Hello! Apologies for huge blog-negligence. Everything has been quite manic and whirlwind the past couple months:
1. I got engaged! Handsome S proposed at the start of January so my head's been in the clouds since then.
2. I've been hibernating (ie. flat-hunting, car-hunting, visiting wedding venues & fairs, and dress shopping. WHEW!).
3. As you'll know, Japan had a massive earthquake & tsunami a couple weeks ago, which destroyed many cities in northern Japan. Unfortunately, the cities hit the worst (Sendai & surrounding areas) are where my family live. My mother's family home in the ocean-front town of Rikuzen-takata (Iwate-ken) was washed away, and we couldn't get in contact with my aunt in Sendai for nearly a week. I am so grateful that all of my family is alive and accounted for - but many of their friends and neighbors are not, and their home is gone. I've been quite out of it, to say the least, for the past couple weeks. Sendai is also the town that S and I lived in when we were in Japan, and we're so fortunate that we were not there during the disaster, but it's made me think a lot about my own mortality and how fragile life is. Our thoughts and well wishes are for Tohoku these days.
That said - there are a few exciting things which I should have mentioned much sooner:
For part of the thiscollection project, I just got word that film maker Jerry Dowd (Glasgow School of Fine Art) has made an AMAZING short film to go with my poem 'Going Home'. This film poem was made at a film factory workshop run in Edinburgh this January. Please check out the film at the link below:
http://vimeo.com/19254474
The thiscollection crew are screening all films collected to date at The Glue Factory as part of an art installation on April 30th-May 17th 2011. Hope you can attend the event!
I also should have invited you to the launch for Poetry Beyond Text: Vision, Text + Cognition.
The launch event was at the Dundee Contemporary Arts, Visual Research Centre. My poem 'Growing Flowers' was on display, along with a lovely photograph-response called 'Husk' inspired by my poem, and a poem-response by Russell Jones inspired by the photograph. It was really exciting and humbling to see people actually going up to the poem and reading it.
I think the exhibition is meant to be on display at the Scottish Poetry Library in summer 2011 and I shall most definitely be more timely about letting you know! And if you are Dundee-ways, the exhibition is still on until April 1st at the Visual Research Centre. Check it out!
Last, a wee shout-out to Peggy Hughes & the ByLeavesWeLive crew. Peggy was resident blogger for StAnza, the Scottish International Poetry Festival, in St Andrews which was on last week/weekend. I went up on the Saturday to represent Forest Publications and she snapped my pic at the Poets Market. Fame!
That's all for now. Let's see if I can be a bit more diligent around here, eh!
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