A ‘Discussion on Virtual and Other Realities’ seemed like the perfect event to go to as I tried to wrap my head around some reading on NFTs, and how a cryptopunk now sells for millions of dollars. How is this relevant to reviewing a poetry festival? We’ll get to that in a bit. Last week, […]
Sight. Spatial awareness. Hearing. My senses are opened to the excitement and intimidation that our natural world offers. Andy Metcalf and Giles Perring’s immersive installation ‘EXPOSURE’ encapsulates the rawness of human expression in parallel to the beastly nature of landscapes. An interdisciplinary approach offers a surrounding of the Earth’s natural, inviting and intimidating sounds and views. […]
What do laughter and misery have in common? Leyla Josephine’s case study ‘Hopeless’ asked precisely that question. The performance started with a mockery of pretentious love poetry, with the host poetically reciting lines from Love Island. Next came Murid Laly, the first of two poets who supported Josephine. Laly, following Josephine, focused on more melancholy […]
This Tuesday, as part of the University of Edinburgh’s Visiting Writers series, the Scottish Poetry Library hosted poet, novelist and critic Sean O’Brien. O’Brien’s most recent poetry collection Europa deals with issues of place, identity and belonging. The event consisted of a poetry reading by the author, followed by a short conversation with Beth Cochrane, […]
I was welcomed, at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, to a warm and intimate setting for an evening of storytelling by James Spence and Daniel Serridge. There was little information online about the kinds of stories that would be told, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that Spence and Serridge discussed a plethora of different […]
Cafe Voices: Sheroes’ was a charming event held in celebration of International Women’s Day. One by one, volunteers from the audience stood up to tell a story, sing a song or recite a poem about their ‘sheroes’: women who are inspiring, admired, or simply just loved. The informal style of the small event made it […]
New to the world of spoken word poetry, I sat down to Poetry Circus’ ‘Broken Hearts’ fearing an evening of excessively tragic laments and elegies to lost love. Instead, I saw performances with a lighthearted, whimsical approach to the theme of love and loss which, while ebullient, were often extremely moving. Needless to say, I […]
A Many Splendoured Thing, the Scottish Storytelling Centre’s Valentine’s Day offering, saw storytellers Harriet Grindley, Maria MacDonnell and Bob Mitchell perform together as We Three to explore the themes of love and romance through an assortment of tales and music. The three performers took it in turns to tell stories which ranged from Scottish folklore to […]