Poet #6 – ALAN GILLIS
Unfortunately, Alan Gillis is not able to take part in the reading as originally planned, but we hope you enjoy this introduction to his work and we look forward to welcoming him at another Fruitmarket poetry night.
Join Eliza Kentridge, Isobel Dixon, Clare Best, Tessa Berring and Rob A. Mackenzie at Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery, on Wednesday 17 August, 7pm for a prompt 7:30 reading start, to finish at 9:30 – 3 poets in each half, with a short interval for wine and book buying. The evening is free, but donations are welcome. Sign up on Eventbrite or Facebook.
The Fruitmarket Gallery is right by Waverley Station: 45 Market Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1DF - View Map
The poets will read new work and from recent collections, and the night will include some original poems from the poets inspired by the work of Damián Ortega in the gallery’s current exhibition. Damián Ortega is one of the most prominent artists of the new Mexican generation and for The Fruitmarket Gallery’s summer exhibition, Ortega has made new sculptures, mostly from clay, focusing on how the forces of nature – wind, water, earth and fire – act on the earth both independently of and in relationship to humans.
Here’s an introduction to another of our six poets, Alan Gillis:
About Alan:
Alan Gillis is from Belfast, and teaches English Literature at The University of Edinburgh. His poetry collection Scapegoat (2014) followed Here Comes the Night (2010), Hawks and Doves (2007) and Somebody, Somewhere (2004), all published by The Gallery Press. He was chosen by the Poetry Book Society as a ‘Next Generation Poet’ in 2014.
Park Walk
Press your face into cobwebs on the elm's
coarse bark, away from the cars' flotilla,
the hubbub of farting buses, tinned trams.
The sky buoys your mind like a cinema.
Running fingers through rosebay in the park
you feel tremors, as distant trains crest
the lake, within the hedge's dark;
a quake of light through the dilapidated nest.
You go away and leave us,
you leave us and you go away
through the town's thrummed laburnum musk and splay,
skin crawling with the passing cars' convolvulus.