SUFFOLK POETRY SOCIETY this weekend offers its own small celebration of Sorley MacLean’s poetry within a larger schedule of poetry and ‘soundings’ on Saturday 25th June 2011 at the Quaker Meeting House, St John’s Street, Bury St Edmunds. Cameron Hawke Smith, one of the organisers of the Suffolk event, is just returned from participating in the four days of celebration and critical debate on Skye and Raasay at the Ainmeil Thar Cheudan: A Centenary Celebration of Sorley MacLean (1911-2011) event.
The Suffolk poetry event includes contributions from Anna McCrae a native Gaidhlig speaker from Barra, a singer and teacher of drama and an active member of the Gaelic Society of London. James Knox Whittet will also contribute. He was born in Islay, now living in Norfolk and is the author of several books including 100 Island Poems. His version of Hallaig was commended in the Stephen Spender Translation Prize. Cameron Hawke Smith, is a former archaeologist, museum curator and now amateur poet and translator. See his own blog site at www.demodikos.com
All are members of Suffolk Poetry Society www.suffolkpoetrysociety.org.uk. The website www.poetryaloud.org.ukfrom the Bury St Edmunds Poetry cafe has a constantly updated publication of poems,events, etc.
Timetable for the day below
2.00pm Welcome: Rob Lock from Poetry Aloud
The mild mad dogs of poetry
The Gaelic tradition and the poetry of Sorley MacLean, in the year of the centenary of his birth. Anna McCrae, James Knox Whittet, Cameron Hawke Smith
Interlude: Ceirwin Tomas Welsh harpist
2.45pm
The house of many tongues
Some of the ancient and modern languages of the poetry of the British Isles and beyond explored by Ian Griffiths, Cameron Hawke
Smith, Joan Sheridan Smith, Anne Boileau & David Simpson, Helen Bourne
around 3.30 Tea Break, with music from
Ceirwin Tomas and
Colin Whyles
4.00pm
The isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs
Some dialect poetry
Scots – Anna McCrae and Cameron Hawke Smith
Yorkshire – Carol Bleiker
Lincolnshire – Colin Whyles
Wiltshire/Dorset – Michael Stagg
Suffolk – Beryl Dyson
4.30pm Guest poets
J.S.Watts, author of Cats and Other Myths (Lapwing Publications)
Clare Crossman, author of Going Back
(Firewater Press) and The Shape of Us (Shoestring Press): My Silences are always enemies, the poetry of Elizabeth Jennings
5.15pm
Clamjamfry
A lighthearted ‘open mic’ opportunity for everyone to entertain us with a sound poem. Invitations to all to contribute!
5.30 pm close
Scottish Centre for Island Studies 