Next event in Montrose

It's time for me to announce the details of the next Brilliant Poetry event in Montrose.

Date – Friday 23rd April 2010
Venue – Links Hotel, Montrose, Angus (Scotland!)
Time – Doors 7.30pm, show at 8pm.
Ticket details at the end of this post.

Our poets will be....this man



Kind of looks into your soul, don't he? Yes, Dundee's Don Paterson is taking a trip up the road to come and read poems and even have a twang on his guitar. His new book 'Rain' is (suitably enough) brilliant and of course all his other ones haven't been that bad either (has he won every prize possible for poetry...or does it just feel that way? I suppose there's the Nobel still to go...). I heard Paterson in Dundee back in February 08 and he is, of course, one of StAnza's headliners this year too. Still, all the real action is up in Montrose you know...

Our second poet is...



Helena Nelson - publisher of HappenStance Press, writer of award-winning poetry (from most serious to most flippant...), woman of note, resident of Fife...so many reasons to be excited about hearing Nelson at this event. I have met Helena a few times, bugged her about poetry a fair bit, seen her chair debates at StAnza...but never heard her read her own work. Really looking forward to hearing her.

Our musical guest (apart from Paterson) will be...



Andy Shanks – singer, musician, songwriter (songs covered by English folk's wonderful June Tabor, no less), Andy is a local man who doesn't play locally nearly often enough but here's a chance to hear what we're missing. His myspace page is here for anyone who wants a sneaky listen.

Host will be me (Rachel Fox) and there will be books for sale, a raffle (contain yourselves now...) and possibly a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday for both my Mum (86 on that day) and William Shakespeare (considerably older). I hope we get as good a crowd as back in October (and p.s. I am planning another event for National Poetry Day in October again this year...possibly even two events...).

Tickets will be printed in the next couple of weeks and will be available from a couple of outlets in Montrose (details soon). Anyone who cannot get over this way to buy a ticket can email me at author@crowd-pleasers.net to get tickets posted out. Tickets will be £4 in advance and £5 on the door.

Live poets society

Any poets you think are particularly brilliant live performers? Come and add them to the comments over at this post.
Please.
And thank-you.
x

Next stop

I have booked poets and musicians for another event in Montrose. It will take place on Friday 23rd April 2010 at Links Hotel (8pm start as before). I'll post full details in the New Year but take it from me it'll be a good one!
x

Press reports and pics

Here are a couple of pics of poet Raymond Vettese that appeared in the local press (the Courier, below, and the Montrose Review, above) the week after our National Poetry Day event (held 9.10.09). Click on them to read more clearly. Photos by Andy Thompson.





Now I just have to decide what to organise next...and when...and who I want to see and hear...

x

So how did it go?

What does it say at the top of this page? Brilliant! Our National Poetry Day (Plus One) in Montrose last night was... brilliant!

I will get to a proper report at some point but today we're all very tired so there's just time for a couple of quick amateur photos and a word or two.

First off we had a huge audience! The room was full (and it's a big room...a party function room not a little back room or anything). Sure, there were lots of friends and family but there were lots of people I'd never met or seen before too. We weren't meant to open doors till 7.30 but people started coming in at 7 and we were pretty much full by quarter to eight. People had come from out of town, some had seen it in the local papers. It was great to look out at such a big, attentive audience. Plus we took enough money (on door and with raffle) to be able to pay folk for their labour/expenses and not be out of pocket (and all that with tickets only £3 each). Thanks to our sponsors T. Duncan (sponsorship covered some of our other expenses like room hire).



The room filling up nicely (this doesn't show everybody there by any means)! Thanks to everyone who came along.

Secondly all the performers did a great job. Charlie Williamson (singing and helped out on one song by his young son Kyle on guitar), Raymond Vettese (poetry), Grace Banks (singing) and Hugh McMillan (poetry, photo above) was the order of play with little bits of me in between. It was a great mix and a fantastic evening's entertainment. As it was a National Poetry Day event the poets got longer slots and both were on top form. Much laughter, lots of gulp-that's-sad moments, lots of beautiful observations. These ARE two of Scotland's finest poets...I wasn't just making it up for the press release! They enjoyed each other's sets too, I think. They are very different but have much in common too.

There will be more photos to come (one of the local press photographers was around for much of the first half of the night) but the ones in this post are a couple of ours (thanks Mark). We did some videoing too so that will turn up some time too.

p.s. Charlie has written about this event here.

Radio

Just been interviewed by a local radio station about the event on Friday in Montrose! It will be on news bulletins tomorrow apparently and the station is Wave 102 FM. Bet I sound like an over zealous girl guide...
x

Press Pack

I've been sending out quite a lot of press releases and what-not for the event in Montrose on 9th October this year so I was quite pleased to get the first bit of coverage today. Here is the article from the 'Courier' (Angus & Mearns edition - click on the image to get bigger text) featuring a pic of (L to R) me (Rachel - organiser), Ken Bruce (sponsor) and Raymond Vettese (one of the two headlining poets). It's not even a bad picture of us all (posing in the local library)! Thanks photographer (Andy Thompson). Did he have one of those magic cameras or what?