Poetry Junkie

I went along to Kevin Cadwallender's launch of his pamphlet Dog Latin last week. It has been published by Calder Wood Press, and contains a wonderful selection of pieces. If you want to sample some of Kevin's work see here:



I also met Crafty Green Poet at the gig, which was lovely, as I've enjoyed her blog for some time now.

After that Anne and I scooted up to the School of Poets class at the Scottish Poetry Library, and Kevin jokingly called us a couple of poetry junkies. There are worse things in life to be me thinks..........

On Wednesday I went to fashion show that my friend N's daughter-in-law helped organise, she's a designer and lecturer at Glasgow School of Art. The show reworked charity shop clothes into high fashion and it was really well done, with goody bags and an after show party.

And Friday I saw a Japanese friend and we went to see the Scott and Shackelton photographic exhibition at the Queens Gallery Herbert Ponting shots from the ill-fated Scott expedition are absolutely stunning.

Now I have a bad cold, something I always seem to get when I'm exposed to lots of people, I just don't have any resistance to things any more. So I'm lying low and living on lemsip.

The photo is of some of the gilding on the door of the Queens Gallery - horse chesnut leaves and flowers. Here in my home town they had to chop a massive old one down this week, as it was diseased and had a number of deep wounds on it limbs. Seeing the huge gap it has left behind made me think of this Niedecker poem:

My Friend Tree
by Lorine Niedecker


My friend tree
I sawed you down
but I must attend
an older friend
the sun