Already a well-known figure in Britain”s Buddhist community, Maitreyabandhu founded Poetry East in 2010, a venture which set about exploring the relationship between spiritual life and poetry. As a teacher of Buddhism and meditation at the London Buddhist Centre, he is better placed than most to explore this connection. Already a published author of several Read More
A group of artists from the MFA Fine Arts and Humanities at the University of Dundee spent a week on the Greek island of Aegina. They paired up with local artists, found common ground, formed relationships and collaborated. The result is a fascinating blend of shared minds, memories and culture, inspired by the buildings, landscape Read More
The performance of Much Ado Abut Nothing by the Dundee Rep Ensemble, directed by Irene Macdougall, was fantastic, entertaining and frequently hilarious. Ken Harrison’s set was a simple yet impressive affair of Mediterranean tiles, ornate lights and transparent walls; the grand, uncluttered setting allowed the performers room to bring this Shakespeare comedy of love, Sicilian Read More
Kate Ashton was born in Scotland and trained as a nurse in Edinburgh, after which she moved to London to work on Nursing Times. She has previously published fiction and non-fiction, reviews, and has worked in translation and in journalism ( mainly in the Netherlands), from 1979 to 2003. Her memoir, Losing Eric Gill’s Eden, is forthcoming. She Read More
Sarah James’ Plenty-fish cannot be gulped in one go, slipping as it does magnificently around in the imagination, never quite solidly poetry, but fleshy and fresh. The seventy-one-piece collection contains poems of varying lengths – all semi-anecdotal and detailed accounts of everyday life. As a graduate in Modern Languages, James’ sense of poetic form is Read More
Family dramas have always provided writers with fertile subjects for comedy or tragedy; witness the grandeur of Shakespeare’s King Lear or the melancholy of Elizabeth Strout’s My name is Lucy Barton, a small gem of a novel longlisted for the same Baileys Prize this year. The Portable Veblen is Elizabeth McKenzie’s exuberant and surreal comic Read More
The factual stories and prose-poems of The Dance at Mociu chronicle Peter Riley’s travels through Transylvania, Romania with their carefully crafted portrayals of the scenery, people, traditions and above all the music of the region. Through diligent wording and description, Riley brings to life a world we almost certainly have never experienced, and assuming we Read More
Luke Wright’s career as a poet has emphasised the indelible connection between writing and performance. Wright has been performing his poetry since he was 17 but it wasn’t until 2000 that he really explored poetry’s potential in the artistic community, co-founding Aisle16 with Ross Sutherland. Aisle16 mostly features Wright and Sutherland’s own work, alongside those Read More
There are two major problems with The Improbability of Love. The first is that it’s just too long and the second is that it’s dull. The large cast of characters and their sub-plots are exhausting. There is an ensemble cast of at least eighteen different characters, each with a section dedicated to their point of Read More
The Animation section of the DJCAD degree show never fails to impress. There’s a palpable excitement as you pass through the Cooper Gallery and lower corridor; the various posters displaying background art and character sketches track the development from rough sketches to the sleek final product. This year’s work continues to raise the bar with Read More