Graham Fulton, “Full Scottish Breakfast” Launch, Trongate 103, 19/11/11

Graham Fulton

A terrific evening, and Graham Fulton reminds me why he’s one of my favourite Scottish poets.  He’s been writing like a demon since leaving his job at the beginning of the year, and his work has become funnier, cleverer and more mature than ever.  Stunning stuff.

Most of the readings are new and will probably appear in future collections.  What I’ve always admired about his work is his instamatic quality: like Edwin Morgan, he has a terrific eye for the minutiae of existence.  That has now been tempered with a contemplative quality that makes his work much deeper than when I worked with him in Paisley Writers’ Group.  Thus, a hilarious poem about an untied shoelace is actually a reverie about growing older;  a punk lads’ night out at the Silver Thread Hotel in Paisley (God, I remember the Silver Thread!) is a paean to nostalgia, to friendship.  Many of the readings have that look over the shoulder at encroaching time that makes guys of our age (Graham is a few months younger than me) shift uncomfortably in our seats.

Of course, I recognise so much of what he writes about, given that , as a Barrhead boy, I know Paisley almost as well as he does;  the pangs of recognition are like welcome taps on the shoulder.   I also, though, recognise the characters he writes about: the wee old woman who embarrasses lads out watching a Scotland match in the pub by talking about her pet dog she had put to sleep that morning; the neds who beat up Graham as he weaved his way homeward on his 40th birthday; the stony faced policeman who commandeers a bus and makes everyone feel guilty just by being there.

It’s not surprising that Graham’s aesthetic is visual: like one of my other favourite Scottish poets, Gerry Cambridge, Graham is a talented photographer, of the urban rather than the natural world.  I’m delighted when I win second place in the raffle and carry off, amongst other goodies, a copy of “The Ruin of Poltalloch”, a booklet of poetry and glorious black and white photographs of Poltalloch House near Kilmartin.  That quality extends into the way he captures images of people.  One lovely poem about a guided ghost tour of Paisley, “Jim the Witch”, has absolutely recognisable gallus wee lassies putting their oar in and punters staggering alarmed out of pubs to see what all the ghostly commotion is about.

Another pamphlet on offer tonight is an epic, “The Zombie Poem”, a thesis on life and undeath prompted by being turned down as an extra for  Brad Pitt’s recent “World War Z” Glasgow shoot.  He reads a couple of related poems, but I read the poem itself quickly before the reading starts, and it’s brilliant, lines jumping out of the page that speak directly to me at my age and in the place and time I am:

“It’s a way of being

content with the art of being alive,

regret, bad choices, directions you can’t undo,

commas in the wrong place,

i before e except after c,

words

you can’t go back to…”

 

Graham reads practically non-stop for more than an hour, and there isn’t a dull moment.  Stabs of recognition, lots of laughs, driving rhythms, pin-sharp images and characters – Graham is at his absolute best, and his best is quite brilliant.

Tchai Ovna reading, 13/5/11

Unfortunately, a couple of cancellations from the performance list mean that the programme is curtailed somewhat, but this is still a good wee event that deserves to be supported.

Jim Gilbert of folk duo Wing and a Prayer starts off the evening in good style, with one of his own compositions and a very creditable John Martyn cover.  Good stuff; regular performers at Tchai Ovna, they’ll be worth checking out.

I read an extract from the first chapter of my novel: I can’t call it new because it’s been on the go so long, so its nice to remind myself what it’s like.  It goes down well, though I felt a little flat.

Chik Duncan performs extracts from his children’s novel in progress.  He’s a polished performer, and should be doing lots of work in primary schools: kids must love him.  Talking to him afterwards, we discover that we graduated from Glasgow University in the same year, and both in Philosophy (him single honours, me joint).  However, given that I spent the vast bulk of my time in my final year playing pool, snooker and darts – anything to avoid classes – it’s hardly likely our paths never crossed.

Nayan Patel has come off the street to investigate the joint, and reads some of his poetry.  It’s good stuff – quick and witty – and if he finds himself a good writers’ group to push him on, I suspect we’ll hear a lot more from him

Graham Keen’s poetry is also witty and truthful, with a sharp working class edge in the finest Glasgow tradition.  He performs at The Scotia Bar, bastion of local writing for generations; I think I did my first ever reading there nearly twenty years ago.

The event organiser, David Manderson, finishes off by reading a short but tantalising extract of his new novel, “Lost Bodies”, to be published next month.  There will be a book launch at The Arches, so I’ll post information about that.  If you’re into crime fiction, this sounds right up your street.

Tchai Ovna is a cosy place.  Smelling of wood smoke and spices, it has a lived in feel, like a room in a croft;   it’s the kind of place you wish you’d spent your childhood in.  I bet it’s lovely in the winter, with the fire blazing.

Tchai Ovna Teahouse Reading, 13/5/11

I will be reading at the monthly writers’ event held at the Tchai Ovna Tea House (West End) in Otago Lane at 8pm on Friday the 13th of May.  The line up – including Graham Meek and Pippa Goldschmidt – looks fantastic, and it’ll be good to be reading again with my old colleague from the Paisley Writers’ group of the 1990s, Graham Fulton, a great poet and brilliant reader who’s just had a new collection published.

Thanks to David Manderson for the invitation.

Directions for Tchai Ovna

Asking Difficult Questions: “From Glasgow to Saturn” Reading Party, 24/2/11

Glasgow to Saturn Reading Party

An excellent line up at the Glasgow to Saturn party, despite the absence of Alan Bissett, an outstanding writer and performer.  Duncan Muir, Kirsty Logan and  Anneliese Mackintosh are all graduates of the Creative Writing programme at Glasgow University, and all have very distinctive, confident voices.  JoAnne McKay is a scream: fantastic, witty, sexy poetry delivered in a dizzying variety of characters – although she confesses to being unable to do a Glasgow accent.

For my own reading, this was the first time I’d rewritten a third person story as a first-person performance piece, and I’m pleased with how it went.  Faced with the microphone, my head tends to go completely blank for a second, but then the adrenalin kicks in, and I got through it making minimal reference to my cue cards.  A new technique discovered!

I had a really interesting conversation with a guest after the reading who, quite rightly, asked serious questions about the purpose of a story that reveals sexual abuse in such graphic detail; is it justifiable to portray such scenes for entertainment?  The guest was a psychiatrist who sees people every day suffering from the kinds of events I described: there is a huge ethical question, then, about how my fiction relates to the horror of their fact.

I can’t begin to answer those questions in any kind of satisfactory way: I just do what I do.  Perhaps I have a wider sense of what “entertainment” is: for me, it includes challenge, the capacity to make someone feel angry or uncomfortable or, basically, to make them think.  I don’t do it for shock value – well, not only for shock value – but if such things are to be spoken of, then they should be spoken of in ways that convey the reality of it.   Ugliness shouldn’t be sanitised, it shouldn’t be buffed up and given a 15 rating; it should be out there, in all its squirm-inducing glory, for all to see if they want to see it.

As I say, it’s what I do, it’s where I go in my head when I write.  There is often confusion between me and the characters I write about.   I remember after one reading many years ago, a member of the audience said to me, “You’re either a really good writer or a complete and total bastard”: I was young and  not a little hurt that I’d made someone think that about me, but I wish I’d had the presence of mind to pull her leg a bit and say, “Actually, I’m both.”   It’s not easy, psychologically, emotionally or socially, to go down those dark alleyways – but I can’t turn away at the entrance to them because what might be down there could offend others.

Of course, we’re talking about matters of taste, and many find much of what I write and how I write and perform it distasteful.  I’ll defend to my last breath their right to feel that way.  But thank goodness taste is such a moveable feast, because it makes the world so much more interesting a place.  My thanks to the elderly lady who tugged my sleeve at the end of the reading and described my writing as “astonishing” and “brave”: I can’t think of two words I’d rather have used to describe my work.

Thanks again to Alan, Nick and Sheila, and to Louise Welsh for hosting the evening.

“From Glasgow to Saturn” Reading Party, Museum of Anatomy, Glasgow, 24/2/11

Erich Leiper watercolour

Am looking forward to reading at the first “From Glasgow to Saturn” reading party at the Museum of Anatomy on February 24th.  A suitably grotesque setting, I’ll be performing a version of one of the most misanthropic stories I’ve ever written, “Gathering of the Clan”.

It popped out of my head in Bulgaria during the summer, and surprised me because I’ve being saying for ages that I don’t write “like that” any more.  It has a lot in common with the stories in “Occasional Demons” and is miles away from the writing I’m doing for my new novel.

It’ll be good to be reading publicly again (first time in about 5 years), and to be sharing the stage with some excellent writers, including Alan Bissett.

Thanks to Alan, Nick and Sheila for inviting me to participate.