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If you’d like to know more about what geopoetics is, the best place to start is our website at www.geopoetics.org.uk where you will find an overview of geopoetics and 4 issues of our online journal Stravaig. Issue 4 contains essays on intellectual nomadism by Kenneth White, Martina Kolb, Bill Stephens and Norman Bissell, and on Rimbaud by Karen Strang and Mike Roman. It also has new poems and images by Morelle Smith, Alyson Hallett, Andrew McCallum and also by Gordon Meade and Douglas Robertson from their new book Les Animots: A Human Bestiary.
The International Institute of Geopoetics website is now available in English and contains many essays by Kenneth White including one on Alexander von Humboldt and An Outline of Geopoetics. http://www.institut-geopoetique.org/en/the-geopoetics-review.
Our AGM in Portobello in August decided to produce this Newsletter twice a year and to continue to publish Stravaig annually in the Spring. It also agreed to make plans for a major conference on geopoetics in 2017 and we have already had fruitful discussions with representatives from the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) and the University of Glasgow about this. Watch this space!
Stravaig Issue 5 Call for Submissions
We are looking for submissions of essays, poems, short stories and images on the general theme of geopoetics to be sent to nbissell@btinternet.com no later than Tuesday 23 February 2016. Prose should be a maximum of 3,500 words and no more than 4 poems should be submitted. Relevance to the wide field of geopoetics will be one of the main criteria for selection.
To keep up to date with the latest geopoetics news, why not Like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ScottishGeopoetics?fref=ts and follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/@SCGeopoetics?
Photograph by Mike Knowles
We were very sad to learn of the death of Tessa Ransford in September. She made an outstanding contribution to poetry in Scotland as a poet, founder of the Scottish Poetry Library and promoter of poetry pamphlets; and to culture in general, both here and internationally, which will live on and be her legacy to the world. She was passionate about many causes and in recent years joined the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics and came with us on some of our walks. Her latest poetry collection A Good Cause from Luath Press was well named. Further information and reviews of her other books and much more are at http://www.wisdomfield.com/.
A Memorial event for Tessa Ransford will be held on Monday 7th Decemberat 7.30pm in St Andrew’s and St George’s Church , George St , Edinburgh .
We are delighted to partner the Scottish Geodiversity Forum and The Friends of Hugh Miller in supporting and promoting Testimonies of the Rocks: the Hugh Miller Writing Competition. Poems, non-fiction and fiction inspired by the geological and landscape writings of Hugh Miller, Scotland ’s celebrated self-taught geologist, are invited by Friday 18 March 2016. Miller was a poet and prolific writer and this competition, open to all ages, will encourage a renewed interest in his work, a catalogue of new writings inspired by him and greater awareness and appreciation of Scotland ’s geodiversity. See more at: http://bit.ly/1Gv1CdG.
Upcoming Events
Thursday 29 October at 6.30pm Les Animots: A Human Bestiary at Books and Beans 22 Belmont Street, AB10 1JH Aberdeen . Gordon Meade will read from his eighth collection of poems, a collaboration with the artist Douglas Robertson, published by Cultured Llama Publishing. http://www.culturedllama.co.uk/ http://on.fb.me/1ic9V2n
Saturday 14 November 10am-4pm Traditions in Place Perth and Kinross
A day event at Perth Concert Hall, for musicians, dancers, storytellers, promoters, teachers, community activists etc interested in the traditional arts and oral and local history: a chance to share knowledge and find out about resources for the traditional arts in Perth and Kinross. Speakers include musicians Pete Clark, Steve Byrne and Kath Campbell, storyteller Jess Smith and Local History Officer Nicola Cowmeadow. Further information and booking here: http://bit.ly/1Mg6IXj
Monday 23 November 2015 at 6.30pm The Last Man in Europe Oban Phoenix Cinema A talk and readings from the novel in progress The Last Man in Europe by Norman Bissell about the last years in the life of George Orwell on Jura and elsewhere. He will outline Orwell’s love of nature and tell the dramatic story of his near drowning in the Corryvreckan Whirlpool and his desperate struggle to finish ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’ on Jura before his health failed him. This will be followed by a showing of the film ‘1984’ starring John Hurt and Richard Burton. http://bit.ly/1LZjVrC
Wednesday 25 November 2015 Scottish Geodiversity Forum Conference at Battleby near Perth . A world-class visitor attraction – Scotland ’s Landscape, fashioned by geology: this Sharing Good Practice event, organised by the Forum and Scottish Natural Heritage, will explore what’s currently on offer, and how the sector might develop and expand. http://scottishgeodiversityforum.org/
Friday 27 November at 7.45 pm Atlantic Islands Centre, Isle of Luing A Talk and Reading by Carla Lamont, author of The Ninth Wave: Love and Food on the Isle of Mull as part of Scottish Book Week, supported by the Scottish Book Trust. Full details at http://on.fb.me/1H6rWpf.
Tuesday 1 December Book launch of Disko Bay by Nancy Campbell Enitharmon Press, London . The poems in Nancy Campbell’s first collection transport the reader to the frozen shores of Greenland and relate the struggle for existence in the harsh polar environment to modern life and traditional ways of subsistence. http://www.nancycampbell.co.uk
Wednesday 27 January at 8pm Pulse Mairi Campbell Tron Theatre Glasgow
Drawing on her combined fluency in Celtic tradition, free improvisation and classical idioms, as well as her personal artistic journey, the award-winning Scottish singer and fiddler/viola player Mairi Campbell performs a new one-woman show that blends live and recorded music with animation, dance, movement and storytelling. http://bit.ly/1k6EIi8
Saturday 5 March 10.30am-4.30pm Geopoetics in the National Galleries of Scotland Collections: Bill Taylor. A guided tour of the Collections in the National Galleries of Scotland , Edinburgh led by artist Bill Taylor, a Geopoetics Council member. A date for your diary – full details to follow in the next Newsletter.
Members’ Books
Thinking of Christmas gifts? Why not choose books written by our members?
Kenneth White Guido’s Map: A European Pilgrimage A new narrative prose book in which Kenneth White moves over spaces and among places, ranging from Ireland to the Balkans via Spain , from Glasgow to Trieste via Bilbao . This and his Ideas of Order at Cape Wrath: a collection of essays on cultural politics, Latitudes & Longitudes: a new collection of poetry, and The Winds of Vancouver which charts his travels in British Columbia and Alaska are available from http://bit.ly/1MQp3ea
James McCarthy A Short Call to Arms, a military memoir can be obtained from mccarthy-james4@sky.com for a modest donation to the Askari Appeal.
Martina Kolb Nietzsche, Freud, Benn, and the Azure Spell of Liguria, University of Toronto Press, about the influence of the Ligurian coastal area of Italy on three seminal German writing modernists – Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, and Gottfried Benn. Available from http://bit.ly/1icdpSs.
Mavis Gulliver Slate Voices: Cwmorthin & Islands of Netherlorn, a poetry collection set in Scotland ’s slate islands and the slate mines of North Wales with Jan Fortune. Also Cry at Midnight, a children’s adventure story. www.cinnamonpress.com
Christian McEwen Sparks from the Anvil The Smith College Poetry Interviews with 16 poets by the author of World Enough & Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down http://bit.ly/1Mg9sE6.
Norman Bissell Slate, Sea and Sky Luath Press. A new paperback edition of my poetry collection which contains an Introduction and some new poems as well as photographs by Oscar Marzaroli is out now. A signed and dedicated copy can be obtained from me at this e-mail address. You can also Like my book page on Facebook at http://on.fb.me/1OUthHB.
Membership
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Please join or renew your annual membership (£10/£5 unwaged) by sending your name, postal and e-mail address & a cheque made out to the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics to our Treasurer, David Francis 214 Portobello Road, Portobello EH15 2AU.
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