Liz Berry opens her debut collection, Black Country, with the jubilant line, “When I became a bird, Lord, nothing could not stop me”, and, indeed, she never stops soaring. Themes range from summers of childhood innocence to sex and marriage, all set against Black Country landscapes, history and characters. In these dazzling, sensuous, and utterly Read More
If Kei Miller hasn’t produced a poetry collection since 2010, the intervening years have been anything but unproductive: two marvellous novels, a blog, a doctorate, editing work and a wonderful collection of essays. Yet Miller’s poetic sensibility is special; his ability to suggest a transcendent luminosity in the single line or a small commonplace detail, Read More
In 2010, Glasgow-based artists Rob Churm, Raydale Dower and Tony Swain collaborated on Le Drapeau Noir, an exhibition staged for the Glasgow International Festival. In the context of GENERATION – a nationwide programme that celebrates some of the most significant Scottish art from the past 25 years – the trio is brought together again for Read More
“I was bored stiff with it all and the referendum was still weeks away. Other people were starting to get fed up with it as well; the initial excitement had worn off by now, reality had kicked in and people were sick of the hullabaloo. We were being force-fed a diet of political candy floss, Read More
The title of Maggie Sullivan’s second collection is suitably cryptic; the remote suggests detachment as well as control. Sharp, capricious and clever, these poems are interested in process—creative, physical, and political. The opening poem, ”How to build a poem” uses the metaphor of building a wall to demonstrate the creative process: Balance stones, two, three, Read More
More than any of Denise Mina’s work to date, The Red Road is a novel about the past and its ability to haunt the present. Mina’s latest foray into Glaswegian crime and corruption involving Detective Inspector Alex Morrow is a story which begins on the night of Princess Diana’s death. Rose Wilson, a fourteen year Read More
This is an edited transcript of an interview with Denise Mina at the Dundee Literary Festival 25th October 2013. The full audio recording can be heard by clicking HERE. Alex Henry: I am delighted on behalf of DURA as well as the University in general to welcome award-winning writer Denise DM to our interview room here Read More
Drunk on the sun, a day’s excursion to East Neuk’s well-known arts festival – with the Isle of May in the distant background – is an unadulterated pleasure, lulling you into an illusion that “warm days will never cease”. Pittenweem’s distinctive charm lies in its temporary conversion of local cottages into art galleries, in addition Read More
Paul Batchelor has brought together a range of diverse perspectives in Reading Barry MacSweeney which, with its insights about MacSweeney’s life and work, adds much to an understanding of Wolf Tongue, reviewed here on the DURA poetry pages. Contributors include WN Herbert, Harriet Tarlo and MacSweeney’s former partner, SJ Litherland. Batchelor doesn’t flinch from the Read More
First published in 2003, Wolf Tongue has been re-printed by Bloodaxe, complemented by Paul Batchelor’s illuminating book of essays, Reading Barry MacSweeney, also reviewed here on the DURA pages. MacSweeney, a prodigious poet, selected most of the poems for Wolf Tongue before his death in 2000. For much of his life, he was little known, having Read More