#ross mcfarlane

Hello again. We took a bit of a break from this (for reasons explained here), but now we’re back with a couple of podcasts recorded during this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. Firstly we’re talking to the four writers and performers behind A Matter of Time, a debut fringe show from Ellen Renton, Shannon MacGregor, Ross McFarlane and Bibi June. They chose two poems each.

The poems they have chosen are as follows (click on the links for more info):

Mid-Term Break - Seamus Heaney - Death of a Naturalist (1966)

Autumn - Paolo Nutini - These Streets (2006 album)

Anthem - Leonard Cohen - The Future (1992 album)

Unsolicited Advice To Adolescent Girls With Crooked Teeth and Pink Hair - Jeanann Verlee

Disasterology - Jeffrey McDaniel

July - Boy - Mutual Friend (2011 album)

Shake the Dust - Anis Morjani

Fourth of July - Sufjan Stevens - Carrie and Lowell (2015 album)

The Sacrificial Poetry Review: Could You Be Spending More Time With Poetry?

I think I might have mentioned this before, but in case it’s never come up, over the last year I’ve been helping out at and running a poetry open mic in the fine establishment that is the QMU. On Monday, I relinquish my dictatorial grip on Aloud, the QMU’s literary spoken word night, and go back to being that punter who shows up every month to shout into the mic. (more…)

The Sacrifical Poetry Review: Do All “Slam” Poets Sound the Same?

I mean, the answer is no. To clarify who I’m talking about by “slam” poets, I am not talking about poets who enter poetry slams and I am not even talking about those who do well in them. I’m not saying that “slam” is a particular style of poetry either – in fact I’ll be saying quite the opposite. The poets I’m talking about are those who get lumped into the simplified and often derisive term…

The Sacrificial Poetry Review: Open Letter to the New President of the QMU

Dear readers, apologies on the lack of poetry this week, but y’know what they say, poetry is pretty damn political. Below is an open letter to the soon-to-be-elected President of the Queen Margaret Union. The QMU has been the home of Aloud over the past two years, and I figured with the election approaching I ought to offer some words of advice on how to interact with events organisers that work…

The Sacrificial Poetry Review: How to Book A Poet

  Poets are everywhere! They’re in your bars, on your TVs, lurking in the shadows of West End side streets reciting half-remembered sonnets. In coffeeshops crying over black, leather notebooks with liquid ink pens. They’re in your dreams and your worst nightmares and they’re on the bill for every big event going on in your city. They are engraining themselves into your minds, such that come time…

The Sacrificial Poetry Review: 10 Performances That Will Make You Rethink Poetry

SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW POETRY? Not like this you don’t. For this week’s column I will begin to make good on my promise from last time, to find a poem or poet for everyone. Attempt Number 1 will take the form of that, the pinnacle of all great journalism, the top ten, click-bait “article”. (more…)