Category: Poetry in St Andrew Square
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Edinburgh Makars mak mischief
No mics, no loudspeakers, no wham-bam poetry slam. This was a poetry stand-up with a difference – a gently subversive event in the commercial centre of Edinburgh.
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Turning leaves of the Poetry Tree
‘And so, let’s pause a moment here, draw strength – and reclaim what is ours.’ Reclaiming St Andrew Square Ron Butlin Green, gold, gone. Any day soon the leaves will turn and fall. And in a shady corner of Edinburgh’s St Andrew Square a young tree will reflect the colour of its relatives on distant mountains…
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Where exactly is the centre of Edinburgh?
Just wondering, in the event of revolution where would Edinburgh crowds gather, where is the city square, where the city’s heart? (Twitter Mon 21 Feb 17.50) It was an impulsive question on Twitter. I didn’t really expect a response. During the Arab Spring it occurred to me that Edinburgh lacks a true centre. In the…
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Sweetly subversive in Castle Street
Poetry as graffiti, a brilliant combination by Banksy (picture by CodySimms) I like to think this could be a sweetly subversive movement: poetry in motion, gently working its way into the nooks and crannies of city life; sometimes soothing, sometimes stirring. In London this summer at least some of the 3.5 million daily passengers…
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Roses are red and dogwood is too
We’re planting in the Poetry Garden today so it’s not good to wake to a small blizzard swirling outside the window. But, would you believe it, by the time we carry our poems to St Andrew Square the sky is blue, the sun is shining and the snow is a perfect background for bright red…
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Here and (not) there
here, there and gone: where? Home is a controversial word for Iyad Hayatleh, a Palestinian poet who was born in a Syrian refugee camp. “The most controversial word of my life,” he told us. He has never been to Palestine but to mark Refugee Week, Iyad read poems about home in Arabic and English as…
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Lost World replaced
The next instant it was gone – and so was our dinner. Ed Malone in the Lost World Hot foot in the snow to St Andrew Square to check poetry stakes are still in place. So far so good, though last week I obviously blogged too soon. The Lost World vanished from the garden within…
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Planting poetry and other subversive thoughts
On the No 8 bus this morning I peered anxiously out of the window as we passed St Andrew Square. Ever since I helped to plant poetry in the garden for the Lost World Read the weather seems to be doing its best to blow the whole lot to the kingdom of Fife. Or some…
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Open and shut
And so, let’s pause a moment here, draw strength – and reclaim what is ours. Ron Butlin It was a fine affair: a red carpet, a string quartet, speeches from private and public bodies, a poem composed for the occasion, and fizzy wine to wash it all down. But, rather oddly, the official opening of…
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Poetry and politics in the city
It has happened. Thanks to a great group of people led by Ewan, a fantasy lurking at the back of my mind has made it into real life. Yesterday in the Scottish Poetry Library, a treasure of a place tucked out of sight down a close in the Royal Mile, a cluster of literary souls…