Event: Day Conference: The Poet, Nation and Narration:
Geo-Political Poetics - Scotland and the East-West Dimension.
Organisers: Jointly organised by the Edinburgh International Centre for Spirituality and Peace, EICSP, Scottish Charity, SC038996, and the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies (ScoTs).
Speakers and contributors: Lady Joyce Caplan, Anne Connolly, Christine De Luca, Dr Scott Lyall, Prof Bashabi Fraser, Magi Gibson, Aonghas MacNeacail, Prof Alan Riach, Marc Sherland, Professor Alan Spence and Jennifer Williams.
Venue: Sanctuary, Augustine United Church, 41 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh, EH1 1EL.
Date: Saturday 26 November 2016.
Time: Registration: 9.30am-10am. Day Conference: 10am-5.15pm.
Event Description: The purpose of this conference is to:
1. learn about and explore aspects of The Poet, Nation and Narration;
2. provide a forum for networking among those who are interested in aspects of The Poet, Nation and Narration;
3. facilitate open and mutually respectful enquiry and communication among scholars and the wider public regarding aspects of The Poet, Nation and Narration.
Event: Day Conference: The Poet, Nation and Narration:
Geo-Political Poetics - Scotland and the East-West Dimension.
Organisers: Jointly organised by the Edinburgh International Centre for Spirituality and Peace, EICSP, Scottish Charity, SC038996, and the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies (ScoTs).
Venue: Sanctuary, Augustine United Church, 41 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh, EH1 1EL.
Date: Saturday 26 November 2016.
Time: Registration: 9.30am-10am. Day Conference: 10am-5.15pm.
Conference: 9.30am-5.15pm
9.30am-10am: Arrival and Registration
Chair: Prof Bashabi Fraser
10am-10.10am: Introduction and Welcome: Dr Scott Lyall
10.10am-11am: Keynote address: Professor Alan Riach
11.05am-11.35am: Plenary address: Prof Bashabi Fraser
11.35am-12am: Tea/coffee break
12am-12.30pm: Plenary address: Marc Sherland
12.30pm-1.45pm: Lunch break
1.45pm-2.35pm: Keynote address: Christine De Luca
2.40pm-3.10pm: Plenary address: Lady Joyce Caplan
3.10pm-3.40pm: Tea/coffee break
3.40pm-4.10pm: Plenary address: Magi Gibson
4.15pm-5.05pm: Poet's Panel:
Chair: Dr Scott Lyall
Anne Connolly, Aonghas MacNeacail, Prof Alan Spence and Jennifer Williams
5.05pm-5.15pm: Summing up: Prof Bashabi Fraser
Day Conference: The Poet, Nation and Narration:
Geo-Political Poetics - Scotland and the East-West Dimension.
Organisers: Co-convened by Edinburgh International Centre for Spirituality and Peace, EICSP, Scottish Charity, SC038996, and the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies (ScoTs), Edinburgh Napier University.
Venue: Sanctuary, Augustine United Church, 41 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh, EH1 1EL.
Date: Saturday 26 November 2016.
10-10-0: : Inaugural address - Dr Scott Lyall: is Lecturer in Modern Literature at Edinburgh Napier University. He has published Hugh MacDiarmid’s Poetry and Politics of Place, and edited books on MacDiarmid, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, and Community in Modern Scottish Literature.
10.10-11:Keynote: Alan Riach: Poet and Professor of Scottish Literature, Glasgow University. He worked at the University of Waikato in New Zealand from 1986. His manay publications include his Folding Map (AUP, 1990), An Open Return (Untold Books, 1991), First & Last Songs (Chapman, 1995), Clearances (Scottish Cultural Press, 2001), Homecoming: new poems 2001-2009 (Luath, 2009), Arts of Resistance. Is currently co-editing Scottish South Asian Poetry with Bashabi Fraser which will be published next year.
This address will consider a range of poets in different nations and try to answer the question, how does nationality help in the affirmation of human value? Poets to be considered may include Robert Frost, Hugh MacDiarmid, W.B. Yeats, Eavan Boland, Anne Frater, Kathleen Jamie and Edward Dorn.
Title: Lyric, Epic, Matter and Myth: The Provenance of Poets in Troubled Territories
11.05-11.35: Bashabi Fraser is a poet, editor, children’s writer and translator. Her awards include the 2015 Outstanding Woman of Scotland awarded by Saltire Society. Patron of the Federation of Writers in Scotland, a committee member of Scottish PEN and Writers at Risk and the Poetry Association of Scotland. Her recent publications include Letters to my Mother and Other Mothers (Luath Press, in press), Ragas & Reels (poems on migration and diaspora , 2012), Scots Beneath the Banyan Tree: Stories from Bengal (2012. She has been a Royal Literary Fund Fellow from 2012 till 2015 and currently holds an Indian Council for Cultural Relations International Fellowship to write on Rabindranath Tagore. Bashabi is Chief Editor of Gitanjali and Beyond, an academic and creative journal. She is a Professor of English and Creative Writing and co-founder and Director of the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies at Edinburgh Napier University.
In the paper I will look at the significance of nation on the sub-continent of India, linking the definition to Western debates through an exploration of Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam’s role in the national narrative during times of transition as India to reaffirm its socio-cultural identity. I will end with a voyage across the Atlantic to show how in another former British colony, the voice of the poet can be significant in times of political reassertion of a nation.
Title: A Nation in Flux and the Voice of the Poet:
Tea/coffee: 11.35-12
12-12.35: Marc Sherland: Humanist, performance poet, writer and folklorist, with stories, poems and factual articles in print.
Elected President of the Scottish Association of Writers in 2013, having served as Secretary 2007-13. In 2005 Elected Chairperson of the Federation of Writers (Scotland), when he stepped down as Chair, he became their Ambassador in 2010. Convenor of the Workers Educational Association in Scotland since election in 2013. Secretary of the Glasgow & District Burns Association, he is also a Director (Membership) of the Robert Burns Word Federation, becoming both in 2016. Chairperson of the Larkfield Community Centre in Glasgow and Coordinator of 'Glasgoes Poetic Festival' from 2011 - 16.
Performed on the stage of London's Albert Hall, on Edinburgh streets, in a garden at the Callander Poetry Festival and pops up in Glasgow venues. He facilitates Larkfield Writers’ Group, the Gallery of Modern Art Library, Glasgow Writing Group and the Tron Theatre based Word Factory.
Marc jointly won the national 2006, ‘Glasgow 2020’ competition & in 2009, Maggie Craig, acclaimed novelist, awarded his short story, ‘Tha Diel’s Merck’ 1st place in the Castles in the Air competition run by the Scottish Association of Writers, a story entirely written in Doric Scots. A Burnsian Marc gives talks on the life and loves of Robert Burns.
Title: From Gilgamesh to Cohen, poetic responsibility and duty
Lunch: 12.30-1.45
1.45-2.35: Keynote: Christine De Luca, who writes in both English and Shetlandic, is a native Shetlander who lives in Edinburgh. She was appointed Edinburgh’s Makar in 2014. She has had over a dozen books published, mainly poetry, but also a novel and children’s stories. Her latest collection, Dat Trickster Sun (Mariscat, 2014) was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Poetry Pamphlet Prize. Her poems have been selected four times for the Best Scottish Poems of the Year and her poetry has won awards in Shetland and internationally.
Title: Poet Nation and Narration
2.40-3.10: Lady Joyce Caplan is a poet, critic and academic who teaches at the University of Edinburgh and specialises in Scottish Literature. She has been the Chair of the Scottish Poetry Library for several years and is currently the President of the Friends of Edinburgh University Library, Chair of the Poetry Association of Scotland committee member of Scottish Pen,
Title: ’The Difficult Land' NOT Debatable
Tea/coffee: 3.10-3.40
3.40-4.10: Magi Gibson: Magi Gibson’s poetry collections include Chapman’s best-selling Wild Women of a Certain Age. Poems appear in Modern Scottish Women Poets (Canongate), Scottish Love Poems (Canongate), The Edinburgh Book of Twentieth Century Scottish Poetry, (EUP), New Writing Scotland, Original Prints, (Polygon) and many other anthologies, magazines and The Scotsman and The Herald. She has held three Scottish Arts Council Fellowships and a Royal Literary Fund Fellowship. Former Reader in Residence with Glasgow Women’s Library, she was joint winner of the Scotland on Sunday/Women 2000 Poetry Prize. Her new collection, Washing Hugh MacDiarmid’s Socks will be published March 2017 by Luath.
In this talk I will explore the work of Canadian Cree poet Louise Halfe, also known as Skydancer, with particular reference to her poetry about the damage done by the compulsory education of indigenous children from the age of seven. Louise was placed in a Catholic residential school at that age, and her relationship with her family and culture were severely ruptured. A common experience for First Nation children. Ali, an indigenous Australian, was one of the 'stolen generation', taken from her mother and adopted by white farmers. Both these women struggled as adults to heal the deep wounds their forced separations from family and culture inflicted. And both have worked through their own - and their people's - pasts in poetry.
Title: The Poet and the Wound. What we can learn about the poet, the nation and narration - and in particular the place of the woman poet - from Indian Cree poet, Louise Halfe, and Yankunytjnatjara poet Ali Coby Eckerman
4.15-5.05: Poets’ Panel: Chair Dr Scott Lyall
Poets: Jennifer Williams, Anne Connolly, Prof Alan Spence and Aonghas MacNeacail
Cost: Day Conference: £10/£5 (Concessions).
Contact: Neill Walker, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 0131 331 4469.