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NaPoWriMo 2013
I’ve been astonished by several things about the NaPoWriMo challenge this year. First, that I actually decided to take part in it for the first time, and I credit and thank Carrie Etter for that....
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Epigraphs
Love them or hate them, you all know them: those quotes from famous or not so famous authors at the head of poems. Some poets use them a lot, others never do. Me? I put them in very occasionally,...
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The Open Mouse
My friend Sally Evans started the broadsheet magazine Poetry Scotland in the mid-1990s. Soon after the launch, we were discussing it in Grindle’s Bookshop, which she and Ian King ran at that time. We...
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The plagiarism debate
Recently two prize-winning poets have been exposed as plagiarists, you could say serial plagiarists. Where I stand on the issue is quite simply that I regard it as theft. It’s a total breach of the...
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Publications this year
In January, as I’ve mentioned earlier, I sent out a large batch of poems to magazines and online publications. Since then, I’ve kept up the momentum, writing more poems, especially during NaPoWriMo,...
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Artist statement
I was recently asked to provide an artist statement for a project I am currently involved with, and I thought I would expand it into a blog post: My work as a creative writer derives to a very large...
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Elementary
Having studied rather a lot of chemistry back in the day, the chemical elements have always fascinated me, to the extent that I’ve written poems about some of them. Not, you understand, in a systematic...
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The novel
I’m going to post occasional extracts from the novel I’ve been writing, partly to give myself the motivation to finish the thing. So what follows is the Prelude. But first a little explanation. It runs...
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Extract 2
Section 1: The visit Argens, Languedoc, Summer 1995 Bernard watched the British car cross the hump-back bridge over the Canal du Midi, take the left fork and slowly move up the road towards his home at...
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Extract 3
Sheep Counting A village near Masnaguine, 1204. In the scrubby hills of the Montagne Noire, where tough, spiny plants spill down from the rocky plateau to the plain of the Aude, I tended my father’s...
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Extract 4
Extract 4 is from what I imaginatively call ‘Section 1A’. It’s a character sketch of the main protagonist. I don’t know if I need character sketches. He was too well known for his sarcasm and wit, and...
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Happening in Dunbar
June and early July have been very busy for me, and a lot of the events have been centred around my home town of Dunbar. I got together with a group of friends at Baldred’s Cradle, near Ravensheugh...
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Weighty matters
Some of my friends have noticed that I’ve lost a lot of weight recently, so I thought I’d tell the story behind it. Back in February I was working on my allotment. The allotments are about a mile...
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August
What am I doing in August? 1st: Dunbar Writers 8th: Councillors visiting Belhaven Community Garden 10th: Belhaven Garden formal opening, as part of Belhaven Hospital Fete. 11th: Book Festival: Glyn...
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What’s afoot?
There are two flip answers: 1. Twelve inches, and 2. The things at the foot of your legs, but I want to give you an outline of my plans for Calder Wood Press for the next year. I’m just back from the...
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Getting my chops back
Sax players talk about their ‘chops’ meaning their playing technique, specifically their embouchure. It’s the way your mouth fits round the mouthpiece. If you’re playing regularly, muscle memory shapes...
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Preparing to retreat
At a reading in Callander at the weekend, my friend Larry Butler mentioned the Shirakawa Barrier, an ancient gateway between Japanese regions, mentioned by Basho in his Oku no hosomichi – the masterful...
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The West Barns renga
Tomorrow’s rainbows a solo renga written 21/09/2013, West Barns to Belhaven Bay a sunny morning but the air is cooling down, the light not so strong moon-white bindweed on brambles Himalayan balsam so...
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Further footings
I wrote earlier about plans for Calder Wood Press for the next year. I’ve been mulling it over since, and it has (a) reinforced my decision not to take on new work in 2014 and (b) given me several...
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The Hawthornden Fellowship
Only a week away from taking up my Hawthornden Fellowship, and I’m getting very excited about the prospect. As I mentioned before, it’s my intention to write a book-length collection of haibun, and...
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