Sunday 5 July 2009

Open air poetry

It's summer, a perfect time for outdoor poetry readings. Here are some of my favourite places to listen to or perform poetry, along with some potentially great venues for poetry, where previously I've only ever heard music:

Meadows Festival - this is probably the best known of Edinburgh's several community festivals, happening in June. I performed on the main music stage at this festival several years ago. The year after that I co-ordinated the book tent, where various storytellers and poets read and performed, but that only happened the once, due to a lack of funding. This years Meadows Festival had plenty of music but no poetry....

Traquair House, just outside Innerleithen in the Scottish Borders has a wonderfully beautiful ancient orchard, full of apple trees dripping with lichens. It is a venue for music during Traquair Fair, every August (but not this year!). They have a stage in one corner and a tent selling Traquair House ales in the other, and if its sunny, its the most wonderful place for a concert, potentially also for a poetry reading.

Edinburgh Botanic Gardens - is used as a venue for various poetry and storytelling events,

Glasgow Botanic Gardens has a dedicated poetry garden and hosts Bard in the Botanics

Edinburgh Tree Festival - another community festival, happening next weekend, this takes place in Inverleith Park, just near the Botanics. They have a stage for music and poetry.

7 comments:

The Weaver of Grass said...

Must be lovely, Juliet, to live where there are so many poetry readings going on - poetry is meant to be read out loud - unfortunately as I am very deaf I have to make do with reading it.

Crafty Green Poet said...

Hi Weaver, some poetry is actually better read from books,

Thomma Lyn said...

They sound lovely! I love the idea of outdoor poetry readings. :)

poefusion said...

I think it's great you have so many places to choose from for poetry readings. We don't have even one. Our town is to small I guess. If I want to go to a reading I'm looking at an hour and a half drive one way. Hope all is well. Have a great day. Thanks for dropping by my blog so often. It's greatly appreciated.

Oh said...

sounds lovely!
Hmmm...I should find out what's going on around here as well.

Aiko said...

St. Andrews Square Garden in Edinburgh is the 'official designated poetry garden' in Edinburgh..

let me see if i can't find a definitive source here...
http://www.cityofliterature.com/ecol.aspx?sec=3&pid=319

There--
they've yet to have any readings or live events as far as I know, but often through the month you can find a 'poetry army' (myself included maybe!) handing out free poems or poetry resources in the afternoon.

Hopefully the gardens become an even more poetic space in the near future!

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