Editor: Andrew McCallum
Banner design based on a detail from a linocut by Hugh Bryden.
Banner design based on a detail from a linocut by Hugh Bryden.
This garden represents flowers that occur
in scots poetry. It has a bench to sit and enjoy the quiet atmosphere. It also
has display boards where local poets may display their work, and this is
changed on a regular basis. A gem.
Poetry Society: Poetry Landmarks
Poetry Society: Poetry Landmarks
The Poetry Garden
At the top end of Biggar High Street you'll find the Poetry Garden - an imaginative piece of public art produced by Biggar Museums Trust Brownsbank Committee in partnership with the Biggar Public Art Group and South Lanarkshire Council. The small garden contains plaques bearing quotations from Scottish poems that make botanical reference, alongside the plants to which they refer. A leafy sheltered spot, the garden also has benches where people can sit and enjoy a moment of tranquility and reflection beside the bustle of the market town's busy High Street.
The Poetry Boards
The Poetry Garden incorporates display boards where poets can show their work. The Boards also feature the work of nationally significant Scottish poets, past and present. In partnership with Broadsided Press, an original literary/artistic collaboration is also featured each month, giving the Poetry Garden an international as well as a national and local dimension. The exhibitions are updated regularly by the Brownsbank Committee.
Poetry spans the generations
Putting daily life to
a different metre
POETRY
helped make sense of the world yesterday as the nation celebrated National
Poetry Day.
The muses left their Elysium fields for local libraries, schools, High Street cafes and the Internet as the first major poetry event of the 21st century revealed the strength of poetry today.
Biggar in Lanarkshire became the focal point of the celebrations as Scotland's best known poet, and Glasgow poet laureate Professor Edwin Morgan, planted a tree in a new poetry garden. Situated on the High Street, the garden has been specially created as part of the town's Millennium celebrations and contains a collection of plants featured in a number of well known poems by Scottish writers, such as heather and primula.
Venerable master Professor Morgan, whose controversial interpretation of Christ's story, AD, is playing at The Tramway in Glasgow, met budding talent Katie Dunn, 13, a pupil at Biggar High School and winner of the Scottish writing section in this year's prestigious Pushkin Poetry Prize. Although at very different stages in their careers, both shared the honour of having their poems selected for publication as postcards by the Scottish Book Trust, an independent charity promoting books, reading and writing. Katie's poem was Grampa's Boots, ''faithful sentinels/Still watch and comfort Granny''. Professor Morgan's At Eighty, encouraged life to be lived to the full, urging: ''Push the boat out, campaneros/Push the boat out, whatever the sea.''
Professor Morgan testified that when it comes to poetry, good things come slowly. As poet laureate he is contracted to write a major poem for Scotland by 2002. He said: ''I haven't started writing yet, though I spent the past year thinking about it. There's plenty of time to bring the strands together.''
Love of words was coupled with an air of madness across the country. Glasgow performers launched surprise attacks of ''poetic gusto'' on unsuspecting city centre pedestrians. ScotRail passengers got a surprise catering trolley special of poetry on a plate, while a poem entitled Delicatessen appeared in Peckham's at Central Station in Glasgow and Waverley Station in Edinburgh.
The muses left their Elysium fields for local libraries, schools, High Street cafes and the Internet as the first major poetry event of the 21st century revealed the strength of poetry today.
Biggar in Lanarkshire became the focal point of the celebrations as Scotland's best known poet, and Glasgow poet laureate Professor Edwin Morgan, planted a tree in a new poetry garden. Situated on the High Street, the garden has been specially created as part of the town's Millennium celebrations and contains a collection of plants featured in a number of well known poems by Scottish writers, such as heather and primula.
Venerable master Professor Morgan, whose controversial interpretation of Christ's story, AD, is playing at The Tramway in Glasgow, met budding talent Katie Dunn, 13, a pupil at Biggar High School and winner of the Scottish writing section in this year's prestigious Pushkin Poetry Prize. Although at very different stages in their careers, both shared the honour of having their poems selected for publication as postcards by the Scottish Book Trust, an independent charity promoting books, reading and writing. Katie's poem was Grampa's Boots, ''faithful sentinels/Still watch and comfort Granny''. Professor Morgan's At Eighty, encouraged life to be lived to the full, urging: ''Push the boat out, campaneros/Push the boat out, whatever the sea.''
Professor Morgan testified that when it comes to poetry, good things come slowly. As poet laureate he is contracted to write a major poem for Scotland by 2002. He said: ''I haven't started writing yet, though I spent the past year thinking about it. There's plenty of time to bring the strands together.''
Love of words was coupled with an air of madness across the country. Glasgow performers launched surprise attacks of ''poetic gusto'' on unsuspecting city centre pedestrians. ScotRail passengers got a surprise catering trolley special of poetry on a plate, while a poem entitled Delicatessen appeared in Peckham's at Central Station in Glasgow and Waverley Station in Edinburgh.
JIM McLEAN: The Glasgow Herald, 6 Oct 2000
