Tom Leonard’s poems are popular and challenging – satirical, experimental or even surreal. Wildly funny or savagely disturbing his work speaks for human compassion (his most recent collection is called Being a Human Being) and for the necessity ‘not to be complicit’ in a world that is saturated with sound bites, social inequality and corporate flannel.

..... Leonard continues to be angrier, funnier and more insightful than many voices on the contemporary poetic scene. Even the surliest of readers will find it hard to resist the blend of subtlety, honesty and emotion that pervades his work. It is a testament to the many voices and stylistic bravura of Tom Leonard, all of which confirm his importance as a writer, both within Scotland and far beyond.      
Matt Maguire. Review of Access to Silence.

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Gerry has published four full-length poetry collections: The Shell House, Madame Fifi’s Farewell, Aves, and Nothing But Heather, a collection of poems accompanying his own wildlife photographs, written while Writer in Residence at Brownsbank Cottage, Hugh MacDiarmid’s former home. Gerry also plays a mean Harmonica!!!

One of the most promising and original of modern Scottish poets...a master of form and subtlety (George Mackay Brown)

Gerry Cambridge captures the essence of people (as of birds) as well as any poet now writing. (Anne Stevenson)

In this new book by Gerry  Cambridge is like a pint of Scottish ale in the hot and dusty Sahara. In Cambridge’s poems, neither consummate skill or deep feeling have gone out of style. (X.J. Kennedy)

Gerry performed at the Bakehouse on 6th December 2008.

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Christine DeLuca is published both nationally and internationally, and writes in both Shetlandic and English. Her first two collections won The Shetland Literary Prize and in 2004 Makkin Sooth Eshaness, won the Rhoda Bulter Prize for Shetland Dialect. Poems have been translated into Swedish, Latvian, Polish, Austrian-German, French, Italian, Welsh and English!

“Her Shetland poems, written in the beautiful Scots of those islands - a blend of Old Scots and Norn - seemed to hanker for a simple and pure way of life which was marvellously evoked in image and sound .... They are poems with a sense of place, sympathy, commitment to language, the urge to celebrate life itself.” Douglas Lipton

Christine DeLuca performed at the Bakehouse, Saturday June 30th 2007

Da sea, hjarta

Da sea‘s haand trivvels da trimmlin limb
o laand: daily shö wylcomes his comins
an gyaains; der sochs an quwilks aboot
der secret tryst; a rivin an lettin go
athin der makkin o blaahöle or a gyo.
Sometimes he‘s filsket an höves himsel
far far intil her, till shö‘s sabbin, plötin.
Lang micht he seek her oot, lang meld
wi her, ta keep her young an vital.
Sho‘s fairest dere ithin his touch;
her fine sides buskit wi banks-flooers,
bouquets o aertbark, violet an squill.
Shö‘ll age peerie-wyes, lowse his grip
apön her; lippen a mair gentle lover.

The sea, my love

The sea‘s hand gentles the trembling limb
of land: daily she welcomes his comings
and goings; their sighs and swallowings
about their secret tryst; a tearing and letting go
within their making of blowhole or a gyo.*
Sometimes he‘s spirited an heaves himself
far far inside her, till she‘s soaking, pleading.
Long might he seek her out, long consort
with her, to keep her young and vital.
She‘s fairest there within his touch;
her fine sides be-decked with thrift,
bouquets of tormentil, violet and squill.
She‘ll age gently, loose his grip upon her;
expect a more gentle lover.

Christine DeLuca

*gyo is a steep, narrow rocky inle

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Libby Houston is a true survivor from the Age of Beats. Since first performing in a cellar under the 1961 Edinburgh Festival, she has read her poetry from Brisbane to Bruton, Solihull to Stuttgart. She toured with the avant garde band Earth House in the 80s, has sung her work to settings by the great Dutch surrealist Louis Lehmann and pioneered the concept of pop-up poetry. Her most recent collection Cover of Darkness (Slow Dancer Press) contains most of her work of the old century.

“..an original voice …..” A.S. Byatt

Libby Houston performed at the Bakehouse, Saturday August 2nd 2008.

Sacred

The road to the well‘s due east. OK. Lit
low, walking the afternoon light now, down the hill,
up again, switchback, pond below, blond banners –

nothing but pleasant, this and us, thus; outspread
red campion and meadowsweet on a like late
weekend break with their latin in the hedge flanks,
blue clouds – OK. And now converging wood,
warm gate set with lichen. We fall in, skirt a soft
edging till the dark path at the elbow, sodden ground –

When I found the place last time I left something,
something, feather or flowers – a coin? – lip-service, cardboard,
2D, cheap play, little pool with no one at home, deep
brown unsure like lazy smoke. This time I drank.

OK. Stirring dregs, dust. Stirred? Stirring what slow – wishes? –
smoke, in any of us? More separate than stars as we fit
the photo joking among birch trees, bramble and ferns.

© Libby Houston

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Alan Riach is a poet and Professor of Scottish Literature at Glasgow University, and President of the Association for Scottish Literary Studies. His books of poems include Clearances (2001), First & Last Songs (1995), An Open Return (1991) and This Folding Map (1990).
Who better to help us celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns!

This is the stuff they’ve been waiting for. The mature Riach. The approachable, humane, bloody good writer who knows what has to be said and when to say it and when not to say it and – more than that – who has something to say and has to say it. - Kevin Ireland

Alan Riach’s writing ... gives a deeper meaning to everything we see with great humour and a hard spiritual edge.
- Scotland on Sunday Books of the Year

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