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Ah’d the opportunity tae wander up tae the Bowlin Club an lug intae a noble array o makars

- a former makar for the Federation of Writers, Scotland

What's On

  • Writing Poems of ‘people and place’
    Writing Poems of ‘people and place’
    Multiple Dates
    Fri, 28 Jul
    Stonehaven
    28 Jul 2023, 14:00 – 16:00
    Stonehaven, Stonehaven AB39, UK
    28 Jul 2023, 14:00 – 16:00
    Stonehaven, Stonehaven AB39, UK
    Five workshops offering beginners and more established writers opportunities to write and share poetry through the theme of people and place
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  • Books and Beans Poetry Reading 13 July 2023
    Books and Beans Poetry Reading 13 July 2023
    Thu, 13 Jul
    Books and Beans, Aberdeen
    13 Jul 2023, 18:00
    Books and Beans, Aberdeen, 22 Belmont St, Aberdeen AB10 1JH, UK
    13 Jul 2023, 18:00
    Books and Beans, Aberdeen, 22 Belmont St, Aberdeen AB10 1JH, UK
    The Wee Gaitherin comes to Aberdeen - or rather its charity trustees. All accomplished poets who will read from their own work - as part of their efforts to promote The Wee Gaitherin Festival
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  • Schools Workshop 24 May 2023 with Neil Young
    Schools Workshop 24 May 2023 with Neil Young
    Wed, 24 May
    Mackie Academy
    24 May 2023, 10:30 – 14:30
    Mackie Academy, Slug Rd, Stonehaven AB39 3DF, UK
    24 May 2023, 10:30 – 14:30
    Mackie Academy, Slug Rd, Stonehaven AB39 3DF, UK
    We will be offering an increased number of workshops for pupils at Mackie Academy, including inviting guest poets from Scotland’s vibrant contemporary poetry scene to join in sharing their expertise and experience with Stonehaven’s budding poets.
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Featured
Cáit O’Neil McCullagh
  • Cáit O'Neill McCullagh Linktree

An archaeologist, curator, educator and essayist, Cáit started writing poetry in December 2020. Since then, she’s had numerous poems published in journals, anthologies and exhibitions, including: Northwords Now, Poetry Scotland, Ink Sweat & Tears, Howl: New Irish Writing, New Writing Scotland, The Storms, The Poets Republic. Her poems and essays, literary criticism and reviews have appeared in anthologies: ’Beyond the Swelkie’, ‘Bella Caledonia: An Anthology of Writing from 2007 – 2021’, ‘Not the Time to be Silent: Collected Works’, and the forthcoming ‘We Need to Talk About Knives.’ She’s been a guest reader at festivals and gatherings throughout Scotland and Ireland. 

In 2022, Cáit was Co-winner, with Sinéad McClure, of Dreich’s ‘Classic Chapbook Competition’ for their co-authored pamphlet 'The songs I sing are sisters'. Her first full collection will be published by Drunk Muse Press in early 2024. A trustee of Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre, and The Wee Gaitherin she is committed to supporting opportunities for fellow poets, including those who, like herself, come from backgrounds where becoming a poet seems an unimaginable possibility.  She continues to outrun a diagnosis of cancer identified spring 2022, and writing her PhD research carried out with communities throughout Orkney and Shetland. This has included co-creating new writing and films exploring how people co-curating their own cultural expressions can counter previously marginalising narratives, and contribute to imagining more possible futures.

Birth

Cáit O'Neill McCullagh

For the mothers, babies, and the unborn of Tuam

to remind me that the sun will return

I paint ochre onto your body

this unruly loll of limbs and hair

and I chew the deer’s hide soft

to make a shroud of teeth and hooves

for you, birthed but never borne

wings clipped at your moment of flight

I bury you among these mounds

they circle the turf like beads of coal

your body, I give to oil and quartz

to this necklace of jet and bog

cradled upon the wing of a swan

stories swarm like beetles from your grave

carved between the care of earth and stars

torn from this throat, tarred with tears

they fall like arrows from a bow

and they tell of swans and geese

and hungry women who hunt

each tale is like a fawn lost in the forest

in the quietening, we hear its pulse

people, who will always be poets

will search the whole world’s ebb for your stories

they will tell how the fire-ochre sun opened-up your wings

and how you fanned its flames all about the earth

First published in Bella Caledonia, then in ‘The songs I sing are sisters’, Co-winner of Dreich’s ‘Classic Chapbook 2022’.

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