Cover Stories

Another couple of my photos have made it onto the covers of books (via Arcangel Images).  This time the upside-down Kibble Palace fishes are on the cover of the Dutch translation of Leaving Atocha Station by Ben Lerner, and me and the dressmaker's dummy (with the addition of an Irish dancing frock) are on The Last Days of the National Costume by Anne Kennedy.  It's always really exciting to see my photos getting to be part of books, even if it's a trifle odd to be on the cover of one wearing only a pair of knickers...  

Clydebuilt in The Herald

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Last year Jim Carruth arranged for all the Mirrorball  'Clydebuilt' mentees to get  free passes to the Glasgow Jazz Festival with the aim of producing a collection of jazz-poems.  

After going to lots of gigs and most of us being converted to  jazz fans of one shape or another in the process, the book duly appeared and was launched at a very entertaining (and short, as my father pointed out approvingly) event at the City Halls where all the poets read.  (It must be said that the book was brought into existence largely by sheer force-of-will on the part of Jim in the face of all sorts of funding cutbacks).

Anyway, apparently one of my poems from the anthology is The Herald's "Poem of the Day", which has cheered me up greatly in the face of a looming dental checkup.  It's based on a performance by the excellent Arun Ghosh Sextet, who can be seen here (albeit slightly depleted in numbers):

Fama

Lots of exciting photo things have been going on, starting with getting a picture on the cover of "Fama" the Spanish translation of Daniel Kehlmann's latest novel.

As well as this, Salt Publishing are using one of my photos of Matthew Sweeney on the jacket of his new book. They're a small, independent publisher and have a lot of interesting books - I've recently been reading Mark Waldron's "The Brand New Dark", Abi Curtis's "Unexpected Weather" and Tom Pow's "Dear Alice - narratives of madness".

Last, but not least, Irish folk band Morgain, from Switzerland, are using a pic of Donny in the sleeve notes of their new CD "Café Europa" which features their song settings of several of his poems.