Aonghas MacNeacail is a Skyeman  who now lives in the Scottish Borders. He writes poetry and songs in both Gaelic and English. He is a seasoned performer of his own work, who believes poetry should be accessible and its presentation can be fun!

Poetry has taken him as far East as Japan, and West to Seattle and Vancouver, to Rovaniemi on the Finnish Arctic Circle and down to the Dead Sea. He’s read on the Capitol in Rome, in the UN building in New York, and he’s met the King of Tory Island. Berlin, Brussels, Warsaw and St Petersburg vie with Tula, Tobermory and Tarland for a place in his list of most memorable venues.

Aonghas won the Stakis Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year with his third collection, Oideachadh Ceart ('A Proper Schooling and other poems'), in 1997. His most recent collection Laoidh an Donais òig ('Hymn to a young demon') was published by Polygon in 2007

‘His verse is built on love and nature, indeed if we had a word that meant both love and nature, that word would describe his verse. He is a passionately committed writer of robust and sensuous verse that owes something to the past for its imagery while being  uncompromisingly modern in form.’
Ronald Black in the History of Scottish Literature

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Poet/lyricist Pete Brown is often described as Cream’s unofficial fourth member. With bassist Jack Bruce he co-wrote many of the trio’s biggest hits including “White Room,” I Feel Free,” and “Sunshine of your Love” (with Eric Clapton). But before Pete became known as Jack Bruce’s songwriting compatriot- before his own work with the Battered Ornaments and then with Piblokto - he was known as a poet in England’s Beat Underground performing at the Albert Hall with the likes of Horovitz, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Burroughs and Robert Graves.

And he’s still writing!

Markings is published a mini-collection of Pete’s poetry in Issue 28. Some poems are short, succinct, witty statements, others build on mysterious, dazzling, haunting images to create surreal moodscapes. While some capture the tremendous creative energy of the mid-1960s others shock with savage contemporary relevance. The importance of unbridled imagination, as well as the joys & pains of love, are recurring themes in his work.

Tiger, Baghdad, 2003

I never liked it here anyway.
Too sodding hot, and it
Was always a two star hotel;
Full of Saddam’s jeering and poking
Children, the poor bloody workers never had time
To come and see the likes of me.
I’d only been here for a couple of years,
Out of Bengal by way of those
Prick traders in Thailand
Who’d make their money
Out of their mothers’ fingernails
If there was nothing else.
At least I didn’t get to be
Some kind of imaginary aphrodisiac.
Always a bit of a loner, me.
It’s the way I liked it.
My ancestors were big game for the Brits and Rajahs; then
For a while the boots were on the other foot
Though the villagers didn’t taste so good
After nuclear power settled in.
I never touched the water myself,
Instincts too bloody strong.
Of course those fools weren’t afraid,
Too busy dreaming
Of dancing girls, bad disco music
and Toyota Landcruisers.
That’s where religion gets you.
Just what I could do with now,
A nice fat tasty priest…
But this is where we’re at:
Since the zoo went
I’m skulking in the alleys like a common mog.
The trigger happy Yanks
Are blowing everything away
Whether it moves or not;
There’s not much cover left.
The locals are locked in cellars
With the remains of the food
Getting their stories ready
For the inquisition
So they can be the next oppressors.
Where the fuck does that leave me?
It’ll be a long time
Before the zoo’s back in shape
And I’m not so sure
I could strut my stuff
With the Stars and Stripes
Hanging over me like a shroud.
Best thing is to leave town,
Follow the stink of death from the desert.
I could live off the odd goatherd
And even an unwary vulture
Or two, not to forget
The goats themselves.
Undoubtedly the Yanks have the city
In a theoretical ring of steel.
I have to find my way out
Without scaring too many brave
Soldiers, or it’s curtains.
Here goes…

© Pete Brown

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Chrys Salt: 'Greedy for Mulberries'

Greedy for Mulberries by Chrys Salt offers the reader the distillation of a woman’s hunger for life, her belief in humanity, her vulnerability in love, her fears and hopes for the future and her celebration of the past. It refuses consolation, concentrating on the truth of experience and in so doing brings compassion, nobility and joy to life.
(112 pages ) Available from Lulu:
Paperback: £6.93 Download: £3.75
Buy/Download

Chrys Salt: What they say ...

..her verse sounds distinctly female, bathed in the female element of language, letting it speak through her....her work will become widely known and loved, popular, because it speaks of past forms in a language so finely tuned it appears natural. Ambit review of Inside Out (Chrys’ first collection)

I love the economy and humour of Chrys Salt’s poetry and the emotional scope of her references. Prunella Scales

Performing with you made even the pangs of stage – fright seem bearable. Cecil Day Lewis

Chrys Salt’s haiku ‘Stuffing tomatoes for Don Paterson’ has left me speechless.....
Don Paterson

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