Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal June 2008 Volume 6(3)

Endpiece

Coming home

Colin Will has good news about the StAnza festival – and achieves a lifelong ambition.

This year’s StAnza poetry festival was a vintage one for me. Doing the introductions to Kenneth White, John Burnside and Penelope Shuttle on the Byre Theatre stage was quite daunting, but I also chaired all of the ‘Past and Present’ sessions, where living poets talked about poets of the past. I had the pleasure of meeting Annie Freud, Janice Galloway, Tom Leonard and Adrian Mitchell. My favourite session was the one on Basil Bunting, featuring Chris Jones and the American poet August Kleinzahler, who had been taught by Bunting in Victoria, British Columbia. We also managed to play a tape of Bunting reading from his major work, Briggflatts.

As I write, the good news is that StAnza has been awarded funds from Homecoming Scotland, to bring overseas poets with Scottish connections to read at StAnza 2009. We’re delighted to have secured this award, particularly in view of the intense competition from a large number of applicants. We’ve approached writers from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, USA and many other countries – the whole Caledonian Diaspora in fact. It will be a wonderful festival. We’ve always looked beyond our shores, and indeed our new strapline reads “StAnza: Scotland’s International Poetry Festival”.

Poetry readings
I listened with interest to a Philip Larkin programme on radio recently. Before delving into a fascinating forgotten archive of the poet reading, there was an introduction by Larkin to a public reading that he had given. To paraphrase his remarks, he said that this was the first time he had read his poems in public, and if he had his way it would be the last. That kind of attitude would seem truly weird to today’s generation of poets – established or otherwise. Reading your own work in public is almost universally accepted as an essential part of the poetry scene, as much as publication. Having said that, poets are not necessarily the best readers of their own work. I’ve said elsewhere that when listening to poetry I sometimes prefer a good actor to a bad poet’s voice. Most of us write to be read aloud as well as to be read on the page, and fortunately there are opportunities to learn performance skills. Edinburgh’s Shore Poets are an established group with a monthly set of readings, these days in the Mai Thai restaurant off the Royal Mile. The format – music, a new poet, a Shore Poets member, and an invited featured poet – is a tried and tested one, and it gives poets the chance to hone their skills. I was delighted to read there in April.

In early May one of my poems was read by an actor on a stage in Victoria, BC (coincidences again!), during a performance of music, dance and poetry in aid of a local hospital’s intensive care unit. I’m told the performances will be appearing on YouTube, so it’ll be interesting to see it. All of the poems, Canadian and Scottish, were specially commissioned, and on the theme of ‘Pilgrimage’. Mine was triggered by a holiday in Normandy, during which I travelled around some of the wartime battlefields and cemeteries. I’m now wondering about the possibility of doing something in Scotland, with poets and musicians with Canadian connections.

Utena
Along with Fife poet Eleanor Livingstone, I’ve been invited to take part in an international poetry festival in Utena, Lithuania. I don’t speak any Lithuanian (apart from ‘Du alos prasau’), but I’m advised that the organisers are friendly, hospitable, and English-speaking. Poets from Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Germany and the other Baltic States will also be attending. Earlier I was asked to send them copies of four of my poems so that they can be translated into Lithuanian for the festival.

In view of the fact that the festival takes place in public libraries, I approached CILIPS Director Elaine Fulton, and I’m delighted to say that I’ll be taking gifts from CILIPS to the Lithuanian librarians. It’s always good to meet fellow librarians in other countries.

Retreat
I went on a writers’ retreat to Glencanisp Lodge, Lochinver, again this year. I wrote quite a lot, but it was also a great way to get away from everything, if only for a week. There’s no TV or radio, no mobile signal, and wi-fi was only available in the Assynt Foundation offices. I chose not to avail myself of the opportunity to deal with emails. I saw an otter on the Lochan, photographed wild flowers, and climbed Suilven for the first time (see picture). It’s been a lifelong ambition, since I first visited Assynt in the early 1950s, but until now something has always got in the way. The day was warm, the sky was clear, and the views from the top were breathtaking. It was a long expedition though – nine hours, and I was definitely feeling my age by the end of it.

The Lodge is available for groups of writers and artists, as well as for conferences, residential courses, self-catering holidays and shooting lets in season. I think it would make a marvellous writers’ centre, and I’m exploring the possibilities with the Assynt Foundation
Colin Will : colinwill.blogspot

Information Scotland Vol. 6(3) June 2008

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