Drop in for a glass of wine, poetry and jolly good company!
The annual Christmas Poetry Pamphlet Fair takes place on Tuesday December 13th, from 6.00 to 8.30 pm at the National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh. Treat yourself or find that last minute present. I will be there with a stall and taking a reading slot, we are allowed only three minutes so the poems have to be well chosen!
As part of the Ilkley Literature Festival Fringe Mary and her daughter, actress Cathy Sara will be presenting their two-woman show in the Wildman at Ilkley Playhouse on October 11th at 9pm. Emails and phone calls and a single meeting in Scotland in August has brought together ideas and material for this two-woman show based on the poems in “A Kindness of Women”. Both are looking forward to the event as well as the chance to see old friends from when they lived in Ilkley. Cathy began her acting career at The Ilkley Playhouse – as a Munchkin in the Wizard of Oz – a far cry from Downton Abbey and her role in the soon to be released Daniel Radcliffe film, Woman in Black.
Art on the Wing is the title of an exhibition at the MacLaurin Art Gallery, Ayr from 28 August to 25 September. Over 30 artists for whom wildlife, landscape and birds are an important subject have been invited to exhibit in a huge range of media. Organised by the RSPB Scotland Central Ayrshire Local Group, all profits are in aid of conservation, local habitat and species protection. Mary is showing her handmade books, paintings and prints and giving a reading of her poems, titled Other Worlds, at the gallery on 30 August at 2 pm. Tel: 0129 445447/443708 for opening hours. Poems from A Kindness of Women will be included.
The kindness in the title of Mary’s new collection acts as a collective noun for mothers, daughters, friends, women observed unseen, women in art and history, her own girl- and ageing self. The pamphlet is at the printers at the moment, but Mary will be hand stitching the pages and covers as usual, as she does not want to lose that personal contact with each copy before it goes to the reader’s hands.
Mary is planning three new themed collections for 2011. “A Kindness of Women” will come first, followed by “Some Consequences of Saying Yes” and lastly by “A Stone in the Pocket”. She hopes to have all three ready for the summer.
Mary was delighted that a special edition of her tiny book The Skylark was included in the exhibition SMALL at the Scottish Poetry Library in September, and even more surprised and thrilled that all the exhibits were then taken into the National Collection held there.
Mary has added two new single poem books to her list, Memory (her smallest yet at 3 x 9 cm) and Other Worlds, which is illustrated with one of her own paintings instead of a photograph. The subject inspired her to get her paints out for the first time in many years.
Both will be on display at the Scottish Pamphlet Poetry Christmas event at the National Library of Scotland, George IV building, Edinburgh, on December 15th, 6-8.30 pm.
Mary is delighted to have been invited to take part in the exhibition “Art on the Wing” at the Maclaurin Art Galleries, Rozelle Estate in Ayr from August 28th to September 25th next year. Collage/prints with texts and related books will be on display.
Thank you to all who stopped to chat, read and buy at the By Leaves We Live event at the Scottish Poetry Library on September 25th, what a good day!
I was also delighted to have my new tiny version of Skylark chosen for the exhibition “Small’ at the SPL. I really am thrilled to be in such good company as the rest of the books on display are so imaginative and beautifully made.
At the event “Its A Long Way”, at the Ilkley Literature Festival on Saturday October 2nd, Mary described the physical, emotional and artistic journey that has taken her from running an Art Gallery in Yorkshire in the 1980′s to now living in Scotland as a poet and making handmade books. She read poems that reflected some of the key moments of the journey as well as recent unpublished poems. She enjoyed the experience very much and thanks all who came for listening with such empathy.