D+G Writers go to StAnza

From Jean Atkin:

St Andrews is Scotland’s Poetry Capital and drew a happy contingent of writers from Dumfries and Galloway to enjoy StAnza 2011, the only regular festival dedicated to poetry in Scotland. 

l-r   Hugh McMillan, Hugh Bryden, Andy Forster, Rab Wilson

The core of our group was the fabulous Roncadora Press, managed by artist, poet and publisher Hugh Bryden Roncadora featured in the StAnza programme as one of the invited exhibitions ‘Black and White’. Rab Wilson and Hugh McMillan both read on the main programme.  Rab was launching his new pamphlet ‘Ye’re There Horace!’, a Scots version of Horace’s Odes.

'Ye're There Horace!'

Hugh McMillan’s reading was likewise at sell-out - his new Roncadora pamphlet, a nifty version of drystone origami, ‘Cairn’ is a bit of a beauty.

Andy Forster, who was Literature Development Officer in D&G for 5 years was at StAnza with his lovely Roncadora pamphlet ‘Digging’.  He was very good at being there for the craic, too. 

It was my first visit to StAnza – and really it was a thrill from start to finish.Highlights were the Poet’s Market, the gigantic Knit A Poem (it’s a Dylan Thomas poem and would cover a village green), Philip Gross, Ciaran Carson, Douglas Dunn, Marilyn Hacker, Catriona Taylor’s gorgeous exhibition ‘A Thousand Sails’ inspired by Sorley McLean, and more…

Catriona Taylor - A Thousand Sails

My Roncadora pamphlet, ‘Lost At Sea’ looked beautiful in an old fashioned glass-topped museum case in the Trust House Museum. And I left in more sunshine,  full of ideas, head swilling with words, and with the joy of making new friends.