Concerned about Accessibility in Theatre? Read Guardian Culture Professionals today

This posting from Guardian Culture Professionals Network might be of interest to you. Click HERE.

(There is also a piece about a career in poetry, which you might enjoy.)

World Poetry Day!

Yesterday was World Ballet Day, as you'll have noticed from our last blogpost.  (Ah, ballet - poetry in motion!)  There's something rather nice about World Ballet Day being followed by World Poetry Day.  The Whittaker Library - not surprisingly, in a library for dramatic and musical performers - has plenty of poetry.

• Take a look at our poetry collection HERE.
• Visit the Scottish Poetry Library website HERE.
• We wouldn't want our musicians to feel left out, so here are some musical limericks to brighten their day:- click HERE.
• Karen has a particular interest in bardic things, so let's revive her posting about Welsh bards while we're at it!  HERE.

Finding Poetry? Try PoemHunter.com

Looking for a poem?  We came across this useful website:- http://www.poemhunter.com/

There are probably lots more poetry-finding websites out there - do share them with us! 

Bibliolore blogs about Mallarme and Dance

Mention Mallarme to our singers, and they'll think of poetry.  But the people at RILM (the music bibliography database) have blogged today about Mallarme and dance.  So, that means Mallarme will be interesting to our ballet students, too!

Read the Bibliolore blogpost about Mallarme and dance here.

The Songs of Scotland by Allan Cunningham

Allan Cunningham (7 December 1784 – 30 October 1842)*

Fraud, Forger and Poet

Although we ordered one of those cheap modern digital reprints of Allan Cunningham's Songs of Scotland, I didn't think it would matter much. After all, what matters is that we can read his introduction, as much as the poetry his once-famous anthology contains.

I didn't bargain on the cheap modern reprint containing only the introduction.  Ah, well!  You win some, you lose some.  Here's where to find it in the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  (Catalogue entry.)

Cunningham was a bit of a fraud - he made up poems as well as including genuine old Scottish poems.  Still, although in the 1820s his peers thought he was a fraud, within a few years of his death, he was revered as a poet in his own right. 

The wording of his introduction shows us his poetic interpretation of the history of Scotland's poetry.  Interesting!

* Whilst we wouldn't recommend Wikipedia as a trusty source for an essay, the basic details of Cunningham's life and output are here for a start.

SoundCloud for Poetry

'Whittaker' is getting quite excited about SoundCloud -an excellent way of sharing audio recordings.  And not just music, either.  Today, Twitter notified us that the Scottish Poetry Library has a SoundCloud page,

"featuring many of our Best Scottish Poets 2012 reading their work soundcloud.com/scottishpoetry…"

Do you write poetry? Here's a competition!

Write a Poem: the Neil Gunn Competition

Yesterday evening, another librarian told me about this Scottish competition.  But you'll have to be quick - the closing date is this Friday!
 
It's the Neil Gunn Writing Competition.  Details here.
 
From the competition website:-

"The theme for both the adult prose and adult poetry sections is ‘The Tenderness of Stone’. [...]  Writers worldwide are invited to interpret this theme in any way they wish – the entries do not have to be set in Scotland or during the time when Neil Gunn himself was writing. Please see the entry rules for full details about the competition.

This biennial competition is organised by High Life Highland and The Neil Gunn Trust, who gratefully acknowledge the sponsorship of this year’s competition by Dingwall & Seaforth Ward 9, The Highland Council; Rhoda Michael, and David Lynch of The Greenhouse (www.thegreenhousedingwall.co.uk)[...]. We are delighted that the lead judge for this, the 13th competition is Scottish author Jackie Kay."*
 

*Whittaker Library patrons will recall Jackie Kay's memorable visit to the Library last year, when she gave readings from her books.

NLS Burns Night Poetry Grand Slam

Burns Night

25 January 2013, 6-8 pm

National Library of Scotland

Okay, let's get some Royal Conservatoire of Scotland voices taking part in the poetry grand slam at the National Library of Scotland on 25th January 2013!  There surely must be Conservatoire people who'd enjoy this.

To compete in the slam, you need to contact g.hawley@nls.uk.  More details here on the NLS events page:- 

http://www.nls.uk/events

Use the above link for booking a ticket to be in the audience, too.

Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy writing Ballet

In the Guardian today -

"Carol Ann Duffy writing dark Rapunzel ballet

Poet laureate revisits sinister original version of classic fairytale for touring production commissioned by Sadler's Wells"  Read it here.

Reminder: Tobar An Dualchais

Tobar An Dualchais

Kist o' Riches

In Tobar's own words, it contains,

"over 26,000 oral recordings made in Scotland and further afield, from the 1930s onwards. The items you can listen to include stories, songs, music, poetry and factual information."

Tobar An Dualchais (Kist o Riches) also has a Gaelic website here.

The resource was tweeted today by Chris Holme @HistoryCompany:-

"What Alan Lomax @librarycongress @TobarDualchais and Pete Seeger helped build in Scotland: http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/"

(Chris Holme's History Company is effectively a consultancy - find out more here:- http://historycompany.co.uk/)

Benjamin Zephaniah sees himself as a bard

So you thought bards were old hat? Think again!


Benjamin Zephaniah talks to the THE (Times Higher Education) magazine about his new Brunel appointment to lecture in Creative Writing.  Read it here and find out why he sees himself as a latter-day bard.


And here's another interview from the Guardian newspaper, done in 2009.



Benjamin Zephaniah being interviewed for Guardian



Tobar an Dualchais

• Tobar an Dualchais
  'This website contains thousands of oral recordings recorded in Scotland and further afield, from the 1930s onwards. The items you can listen to include stories, songs, music, poetry and factual information.'
  tags:
• oral-recordings 
• Scotland culture 
• stories 
• songs 
• poetry

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

RSAMD welcomes Royal Literary Fellowship

Whittaker Live is very pleased to note the arrival of our first Royal Literary Fellow - Alexander Hutchison. He will be available for staff and students to consult about writing in all its many and varied forms.

Find out more about Alexander at his own website, or at Salt Publishing, the publishers of his recent poetry collection, Scales Dog.

.

You'll find examples of Alexander's work in the Whittaker Library very soon:-

• Scales Dog
• Epistle from Pevkos
• Carbon Atom

More about the Royal Literary Fund Fellowships here.