To complement this exhibition there will be three evening readings by poets published by Roncadora.

 Wednesday 9 February    Hugh McMillan / Graham Fulton

Wednesday  16 February            Andrew Forster / Jean Atkin

Wednesday 2 March        Rab Wilson / John Burns.

 These FREE events have been organised in partnership with dgArts. Readings will take place at 7pm in the Gracefield Café Gallery and in most cases will also mark the launch of a new pamphlet by the poets.

To book places for any (or all) of the events telephone 01387 262084.

2.30-4pm Poetry Workshop – ‘At home: living in the poem.’

With Helen Mort

 What makes a landscape ‘home’? And how best to write about places we know well? Helen Mort, Poet in Residence with the Wordsworth Trust at Dove Cottage (Wordsworth’s home when he wrote much of his greatest work) will look at how to make familiar landscapes strange and how writers from Wordsworth to Philip Larkin and Ian McMillan have explored and reinvented the idea of ‘home’ in poetry.

6.30-7pm William Wordsworth: Selected Poems

Helen Mort and Andrew Forster, Poet in Residence and Literature Officer with the Wordsworth Trust, will read and talk about some of their favourite poems by Wordsworth along with new poems inspired by living and working in Wordsworth’s home.

7.15-8.15pm An illustrated artist talk by Charlie Poulsen

Charlie introduces the work in his exhibition and further afield. Find out how plants and landscapes have inspired some of his recent living installations.

14 September 2010

Dumfries & Galloway Arts    Gracefield Arts Centre Edinburgh Road Dumfries, DG1 1JQ
Tel: 01387 253383   Fax: 01387 253303     E-mail: [email protected]

When poet Andrew Forster’s first collection, Fear of Thunder, was shortlisted for the Forward First Collection Prize in 2007 he was working in Dumfries and Galloway as Literature Development Officer.  Andrew has since moved to Cumbria to work for the Wordsworth Trust, and he’s coming back across the border to take part in Dumfries and Galloway’s prestigious Poetry Doubles series.

Andrew will share a stage on Monday 20 September with Katy Ewing.  They will perform at the Brigend Theatre, Dumfries at 7pm.  Tickets are available from dgArts www.dgarts.co.uk

Andrew’s second collection, Territory, which was published earlier this year by Flambard, focuses on his time in the former mining village of Leadhills in Upper Nithsdale.  His poems explore what it means to make a home in a particular place, and the relationship with the environment that this implies.

‘His descriptions of country life through the seasons offer an evocative perspective on living amidst the forces of nature, which can both inspire and oppress in equal measure.’  Poetry Book Society, Issue 225, Summer 10

Katy Ewing is in her third year of the Liberal Arts Humanities degree at Glasgow University in Dumfries. She lives with her young family in the Stewartry area of Dumfries and Galloway.  Katy describes her poetry as an effort to distil moments of experience, feeling, or realisation so that they conjure a small, particular reality, and her work is, in consequence, precise, vivid and illuminating.

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Note to Editors:
•    Dumfries & Galloway Arts (formerly Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association) is based in Dumfries, with an office open to the public at The Midsteeple in the High Street – the new Arts Information Hub.  Dumfries & Galloway Arts create and support arts development at all levels, from grassroots to high profile national and international work and projects.
We provide an independent single point of contact for a wide range of arts and cultural information, advice, tickets, contacts and skills, which can be accessed by a variety of audiences, artists and stakeholders.  www.dgarts.co.uk

Contact:
Jean Atkin
Marketing Officer
Dumfries & Galloway Arts
Gracefield Arts Centre
28 Edinburgh Road
Dumfries
DG1 1JQ
01387 253383
[email protected]  PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF EMAIL ADDRESS!

Poetry Doubles presents an exceptional opportunity to enjoy poetry, being as accessible and pleasurable for readers, as it is a series of masterclasses for both aspirant and experienced writers.

To increase access to some of Britain’s best poetry, the events will this year take place in venues across the region.