Hello all! After a hectic, wonderful weekend of gigs, I'm spending this week in rehearsals for a brand-new commission. This year the Scottish Storytelling Centre and Edinburgh City of Literature have joined forces to produce Figures of Speech, a series of events bringing together writers and artists to take you on a road trip through … Continue reading Dancing Cutty Sark! Figures of Speech this Friday
Hello all! Quick post today to share details of an upcoming weekend of shows! This year's Loud Poets live season has been fantastic - we're so grateful to all the performers and audience members who've joined us. You can watch performances from many of the poets featured thus far on our YouTube channel, including Edalia … Continue reading Upcoming Gigs: Loud Poets, 13 & 14 May
Hello all! It's been a busy, busy summer; I realise the last time I posted was to announce that Loud Poets were returning to live events at the Edinburgh Fringe. Happily, that went wonderfully; it was such a joy to return to a physical stage and share space with our audiences. Thank you so much … Continue reading New workshops! *Return to Form Season 2*
After 18 months away, 18 months of digital work and Zoom gigs, I am over the moon to be returning to the stage next month! Loud Poets are returning to live events for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in one week! This will be our seventh run at the Fringe and we couldn't be more excited … Continue reading Returning to the Stage: EdFringe 2021
Hello all! A quick post today to share a new poetry video. It's a (hot and humid) nostalgia trip: a well-worn poem of mine based on my summers of farm work as a teen. Almost all of it is true (I nearly crashed a John Deere learning to drive), but some aspects are fictionalised (the … Continue reading New poem: “Farm Hand”
April has rolled around again, which means it's time for NaPoWriMo! For the uninitiated, this is National Poetry Writing Month, a time when many people challenge themselves to write poetry on a daily basis. Traditionally, the challenge is to write 30 poems in 30 days: quite a feat! The project was started in 2003 by … Continue reading Come Write with Us! #NaPoWriMo 2021
Recently I've been working on developing and refining my creative practice for writing performance poems. To help determine some of the most helpful practices, lately I've been speaking with other performance poets about their creative processes. When I write performance poems, I compose them on the page as I would do with composing a print poem. I … Continue reading Performance Poetry: To Write or Not to Write?
As I begin writing creatively again after a dry spell, I’ve been thinking a lot about how one creative spark, one subject, chooses which medium to be communicated in. By this I mean: when I start writing, when and how do I know in which format the piece will emerge? Will it be best conveyed through a “page” … Continue reading How an inspiration chooses its medium
The other day I watched an excellent TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love (link here). I’ve never read the book or seen the movie, but Gilbert’s theories about art-making and responsibility have been sitting with me. Her argument is that today we place too much pressure on artists by assuming that … Continue reading The Creative Impulse: External or Internal?
A couple weeks ago, in the first seminar discussion for the Constructions of Scotland class I’m auditing at Strathclyde, we were introducing ourselves and the professor (Dr. David Goldie) said he’d heard I was a Scottish poet. “Well,” I fumbled, flattered but confused, “I do write poems and I’m in Scotland…” He replied, laughing, “There … Continue reading On Being a Scottish Poet – or am I?
Katie Ailes 