Open Stage takes place in the gorgeous So You Cafe on Castle Street. Doors open at 7pm for you to book your performance slot, and the show starts at 7.30pm. £3 on the door.
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will show and describe the different methods used and the development of ideas to finished print.
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.
]]>Tickets: £10/£7 from dgArts 01387 253383 or at the Midsteeple
George Wallace, Rab Wilson and musical friends take us on a lively poetic journey inspired by the work of two great poets: Robert Burns and Walt Whitman.
There will be a community minibus from Dumfries for this event – call Carolyn Yates on 01387 253383 if you want more information.
George Wallace is the Walt Whitman Birthplace 2011 Writer in Residence. An award winning poet and journalist, George has performed his work across America and in Europe. He is the author of nineteen chapbooks of poetry and teaches literature at Pace University in Manhattan. He is editor of Poetrybay, an online poetry magazine archived and distributed worldwide by Stanford University. Other editorial work includes Poetryvlog, Long Island Quarterly, and Walt’s Corner in the Long Islander newspaper A former Peace Corps Volunteer, USAF Medical Officer and community organizer, he is a regular performer at Lowell Celebrates Kerouac, Howlfest, the Woody Guthrie Festival and Bradfest. In the Metropolitan New York area he has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Algonquin Club, Tribes Gallery, Sidewalk Café and at C-Note, and hosts poetry events at Cornelia St Cafe and Bowery Poetry Club. An avid Whitman enthusiast, he is a major interpreter of European Surrealism, New York School and Beat writing.
Rab Wilson, the Robert Burns Writing Fellow in Reading Scots for Dumfries and Galloway, is a poet wha screives maistly in Scots an writes a wheen things in Standaurt Englis as weel. His wark appears regularly in the likes o Lallans magazine, Holyrood Magazine, the Herald newspaper and Chapman magazine. He writes whit it is like tae leeve in Scotland in the 21st Century. His wark contains poleetical satire, humorous warks, elegies, sonnets, meditations oan global events, anti-war poetry, an the hale range o whit haes inspired Scots makars fir a thoosan year syne or mair. ‘Omar Khayyam in Scots’, and an ‘Art Buik’ version o the Roman poet Horace’s ‘First Book o Satires’, a jynt project wi the Dumfries artist Hugh Bryden, are his acclaimed owersettins o classic screeds. His collection, ‘Accent O The Mind’ wis publisht bi Luath Press o Embra in 2006. Scotland On Sunday said o this buik ‘This book contains poetry to rival the best published in Scotland, or written by a Scot, in the past 30 years.’ He wis winner of ‘The McCash Poetry Prize’ in 2008, Scotland’s leadin poetry competition fir poetry written in Scots, rin jyntly bi Glasgow University and the Herald newspaper. In 2009 he published a saicent collection, ‘Life Sentence’, and an anthology o poetry bi contemporary Dumfries and Galloway poets, entitled ‘Chuckies fir the Cairn’. His film documentary anent the history an future o coal mining in South West Scotland, in conjunction wi the West of Scotland University, was shown at the Wigtown book festival in 2010.
Professor Alan Riach, current Chair o Scottish Leeterature at Glasgow University, hus described Rab as ‘one of the best poets now working in Scotland’.
]]>Literature Development Officer for Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association, Carolyn Yates said, “Open Stage is at So You Café on the 24th, and we’re looking forward to welcoming everyone and having a great time! I’m sure it’ll be another night of talent, surprise and pleasure – come early to book your space to perform, and to get good seats.”
Organised by Dumfries & Galloway Arts, Open Stage provides a unique opportunity for poets and singer songwriters in the region to perform in front of a friendly live audience.
Nicola Black will be your compere for the evening, and Dumfries & Galloway Arts will be there to welcome you at 7pm to book your own performance slot. The show starts at 7.30, and if you don’t want to perform, come along to join our friendly audience for a great night. £3 on the door.
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University of Glasgow welcomes Jen Hadfield to the Crichton site as a Visiting Poet.
Winner of the 2008 T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, poet and artist Jen Hadfield will read from her collections Nigh-No-Place and Almanacs. With an exuberant wit and an acrobat’s daring with language, Jen treads her way across northern territories, documenting her experiences from island life to travels in the Canadian wilderness. The event is sponsored by the Scottish Book Trust as part of their Live Literature Scotland scheme.
Admission free
ALL WELCOME
If you need a good map to help you find the Rutherford McCowan Building go to http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_75482_en.pdf
More information from Dr David Borthwick
]]>Since forming in 2007, Trio Verso has performed at the Big Tent Festival in Falkland, at the WordFringe Festival in Aberdeenshire, at the Callander Poetry Weekend and for poetry sessions at the Scottish Poetry Library, Shore Poets and the Golden Hour, all Edinburgh and Last Monday at the Rio in Glasgow. Their CD Storm Chaser was released in 2010. myspace.com/trioverso
Tickets from 01557 814175 or email [email protected]
Supported by GaelForce
umfries’ favourite open mic event, welcomes poets and singer songwriters to So You Café in Castle Street on Wednesday 29 September. Guest performers for the evening will be talented young singer songwriters Zac Scott and Megan Welsh.
Literature Development Officer for Dumfries & Galloway Arts Association, Carolyn Yates said, “Open Stage is at So You Café on the 29th, and we’re looking forward to welcoming everyone and having a great time! I’m sure it’ll be another night of talent, surprise and pleasure – come early to book your space to perform, and to get good seats!”
Organised by Dumfries & Galloway Arts, Open Stage provides a unique opportunity for poets and singer songwriters in the region to perform in front of a friendly live audience.
Zac Scott and Megan Welsh are the front two members of Dumfries based band, Without Reason. Without Reason is a nine-piece band, complete with string quartet, who have a passion to make music. They started out as a four piece – writing music when the Transform team from National Theatre of Scotland came down to make a piece of contemporary theatre at Dumfries Academy. Subsequently, the band added a string quartet (3 violins and a harp) and extra percussion/guitar help to the set up, and is now recording at the SAE studios in Glasgow after opening this year’s Eden Festival.
Megan’s greatly talented vocal ability has been praised on a number of levels – recently she represented Dumfries Academy at Guid Nychburris as the singer for 2010, having been nominated for this role by members of the school music department. She performs in the D&G Regional Youth Choir. Zac’s guitar playing and vocal have earned him praise too – he also sings in the D&G Regional Youth Choir. Megan and Zac’s vocal harmonies have often been highlighted, and many have said that their voices work together wonderfully.
The duo is going to play a collection of original material as well as a few cover songs, and is really looking forward to playing So You at the end of September.
Nicola Black will be your compere for the evening, and Dumfries & Galloway Arts will be there to welcome you at 7pm to book your own performance slot. The show starts at 7.30, and if you don’t want to perform, come along to join our friendly audience for a great night. £3 on the door.
]]>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!
Tours of the sculptures start 3.30pm
Contact: Una Forster 01581 600208
Supported by GaelForce
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