poet: PATRICIA MCCAW

Info to come!

Music by TOM MCAWEANEY AND IAN MCDONALD

Ian McDonald and Tom McAweaney are perhaps best known as members of popular Edinburgh-based Americana band The Chilli Dogs. Ian accompanies his vast repertoire of songs old and new with expert guitar and banjo, while Tom adds swinging fiddle and additional vocals to the mix.

We sure do hope to see you!

Useful information:

1) we have a new mailing list, and if you haven’t signed up yet, here’s your chance: just click right here and fill in the few bits of information. This is likely only going to be for event notifications and things like ‘looking for slam/open night participants’.

2) we have a new email address; the old one will not forward anything to the new one, though there should be an auto-reply. That new address (take out spaces on either side of the @) is: shorepoetsedinburgh @ gmail.com

3) Date for your diary: the Quiet Slam will be Sunday 29 January 2017.

Have a good November!

Hard to believe it, considering how youthful we look (*snaps selfie*), but Shore Poets turns 25 this month, and we’re ready to party! (Admittedly, we’re likely to be tucked up in bed by half-past ten with a mug of cocoa and the Man Booker winner.) We hope you can help us celebrate.

Sunday 30 October 2016
7pm (doors open 630pm)
Oh! Outhouse, 12a Broughton Street Lane, Edinburgh, EH1 3LY
Admission: £5 (concessions £3)
Please be there in plenty of time to get a seat. Unfortunately, fire regulations mean we have to turn people away if the room becomes overcrowded.

Don’t forget the clocks go back early that morning. (Your electronic geegaws will probably remember for you, but it can’t hurt to be reminded.)

We have three great poets and one fantastic band:

STEWART CONN

Stewart Conn, Edinburgh’s first official poet laureate, 19/03/2005.At StAnza Festival, St Andrews.

Stewart Conn is Honorary President of Shore Poets and one of Scotland’s most distinguished poets. His work, with its distinctly rhythmical and lyrical qualities and passionate interest in music and art, has been widely published and translated.

He was born in Glasgow and now lives in Edinburgh, where until 1992 he was Head of Radio Drama at BBC Scotland. From 2002 to 2005 he was Edinburgh’s first Makar, or poet laureate. The Breakfast Room (Bloodaxe, 2010) won the SMIT Poetry Book of the Year in 2011. His The Touch of Time: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe) was published in 2014 to much acclaim. His latest poetry publication is Against the Light (Mariscat, 2016): poems of love and Edinburgh. And he has recently recorded a selection of his work for the Poetry Archive. Learn more about Stewart at his website.

JOHN PURSER

John Purser was born in Glasgow and now lives on Skye. He is a man of many parts: composer, musicologist, broadcaster, playwright and poet. His ground-breaking radio series and book, Scotland’s Music, is the essential authority on the subject, the 1992 edition of the latter winning the McVitie’s Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year. He has published several volumes of poetry and his collection There Is No Night: New and Selected Poems (Kennedy and Boyd) was published in 2014. Of his many radio plays, Carver won a Giles Cooper Award and was published by Methuen. He has also recently released three CDs of his musical works. Learn more about John at his website.

TOM POW

Tom Pow was born in Edinburgh and now lives in Dumfries. He has been a commanding presence on the Scottish poetry scene for many years. Dear Alice won the SMIT Poetry Book of the Year in 2009, the same year In the Becoming: New and Selected Poems was published by Polygon. Concerning the Atlas of Scotland and Other Poems (National Library of Scotland) came out in 2014 and his latest poetry publication is the pamphlet At the Well of Love (Mariscat, 2016), which includes poems written when he was a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellow in France in 2015. He was the first Writer in Residence at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. He has also written a number of radio plays, young adult novels, picture books and a travel book about Peru. Learn more about Tom at his website.

Music by THE WHOLE SHEBANG

The Whole Shebang is an Edinburgh-based collective, formed in 2011, who play good-time music, from show tunes and standards through blues, country and western to contemporary pop.

The full line-up is: Kerry Houston (vocals), Fiona Shivas (vocals), Gail Turpin (vocals), Frank Glynn (fiddle and viola), Doug Govan (guitar and ukelele), Al Gray (bass), Bill Haddow (mandolin), and Hamish Whyte (percussion). They don’t have a website, but do go visit and follow their Facebook page.

We sure do hope to see you!

Useful information:

1) we have a new mailing list, and if you haven’t signed up yet, here’s your chance: just click right here and fill in the few bits of information. This is likely only going to be for event notifications.

2) we have a new email address; the old one will not forward anything to the new one, though there should be an auto-reply. That new address (take out spaces on either side of the @) is: shorepoetsedinburgh @ gmail.com

3) Date for your diary: the November event will be Sunday 27 November, part of Book Week Scotland. After that we’ll be back with the Quiet Slam in January (more news and signup information about that next month).

Have a good October!

Our first Shore Poets event of the season! We hope you had a nice summer. At least two of the Shore Poets went to Greece, and one to Latvia.

Before we get started, here are a few brief housekeeping announcements:

1) we have a new mailing list, and if you haven’t signed up yet, here’s your chance: just click right here and fill in the few bits of information. This is likely only going to be for event notifications.

2) we have a new email address; the old one will not forward anything to the new one, though there should be an auto-reply. Apologies to anyone who emailed us and waited for a reply over the summer! That new address (take out spaces on either side of the @) is: shorepoetsedinburgh @ gmail.com

And now that information you’ve been waiting for:

Sunday 25th September 2016
7pm (doors open 630pm)
Oh! Outhouse, 12a Broughton Street Lane, Edinburgh, EH1 3LY
Admission: £5 (concessions £3)
Please be there in plenty of time to get a seat. Unfortunately, fire regulations mean we have to turn people away if the room becomes overcrowded.

MAIN POET: PAMELA BESANT

Pamela Besant is one of Orkney’s best known writers. She is originally from Glasgow but has lived and worked in Orkney for many years. She is a poet, freelance writer and editor. In 2007 she was awarded the first George Mackay Brown Writing Fellowship in Orkney, and later became chair of the organisation, which runs the Orkney Book Festival. Although she writes mainly poetry (Running with a Snow Leopard, Two Ravens Press, 2008, and Orkney: A Celebration of Light and Landscape, with photographer Iain Sarjeant, 2010), she also writes non-fiction and plays.

NEW POET: DOMINIC HALE

Dominic Hale was born in 1993 in Blackpool, Lancashire. As a teenager he won the Foyle Young Poets Award in 2009 and 2010, and his poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in the Edinburgh Review, Clinic, the Morning Star, the Quietus, the Literateur, and Datableed. This month he began a doctorate at the University of Edinburgh, researching the earlier poetry of William Wordsworth and tracing its influence on English poets of the twentieth century.

SHORE POET: DIANA HENDRY

Newly-announced: Honorary Shore Poet Diana Hendry will be reading for us! Primarily a poet, Diana also writes short stories and is the author of many children’s books. She’s worked as a journalist, English teacher and a tutor at the University of Bristol, University of the West of England and the Open University. She has tutored many creative writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and for a year was writer-in-residence at Dumfries & Galloway Royal Infirmary.

MUSICIANS: MIRKA

Shetland band Mirka, formed in 2011, are Danny Garrick (fiddle), Karis Garrick (piano), and Loris MacDonald (accordion). They are, individually, successful award winning students, firm fixtures on the Shetland music scene, and seasoned music travellers outwith Shetland too. Danny is a winner of the prized ‘Shetland Traditional Young Fiddler of the Year’ award.

Mirka’s music contains a whole host of mainly up-tempo,‘go-for-it’ tunes that you can simply listen to and enjoy in their own right, or, alternatively, dance yourselves’ into a ‘soolp of sweat’ to – as the old Shetland saying goes.

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 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 IMPORTANT INFORMATION AGAIN

Sunday 25th September 2016
7pm (doors open 630pm)
Oh! Outhouse, 12a Broughton Street Lane, Edinburgh, EH1 3LY

We hope to see you there!

Our email address has changed! Contact us at shorepoetsedinburgh @ gmail.com (remove those spaces on either side of the @).

You can also join our Facebook group and keep an eye on our Twitter feed.

Shore Poets: readings by mainly Scottish poets on the last Sunday of every month

We’re getting things into place! To help you make notes in your diary, here are our upcoming event dates through the end of 2016.

We are still at Outhouse on Broughton Street Lane, starting at 7pm (doors open 630pm), but please check back in case there are any changes in the meantime.

Sunday 25 September. Confirmed readers: Pamela Beasant and Dominic Hale
Sunday 30 October.
Sunday 27 November.

Also, we don’t currently have anyone to handle most of our social media, so things will be pretty light until we’re able to fill that position. If you or anyone you know is willing to help out, please drop us an email at shorepoetsedinburgh at gmail.com. (This is our new email address – the old one no longer works.)

We hope to see you soon!